The way Larry Nelson saw it, anything he needed to succeed during a golf tournament, he could figure out for himself. In 1987, in fact, he won the PGA Championship — the last of his three major titles — with a caddie who didn’t even speak English.

“I tell people all the time: The only word he knew was ‘yes,’ ” Nelson told TribLive.

Plenty has changed in the 38 years since Nelson — the 1983 U.S. Open champ at Oakmont Country Club — won that PGA title. These days, pro golfers often talk about their “teams” after tournaments.

It’s no longer just the player and his caddie. Players tend to have numerous other people at their disposal: swing coach, sports psychologist, trainer, nutritionist, statistician, strength coach, etc. Players and their teams will try to solve Oakmont when the U.S. Open returns June 12-15.

Daniel Summerhays, who finished tied for eighth at the 2016 U.S. Open at Oakmont, credits Tiger Woods for popularizing the idea of having a “team.”

“I think he was one of the first people to make a swing coach (Butch Harmon) famous,” Summerhays told TribLive. “Tiger was the pioneer of building your team around you.

“I think Jordan Spieth was the one who really changed the verbiage where, in an interview, he stopped saying ‘I,’ but it was ‘we.’ We did this. My team did this. We did a good job this week of that.”

Peter Hanson isn’t part of the “team,” per se, for young phenom Ludvig Aberg, but he has worked with Aberg in Sweden’s national golf program. So he knows firsthand the team aspect of Aberg’s success.

In particular, he discussed the role statisticians play in Aberg’s preparation. Not only does he have his own percentages handy but knows percentages of how and where other golfers have played certain shots during a given week’s tournament.

That, Hanson said, allows Aberg — and others who might utilize a statistician — to know well in advance of a shot where to hit or, in other cases, where it is safe to miss. It can take some guesswork — not to mention pressure — out of a shot.

“It is amazing how much that has improved,” said the 47-year-old Hanson, who peaked at No. 17 in the world in 2012 and played in the previous two U.S. Opens at Oakmont. “There’s a lot of communication between the different parts. … It’s a really tight group.”

That being said, Hanson cautioned that it is possible to overload a player with information. With too much data on the brain, a player could get tight and lose focus on the basics.

This, he said, brings it back to the caddie. Part butler, part psychologist, part cheerleader, part coach, a caddie is the last checkpoint in filtering through all the information and determining what is relevant.

Paula Creamer, who won the 2010 U.S. Women’s Open at Oakmont, said the player-caddie relationship could be key in determining who wins the men’s Open this year. If nothing else, she said, the caddie can be the one to bring a player back to Earth after a bad hole or two.

And keeping the heart rate down at Oakmont is as critical as anything mechanical or statistical.

“I really feel like there are certain golf courses where you don’t need a caddie as much,” Creamer told TribLive. “But for Oakmont, I feel like your caddie is like your 15th club. Because it’s so easy to get away from it mentally if you make a couple bogeys. They can just snap you back into it.”

Added Nelson: “I think the psychological part is probably going to be more important than the mechanical part. … A lot of guys, on this golf course, they’re going to make bogeys. They’re going to hit bad shots. They do need somebody (to say), ‘OK, next hole. We’re going forward.’ ”

So is it worth it? Does it really work? Or is it all just for show and ego?

While Summerhays said he believes “98%” of golf comes down to the player, there are some merits to having a team. With margins between good rounds and bad rounds, between winning and losing, so thin, if having a team can improve a player’s chances by even a half a percentage point, Summerhays sees value.

“Sometimes it’s overboard, but these guys are just trying to find any advantage,” he said. “… I hope that the players remember that, ultimately, it is them. They deserve the credit, and they also deserve the blame. … Building the team around you might be a coping strategy as well to deflect disappointment and deflect blame.

“But I think there is an aspect of team building that does add some strengths if you approach it the right way.”

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