Matteo Manassero’s rollercoaster career took its latest dramatic turn in March 2024 when he won the DP World Tour's Jonsson Workwear Open in Durban.
That came less than three years after he was playing on the Alps Tour, and his caddie for his victory was Spaniard Job Sugranes, but it wasn't the first time he'd worked with him, while Manassero has had several other caddies over the years.
The Italian turned professional in May 2010, and it didn’t take him long to make his mark, with victory in the Castello Masters Costa Asahar just five months later.
For that win, and the one that followed, the 2011 Maybank Malaysian Open, Manassero had Irishman Ryan McGuigan alongside him. He then suffered some poor form, including missing the cut at the 2011 Open, which left him looking elsewhere.
The decision to part company with McGuigan led Manassero to his coach Alberto Binaghi on a temporary basis, while McGuigan linked up with Paul Cutler.
Eventually, Manassero turned to Ulsterman David McNeilly, and the pair enjoyed success, including victories at the 2012 Barclays Singapore Open and the 2013 BMW PGA Championship,
That arrangement ended at the end of the 2014 season as Manassero’s form took another dip and he began working with Brian Martin. Still his form didn't recover, and he slumped from inside the world’s top 30 in 2014 to 893rd within two years.
By the 2016 US Open, Manassero had settled on Sugranes as his full-time caddie, even though the four years they eventually spent together marked a significant spell in the wilderness, culminating in him playing on the Alps Tour by 2020. Despite that, it appears Manassero gained plenty from the arrangement as it wouldn't be their only stint together.
Eventually, Manassero began recovering some of the form that had seen him make such an impact when he first burst onto the scene as a teenager a decade earlier. He won the Toscana Alps Open in September 2020, then picked up two Challenge Tour wins three years later, although on the latter two occasions, he had his wife Francesca on the bag.
With his game trending in the right direction, Manassero once again looked to Sugranes, and it was the 44-year-old who was alongside him when he claimed was first DP World Tour win in 3,942 days in South Africa.
Aside from Sugranes's spells as Manassero's caddie, he had a limited professional career, with four Challenge Tour appearances in 2004 and 2005, each of which resulted in missed cuts.
He has also worked with players including Adri Arnaus, Adrian Otaegui, Eduardo de la Riva, Andrea Pavan, Ricardo Santos and Ana Pelaez, while he has also been employed as a Golf Coach Advisor and then Head Coach at Barcelona Golf Academy.
That knowledge appears to be being put to excellent use by Manassero, whose return to the DP World Tour not only brought him that victory with Sugranes by his side, but more encouragement further into the 2024 season, including a T6 at the Betfred British Masters as his remarkable career resurgence gains momentum.
