SEATTLE — PGA Tour player Joel Dahmen, a former Washington Husky from Clarkston, Wash., and his caddie, Geno Bonnalie, are best friends, but they are even more than that.
"I'm basically married to Geno," Dahmen said of Bonnalie, who grew up in Lewiston, Idaho, across the Snake River from Clarkston. "I spend as much time in the golf season with him as I do with my wife. We bicker like a married couple."
They like to needle each other, but it's almost always in good fun. Perhaps no player-caddie combination on the PGA Tour has a better time than Dahmen and Bonnalie.
Like all caddies, Bonnalie carries Dahmen's bag of clubs, knows the yardage to each hole and helps read putts.
But it's the other roles of a caddie — cheerleader, psychologist and motivator — where Bonnalie particularly excels.
"As much as I do have fun, I can still be pretty fiery out there," Dahmen said. "Sometimes I get a little negative, and he understands what to say to me and when to say it — sometimes to go have fun and kind of let me go, and sometimes to rein me in."
But mostly it's fun — and golf fans have caught on to it.
Dahmen and Bonnalie were featured in one of eight segments in Netflix's documentary series "Full Swing."
The episode chronicled the fun-loving duo through 36 holes at a U.S. Open qualifier last year — when Dahmen made a remarkable comeback to earn a berth after drinking a couple of White Claws between rounds — and then in the U.S. Open, when Dahmen was tied for the lead through two rounds before finishing 10th.
That 10th-place finish qualified Dahmen for this year's U.S. Open, which began Thursday at Los Angeles Country Club. Dahmen shot a 4-over 74.
Dahmen and Bonnalie usually have big galleries watching. That's part of becoming fan favorites. Bonnalie gets more autograph requests than some players.
Their popularity is not something Dahmen, who has more than 172,000 Twitter followers, would have predicted when he earned his PGA Tour card in 2016.
"I don't really get it, myself," Dahmen said. "We're not robots. We're just two kids who grew up in Lewiston and Clarkston, and we both kind of had a dream to be on Tour.
"We're just typical guys. The only thing I do differently than others is I happen to hit a golf ball better, and I make sure to have fun doing it. It's not lost on me how lucky and blessed I am to be on the PGA Tour."
Journey to the PGA Tour
When Dahmen, 35, was approached about being in Netflix's documentary series, his first inclination was to say no, thinking, "We don't need our life on camera."
But after learning many of the world's top players would be participating, Dahmen changed his mind.
"If they're doing it, there's no reason I shouldn't be doing it," Dahmen said.
The episode is titled "Impostor Syndrome." It plays up Dahmen's self-deprecating style — seen at a workout and while out shopping for baby accessories — and his attitude about his place on the PGA Tour.
"I'll never be a top-10 player in the world, and I'll never win majors," Dahmen says in the show. "Someone's gotta be the 70th-best golfer in the world. Might as well be me."
Dahmen, who has been as high as 58th in the world rankings and is now 124th, said he was happy with the episode.
"I think they leaned into my self-deprecation a little much, but that's the storyline they chose," Dahmen said. "But I wouldn't be on the PGA Tour if I didn't believe in myself. I wouldn't have seven years out here — with some decent success — if I didn't believe I was any good."
Bonnalie's faith in his friend and boss comes through clearly in the episode.
Their story together began when Bonnalie was about 15 and he wanted Dahmen, about 3 1/2 years younger but a budding star, to be his partner in a two-player, best-ball tournament.
Bonnalie's mother called Dahmen's mother to arrange it, and the boys became fast friends.
A few years later, after Bonnalie went off to the University of Idaho, Dahmen's mother died from cancer when he was a junior in high school.
Dahmen has said he was lost for a couple of years after that, and his stay as a student-athlete at UW was short because he didn't take care of the school part. But he continued to room with Husky golfers, including Nick Taylor, who won the Canadian Open last week.
It was during this period that Bonnalie, who graduated from Idaho with a business degree, and Dahmen became particularly close.
Bonnalie was working at Sahalee Country Club in Sammamish in pursuit of becoming a teaching pro and lived a short drive from Dahmen.
"We would just hang out and play Mario Kart, like little kids," Bonnalie said.
Dahmen turned pro in 2010, but his career was temporarily derailed the next year when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
He returned to playing the next season, but it took a few years before his career started to take off.
In 2014, Dahmen led the Canadian Tour standings, earning him a spot on the Korn Ferry Tour, one step below the PGA Tour.
