Woods’ caddie Cowan a star at Maine store

FAIRFIELD – The celebrity surrounding Tiger Woods is rubbing off on his caddie.

A sporting goods shop in Fairfield, where Mike “Fluff” Cowan went to high school, is selling golf balls named for the burly caddie with the big white mustache who toted Woods’ golf bag during his record-smashing victory in the Masters.

“I just got them in today,” Harold Joseph, owner of Joseph’s Clothing and Sporting Goods, said Wednesday. “They say `Mike Cowan’ in sort of a semicircle, and right through the center, in green, is `Fluff’ on it, and then it says `Pro Caddie’ on the bottom.”

Cowan, a 1966 graduate of Lawrence High School, was heavily involved in schoolboy sports.

“He was a heck of an athlete,” Joseph recalled. “At Lawrence, he was a quarterback in football – he had no speed – and in baseball he was a catcher. In basketball, he was what they call a point guard today. He set up real well.”

Although he is a caddie by profession, Cowan is a golfer with a three handicap who is acclaimed for his teaching skills, according to Joseph.

“I understand he probably is about the best instructor around. He can watch you swing, and tell you what you’re doing,” Joseph said.

Cowan, 49, of Columbus, Ohio, said his association with Woods started when he was called in on a temporary basis.

“I worked for Peter Jacobsen for almost 19 years. He was hurt last fall and wasn’t planning on playing,” Cowan said. When Woods turned pro and needed a caddie, he got in touch with Cowan.