Matt Raudenbush, a senior golfer at UNC, caddied for Rory McIlroy earlier this summer and perhaps as a tribute or perhaps as a converted fan, McIlroy sported a Carolina hat during the PGA Championships last week.

Raudenbush is the son of South Jersey’s Pine Valley Golf Club and he was fortunate enough to caddy for McIlroy, winner of the 2011 U.S. Open, for 36 holes at Pine Valley in June.

“I’ve been caddying pretty regular this summer, when I don’t have a tournament and have the time to do it,” Raudenbush said. “I think [my dad] knew about it about a week before he came. That day the caddiemaster just said, ‘Matt, you’re caddying for Rory.’ And I was like, ‘OK, that’s cool.’ He hooked me up.

“The first day, they played around [noon]. I met him in the parking lot. If you didn’t know who he was, you’d think he was just some 22-year-old kid who just likes to hang out. I guess they hit balls. We just went right to the [first] tee. Then off we went.”

Raudenbush is actually 5 months older than McIlroy.

“As a college golfer, I tried to do everything I could to pick his brain,” Raudenbush said. “He helped a lot. He thinks everything through. Then he talks about the different shots that he hit. Every time, I saw him do something a little different. It’s unbelievable. He hits the shot he wants, almost every time, always within 4 or 5 yards of the number he was trying to, which is really everything. It was just I’d tell him what to hit or where to hit it, and that’s what he’d do. First hole, you need to hit it about 280 to the right-center [of the fairway], and he just cut one right in there.”