The Golf Caddie Who’s Secretly a Street Fighter Champion
Gerald General lives a double life. During the day, he’s observing the etiquettes of golf as a caddie. At night, he’s button-mashing through the chaos of a fighting game arcade.
Many of his golfer clients don’t know it but he’s won more championships than many of them. Not on the green, at least! Gerald has won three tournaments in Street Fighter 6, and has placed on the podium more times.
On weekdays, he walks the fairways of the Veterans Memorial Golf Club carrying golf bags, reading greens, and occasionally reminding golfers not to mentally implode after a bad swing. Late at night—he’s in front of a screen throwing fireballs and combos in Street Fighter 6.
One Token, 81 Wins.
It all started inside an arcade in a mall.
“Simula opening ng arcade hanggang gabi, nandoon ako,” Gerald told ALL-STAR.
“Ang dala ko lang yata non P50. Kapag naglaro ako, automatic, may magcha-challenge sa akin.”
He kept winning, until his single token reached 81 wins.
“Namamanhid na yung kamay ko. Actually, hindi naman ako natatalo noon, nagpapatalo ako para magpahinga!”
Gerald was 17 years old and he was playing SVC Chaos, a version of SNK vs CAPCOM.
That’s when the arcade’s management invited him to participate in an invitational in Palawan.
Gerald Was Paired With Noobs
“Ang first esports competition ko, sa Palawan iyon. Nag sponsor sa akin ang Quantum x Timezone. Ang mga kalaban ko doon, puro Japanese at mga Korean,” said Gerald.
He was supposed to go to Palawan with his usual team in the arcade, but all of them backed out. So he was paired with noobs.
“Pagdating ko doon, may kakampi na ako, mga random player na mabigat. Hindi sila marunong!”
Gerald kept laughing as he remembered their incompetence
“As in, pindot-pindot lang! Walang strategy, pindot lang talaga. Hinahatak lang nila kung saan-saan yung laro!”
His team made the noobs play first, so they got eliminated early.
And then it was showtime.
“Noong dumating na yung turn ko, parang na-starstruck silang lahat, tinalo ko silang lahat. Ang dami namin.”
Gerald breezed through at least 50 opponents without a single loss. That was in 2013.
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Enter Street Fighter
Ironically, Gerald didn’t grow up playing Street Fighter.
“Wala akong background talaga noon sa Street FIghter.”
A friend introduced him to the game in 2023. The timing coincided with the release of Street Fighter 6.
But training wasn’t glamorous. There were no gaming rigs, no sponsorships.
Just rentals.
“Mahal yung bala, nagre-rent lang ako ng PS4 noon, P25 per hour.”
So he practiced like a man possessed.
“Tumatagal ako every day after work, apat na oras para mag practice. As in practice mode, hindi yung lalaban online. As in practice talaga na hindi gumagalaw yung character.”
Not matches. Training. As in the boring, tedious Practice Mode where you polish your moves repeatedly until perfection.
He did that for four hours every day for a month.
Two years later, he would accumulate podium finishes and championships in the game.
And when that’s all done, he went back to the green.
The Golfer Who Found His Guy
For amateur golfer Ralph Pobre, finding the right caddie is about chemistry.
“Madali siyang kausap. He’s very easy to teach, marunong makisama, which is the most important character of a caddie, you get along with the player.”
Golf pairings often begin randomly.
“Just by chance,” Ralph explains how he met Gerald General. “Because in golf, you get assigned a random caddie, and when you like his services, you can request for the caddie in your next game.”
Gerald stuck.
“At the same time, he’s also a great caddie when it comes to green reading. Skill-wise, magaling siya.”
What makes him valuable isn’t always visible to spectators.
“He’s able to read the room, know his player. For example, when I hit a bad shot and I get agitated, he knows me well enough to tell me to calm down, relax, and just play the next shot,” Ralph tells ALL-STAR.
The Caddie Who Stayed
Gerald is 32 now, old enough to know that life rarely follows the script you wrote when you were young.
“Sa ngayon, hindi na ako nag-aaral, focus lang ako sa work. At saka 32 na ako, wala na sa akin yung pag-aaral, pero kung magkakaroon ng pagkakataon, why not? Undergraduate ako ng Computer Science sa ICCT. Second year lang natapos ko.”
He once wanted to be a pilot.
“Malayo eh. Parang yung pangarap ko, na-switch siya sa hobby. Ang dream ko kasi, maging piloto. Pero noong nasama sa tropa sa video games at fighting games, nalipat sa pagiging Computer Science.”
Life eventually steered him somewhere else entirely: the golf course.
“Nagsimula ako bilang caddie noong 2011. Nagpupunta punta na ako sa golf course. Nagsimula ako mag train sa pagiging caddie sa Camp Aguinaldo. Yung father ko, dito siya nagtatrabaho sa Veterans, naging pamana niya sa akin yung ganitong trabaho.”
These days, Gerald stays inside the golf club to save money.
Being a caddie, he explains, isn’t exactly a corporate job with HR benefits and a 13th-month pay.
“Syempre kapag magaling ang serbisyo mo at maganda yung laro ng client mo, yung benefits na makukuha mo, maganda rin. Kami kasi wala kaming salary as caddie.”
It’s a job that is highly dependent on tips, on top of the caddie’s tab that golfers pay for. That tab only costs P100, around half of which goes to the caddie.
Somewhere inside the order of a golf course, there’s a man who has defeated dozens of opponents in digital combat.
Most golfers who see Gerald General walking beside them probably think he’s just another caddie—one of many men carrying bags, reading greens, and offering the occasional advice about a putt.
They don’t know that a few hours later, he might be somewhere in a gaming shop or arcade, calmly dismantling opponents with frame-perfect combos.
By day, he tells golfers to relax and focus on the next shot.
By night, he’s the one delivering the finishing move.
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