Recent Lyons Township High School graduate Katie Lam was attending a basketball game in December with three close friends when she received a phone call from her mother. Soon Lam, a Brookfield resident, was the one receiving the cheers. Before the sleepover at her friend’s house, She invited those friends to her house to join in opening the letter her mom told her about.
Lam received the news that she had been named an Evans Scholar – a full housing and tuition college grant from the nation’s largest scholarship program for golf caddies, founded by Chicago amateur golfer Charles “Chick” Evans Jr. in 1930.
“It was very emotional, very exciting, and I looked at my mom and the tears started flowing. A very happy moment,” Lam said. “I didn’t want to say I was confident I was going to get it, but everyone was like, ‘It’s in the bag.’”
Lam, a caddie at LaGrange Country Club, was among four recent LTHS graduates in this year’s Evans group. She will attend the University of Wisconsin.
Also honored were fellow La Grange CC co-worker TJ Carr (Iowa), Gustavo Mojarro (Illinois) from the Chicago Highlands Club in Westchester and Aleksandra Sajic (Illinois) from the Edgewood Valley Country Club in Burr Ridge.
Mojarro also opened his letter after a basketball game but this happened among roughly 25 friends at the house of recent LTHS graduate Patrick Cheney. Mojarro’s mother Ana brought the letter there. She and husband Gustavo stayed and celebrated.
“Maybe a top-three moment in my life because everyone went ballistic. My parents were crying. It was like the best thing ever,” Mojarro said. “I was told about caddying and the scholarship and I never wanted to have to pressure my parents (for college expenses). When my goal came to fruition, it was a dream and even more.”
Sajic was caught by surprise with her news but more around 8 a.m. She found out via email as she was walking into school.
“Obviously I was overjoyed. At first, I read over the email like 20 times because I was really excited and I knew a lot of my friends were also were in this process,” Sajic said. “I was the first to receive an email out of my friends so I was super-stoked.”
For the four, being a caddie is basically the only consistent job they’ve ever had. Mojarro began entering seventh grade, Carr and Sajic entering their freshman year of high school and Lam entering junior year. Carr also had two cousins who previously were Evans Scholars.
“I knew caddying was a big thing and La Grange County Club was a five-minute walk from my house. Around sophomore year I wanted to push for (Evans) and my dreams came true,” Carr said.
“It’s the best job. You’re outdoors, you get paid good money, you’re walking and I get to hang out with some of my friends. And then weekends we just sit in the shack and play cards, have fun, be kids. There’s no other job like it.”
Personal interaction with fellow caddies and golfers remains one of the biggest benefits. Carr said especially as an only child he has grown particularly through his many conversations with peers. He also emerged as a leader while being a state qualifier with both the LTHS boys gymnastics and swimming teams. Mojarro was a two-time state qualifier in track.
“I don’t have siblings so just getting used to talking to kids, getting to know them, I treat them like my brothers or sister,” Carr said.
“What I like is I get to work with people,” Lam said. “There’s a bunch of kids that caddie that maybe I wouldn’t see at school. I get to work with kids younger than me or college kids and I get to meet all of these golfers and talk about what they want to do.”
Great adults also have entered their lives. Mojarro also is the first recipient of the four-year John F. Baxter Scholarship named after the Chicago Highlands co-founder and partner who died in July 2025.
Mojarro twice was a caddie for Baxter.
“He was amazing, super-kind, very nice. He was always at the club,” Mojarro said. “I have been blessed by God with the greatest people around to make me succeed.”
Sajic met Matt Carinato, whose daughter was a counselor at Camp Kesem Notre Dame. Kesem offers free camps for children with parents battling cancer. After her mother, Mirjana, died on April 10, 2023 at 47 following an eight-month cancer battle, Sajic attended the camp for the first time that summer.
“I went to that camp for two years and it changed my life. It was an amazing opportunity,” Sajic said. “We could come together and share our tragic experiences but it was also a place where we didn’t talk that much. It was a way for us to get away from our lives at home.”
Carr plans to major in business. He already has a bit of experience helping his father in the restaurant industry. Sajic will pursue dentistry. Lam said one golfer helped her realize an interest for pre-med and studying dermatology.
“Your skin is the biggest living organism on your body and the fact that it can heal and regrow is really cool to me,” Lam said.
Mojarro will major in engineering technology for agricultural systems with a focus on construction management. The goal is to remodel homes and open his own construction company like his father. Mojarro began helping since sixth grade but his father has been retired for more than a year because of macular degeneration. He has similar macular degeneration in the same right eye. As a caddie, he used a range finder to help him follow balls.
“I want to take up that (construction) mantle and make it stronger, make it better. That’s why (Evans) means so much,” Mojarro said.
Recent Fenwick graduate Joe O’Bryan of Riverside (Riverside Golf Club) also was an Evans Scholar but did not accept. O’Bryan was among 12 Fenwick students awarded, the most for any one school in one year.