It seemed as though it was just yesterday that Zac Austin was working nights as a bartender at the Honolulu Country Club and Makaha Resort in order to spend the days surfing or golfing.

This Saturday, he leaves for two weeks in Europe after earning $58,500 Sunday, caddying for South Korea's Eun Hee Ji, who won the U.S. Women's Open at the Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem, Pa.

"I'm still in kind of a buzz right now," said Austin by telephone from Florida. He's as local as they come — born and raised in Hono-lulu, Roosevelt High School, University of Hawai'i, and still keeps an 808 area code on his cell phone.

Ji is back in her home town of Dangjin, a seaport about a couple of hours drive from Seoul, for a week of celebrating before she leaves for the Evian Masters in France and the Women's British Open at Lytham St. Annes, in Lancashire, England.

With no LPGA tournaments until the final weekend in August, Ji will play in a South Korean LPGA event after Europe. That'll present Austin the opportunity to come home on a stopover to visit his folks in Makaha and get in four days of surfing before hooking up with Ji in South Korea. It'll also give Austin a chance to play golf at the Turtle Bay Resort where his career as a caddie began.

Austin, 36, still vividly remembers how it all began and the stroke of fortune that came with it for him. It was at Turtle Bay where he first met Matt Hall, the resort's director of golf, and became good friends.

"Out of the blue, Matt said they needed caddies for a senior tournament at Turtle Bay," Austin recalled.

"I told him sure, no problem. I'll go out there and try. Like, how hard can it be, carrying a bag?"

Turns out, being a caddie wasn't that easy. "I was late once for a tee time," said Austin, who remembers toting the bag for the first time for Larry Ziegler in the 2003 Turtle Bay Championship. He caddied for Jack Renner, the 1984 Hawaiian Open champion, the following year.

When the Turtle Bay hosted the SBS Open to begin the 2005 LPGA season, Hall again called Austin, asking if he wanted to caddy for the ladies. Again, sure, why not, Austin replied. In 2006, some of the regular tour caddies asked him to give it a try full time. "I packed my stuff and bought a ticket," said Austin, who caddied most of 2007 for Jin Joo Hong and then Riley Rankin.

Then at the 2008 SBS Open, he met Ji, who was about to start her rookie season on the LPGA Tour.

"She was there two weeks early with her father," Austin said. "Funny, I was there at Turtle Bay, playing a round of golf. She asked me if I was working for anybody. I said no. She said, can we go to dinner?"

Over dinner with her parents, they worked out an agreement to be her full-time caddie.

"I've been with her since," said Austin. They got off to a rocky start, however. "We had a bad Hawai'i run. Missed the cut at SBS and got DQ'd the following week at Ko Olina for a wrong number on her scorecard. It was a bummer because she was in sixth place after two rounds."

The Hawai'i start was like a mulligan for both. Ji posted eight top-10 finishes, won the Wegmans LPGA and finished 15th on the money list with $913,968. She already has earned $832,907 this year, thanks to that winning purse of $585,000 at the Women's Open. Yes, Austin's $58,500 represents 10 percent of that prize. "It made my year," said Austin, who added, "we jumped from 29th to fifth on the money list. Passed Lorena (Ochoa)."

Ji also made his week during the Women's Open. "We played a practice round there three weeks before," Austin said. "I told her beginning of the week even par will either win this or make top five. All you have to do is hit fairways and greens (in regulation) and go from there. That was the game plan: hit fairways and greens and let everybody else make mistakes."

Sure enough, even par 284 was good enough to win and Ji, a straight hitter off the tee, made the fewest mistakes. "Our favorite club is the driver," he said. "It's a nice club to rely on when you need to get the yardage in a tight situation."

Austin was concerned about Cristie Kerr, who had a two-stroke lead going into the final round.

"We knew we had to go out and play some good golf," he said. "Cristie won the Women's Open two years ago. She can birdie any time. That's what is so scary. I mean, she's been in the situation. She knows what to expect and how to handle it. To Eun Hee, it was all new."

But the 23-year-old Ji prevailed, birdieing the 72nd hole to win.

As befitting a champion of a major, they held a plane for Ji's connecting flight to South Korea, according to Austin. "She was kind of bummed. She was planning on going home and just hanging out with her friends, relax and stuff. Now, that's not going to happen with the celebrating. I told her it could be worse, there could be nobody there."

She's definitely a somebody now. So's Zac Austin.