That's when Bonnalie sent Dahmen a long note, saying how much he believed in Dahmen and that he wanted to be his caddie.
Dahmen, who said yes, was moved to tears talking about that note on the Netflix episode.
It certainly wasn't lucrative at the beginning for Dahmen or Bonnalie, who left a good job with a staffing and recruiting company after having given up on the golf gig.
That changed when in 2016, Dahmen earned his PGA Tour card; he's kept it ever since. Dahmen has one win, two second-place finishes and has made more than $10.5 million.
"When we first got on Tour and we would go out to a restaurant, I would find the cheapest thing on the menu and order it," Bonnalie said. "Now I get what I want. That's about the only difference."
Becoming a celebrity caddie
Bonnalie, 39, made news years before becoming Dahmen's caddie.
In 2011, he played 2,000 holes in one week at Lewiston Country Club, setting a Guinness World Record while raising money to fight cystinosis, a rare metabolic disease that afflicts one of wife Holly's cousins.
The 2,000 mark lasted about 10 years; his 493 birdies in a week remains a world record.
"It was very, very difficult," said Bonnalie, who took advantage of nearly every moment of light until he hit 2,000. "The second day I woke up and my forearms were swollen and cramped, and the pad of my left thumb was basically gone. I was like, 'I can't play golf today.' "
With Holly's encouragement, he persevered.
Bonnalie's popularity as a caddie can be partially attributed to giving people a peek into his life on the Tour through social media. He has more than 71,000 Twitter followers.
He has shared the balance sheet from his first year of earnings working for Dahmen, videos of less-than-luxurious accommodations and recently the new golf simulator in his Lewiston home.
Perhaps the most entertaining antic Bonnalie has shared came at The Players Championship in Florida last year when he heard traffic was so bad getting to the course that he might not get there in time.
So Bonnalie improvised, finding a small girls bike with a flat tire where he was staying, and riding it seven miles into 30-mph winds to meet Dahmen, who was staying next to the course.
When an exhausted Bonnalie reached Dahmen, he learned the tee time had been postponed until the next day because of bad weather.
"That's the most Geno thing ever," Dahmen said. "It shows his desire to be a great caddie, to make sure he's on time, and the lengths he is willing to go for that. It's hilarious, because I feel like any other caddie who would be willing to do that would make sure the tee time was going (to happen).
"Then all of a sudden Geno shows up after pedaling for however many miles on a crappy bicycle with a flat tire and the winds, just to turn around and do it back the other way."
Still, Bonnalie said, "My job is the best."
"Somebody asked me how many hours a week do I feel like I actually work, and I was like, 'Zero,' " he said. "This is living the dream."
But there are sacrifices. He and Holly have two sons, ages 10 and 2, and being away is hard.
Bonnalie said Dahmen told him recently that he was adding a tournament to his schedule, making it several consecutive weeks of playing.
"He said I don't have to come to one of them, but I don't want to take a week off and have him get somebody else," Bonnalie said. "I want to be there with Joel, but being away from the family for five or six straight weeks, it makes me want to cry thinking about it."
Happiness at home and the course
Dahmen also treasures time at home. He and his wife, Lona, had their first child, a boy named Riggs, in January, and they recently moved into a new home in Scottsdale, Ariz.
"A lot of people might think I'm selling myself short or maybe not giving it my all, but I'm giving it the right amount for me, for my family, for my mental health and my work-life balance," Dahmen said.
Dahmen hopes to play several more years on the PGA Tour but said he doesn't believe he drives the ball far enough (he ranks 157th in driving distance) to be among the world's top 10 or 20 players.
But he said he is good enough to win — even a major — at courses where being accurate off the tee, his strength, is as important as length.
As far as his profile, that is still on the rise.
During a practice round at the PGA Championship last month, Dahmen's drive hit a spectator on his calf.
Dahmen made sure the man was OK and gave him a $100 bill, and the gesture went viral.
"I wanted to buy him a beer because I felt bad, but it turned out beer was really expensive," Dahmen said. "So I had to make sure he had enough to get a couple extra."
The fun continued this past week when Bonnalie reportedly spent $500 for wrestling legend Ric Flair to give Dahmen a pep talk in a Cameo video.
That's so Geno.
When Joel and Lona got married in 2018, it was Bonnalie who performed the ceremony.
"He was the only person for us," Dahmen said. "He's been through it all with us. When we were discussing wedding plans, it took like three seconds. We looked at each other and we both said, 'Geno.' "
Of course.
