Chicago Heights Caddy Finds Life-Changing Work At Olympia Fields

CHICAGO HEIGHTS, IL — Diego Origel always planned on attending college and hoped that one day, his dreams of a future in architecture which started as a boy designing and building structures with Legos would one day begin to take shape.

But that all changed when his father was in a serious car accident that left him with life-threatening injuries. From that day forward, Origel — the youngest of two children who graduated from Bloom High School in Chicago Heights — was suddenly one of the men of the house, which, he figured changed everything in terms of what his future looked like.

But for Origel, who started working as a caddy at Olympia Fields County Club eight years ago, life changed again when the Evans Scholars Foundation, which provides full-ride scholarships to caddies, got the news that changed everything again.

Including his life.

Origel is now preparing to enter his third year at the University of Illinois Chicago, where he is studying Urban Planning — just as he always hoped. But two years into his college career, he knows none of that would be possible without caddying and the Western Golf Association's Evans Scholars Foundation, to which all of the proceeds from next month’s BMW Championship at Olympia Fields Country Club will go.

Since 2007, the BMW Championship has raised more than $44 million for Evans Scholars, which has helped to send more than 3,300 caddies to college. This fall, 1,024 caddies will be enrolled at 24 colleges and universities around the country after the foundation awarded 325 new scholarships to students across the country.

That includes Origel, who credits the program for helping him achieve his dreams of going to college even after his father’s accident put that all in jeopardy.

“Early on in high school, I knew college was not going to be an option for me,” Origel said Tuesday during the BMW Championship media day at Olympia Fields.

Although Origel’s parents —who came to the United States from Mexico ­— could not afford college themselves growing up, they had always hoped for more for their two sons. But with his father working in a steel mill and his mother working to help provide financial assistance, Origel said that he had to rely on his work ethic to make a difference and to help provide for his family.

He said after starting as a caddy at age 12 at Olympia Fields, he hustled every day to make a name for himself. Origel said that caddying for club members quickly became his passion, finding acceptance at the private club while finding meaningful work along the way. But after applying as an Evans Scholar, Origel says everything changed when he found out that he had been accepted and that the foundation would cover all of his college tuition and housing costs.

The letter arrived just before Thanksgiving during his senior year at Bloom. He delivered the news in front of his family at Thanksgiving, informing his parents that their dreams of Origel and his brother attending college could actually happen.

“It affected my family as much as it affected me,” Origel told Patch on Tuesday. “My parents would have done anything they needed to to get me and my brother to college. If that’s what it was going to take, they would have done it. Luckily, I got the (Evans Scholarship) and wiped out that concern out for my parents. They (said), ‘Our kids are going to college – this is amazing.’

“So that scholarship definitely helped out. It helped out my dad, too.”

While the BMW Championship, which will be held Aug. 17-20 at Olympia Fields, will draw the top PGA players to in an event that will help determine which 30 players advance on to the Players’ Championship, tournament organizers said the event is bigger than bringing top-notch golf to the region.

For Mike Bruni, the tournament chairman, the fact that the proceeds from the championship event go toward helping youngsters like Origel makes all the difference in the world.

“At the end of the day,” Bruni said Tuesday, “we are in the business of changing lives.”

That has certainly been the case for the long-time Olympia Fields caddy, who began his 8th season at the country club in late April after finishing his sophomore year at UIC.

“It was never a summer job — it was more of me pursuing my dreams of college,” Origel said on Tuesday. “It was more, work for yourself, do what you love to do and you’re going to get rewarded for it."

He added: “Caddying will always be in my DNA. I can honestly say it changed my life.”