Rasmus Hojgaard is one of the game’s most promising talents. Since turning professional in 2019, the Dane has won five times on the DP World Tour, including beating Rory McIlroy in the Amgen Irish Open in September 2024, where alongside him was experienced caddie Tom Ayling.
Before linking up with Hojgaard, Ayling had caddied for one of the 2014 Ryder Cup’s biggest stars - mercurial Frenchman Victor Dubuisson. At the Gleneagles match, he helped him win 2.5 points from his three sessions, including forging an unforgettable partnership with Graeme McDowell where the pair swept aside Rickie Fowler and Jimmy Walker 5&4 in the Saturday foursomes.
That wasn’t the only success for Ayling and Dubuisson, who had joined forces earlier that year. Ayling also helped him to top-10 finishes at the 2014 Open and the PGA Championship. But how did he get into the role?
Ayling took up caddying while doing his golf PGA degree when he was 20. At that time, his friend, pro Benjamin Herbert, asked him to try it on the Challenge Tour. Given the success that followed alongside Dubuisson, it’s hard to deny it proved a great decision, and he wasn’t the only player Ayling worked with before finally teaming up with Hojgaard.
Ayling also caddied for DP World Tour winners Christian Cevaer and Jose-Filipe Lima, before a spell with another high-profile French player, Alexander Levy.
As for Hojgaard, he’d had Danny Willett and Matt Wallace’s former caddie Jonathan Smart on the bag before he began working with Ayling. The pair had success, too, including Hojgaard’s victory in the 2020 ISPS Handa UK Championship, before the rising star turned to his latest caddie.
Ayling helped guide Hojgaard to the 2023 Made in Himmerland before that dramatic victory against McIlroy at Royal County Down a year later. Not only did Hojgaard pip one of the era’s greatest players that week, but the triumph left Ayling’s boss in line for the next phase of an increasingly promising career – the probability of securing a PGA Tour card at the end of that season.
