Legendary former PGA Tour caddie Jim ‘Bones’ Mackay has pulled back the curtain on the financial realities of the role.Mackay was best known for being at Phil Mickelson’s side for all but one of his major championship wins as well as 41 PGA Tour victories. He was hired by Mickelson when he turned pro in 1992 and carried his bag until 2017, winning the Masters three times as well as The Open and the PGA Championship.Mackay later came out of retirement for a three-year stint caddying for Justin Thomas on the PGA Tour, but now works as an on-course reporter for NBC Sports.And he has shed light on the not-so-glamorous realities of being a caddie on tour, revealing it costs around $40,000-50,000 a year simply covering the price of travel, hotels and other day-to-day costs.The role also comes without any contract security, operating on a ‘week to week’ basis. Jim ‘Bones’ Mackay is one of the PGA Tour’s most legendary caddies after decades on the bag Mackay was by Phil Mickelson’s side for almost his entire career including five of his majors’When I talk to people about caddying, one of the things that surprises them is the caddies pay for all their own expenses. So it costs [about] $40,000-50,000 a year to do what caddies do,’ Mackay told Front Office Sports.’There are no contracts in terms of the ability of a caddie to stay with a player [long-term]. You’re literally week to week with those guys. ‘Though you’ll have caddies that sometimes spend 5, 10, 15 years with a player. And I think that the public might be a little surprised by how much input, in some cases, caddies have with the players.’I mean, you know, as great a player as Scottie Scheffler is, and he’s also got a world-class caddie in Ted Scott – he does very little on the golf course without kind of running it by Ted. So they’re one heck of a team, as many player-caddie duos are on the PGA.’Given they are not salaried employees, PGA Tour caddies usually make a base pay rate that can range from $1,500 to $3,000, then get a percentage of player earnings.The percentage golfers tip on their earnings can vary, with a standard of 10 percent if the player wins, then around seven and eight percent if they finish highly.However, with golfers needing to cover their own extensive costs, that number falls to around five percent if they finish poorly, and the caddie often gets nothing aside from their base rate if their player misses the cut and also goes home empty handed.Mackay’s star player Mickelson has earned an eyewatering amount over the course of his career, racking in $81,053,932 in official PGA Tour earnings – not including the $24,770,928 he made from majors. Mackay has shed light on the cost caddies face that most golf fans do not even realize Mackay is now an on-course analyst for NBC Sports during their PGA Tour TV coverageAdd in his lucrative $12,130,826 LIV Golf earnings later in his career after splitting from Mackay, and he has total career earnings of $117,955,685, per Spotrac.With Mackay on his bag for much of that time, the caddie took home millions himself over the years.But that lucrative reality is not the case for many caddies on tour, particularly for players grinding to make the cut each week rather than regularly winning tournaments.