Credit the caddie.

Paul Warren drew on personal experience from playing The Honors Course and gave perfect instructions to sister, Lorie, all week.

His knowledge and her execution led to Warren winning the Tennessee Women’s Amateur on Friday with a 4 and 2 victory over Kendall Martindale.

“It’ll break a mile,” he told Warren as she lined up a critical 30-foot birdie putt on No. 14 with Martindale five feet away from the cup for her own birdie.

Warren played it perfect to halve the hole and remain 3-up with four holes to play.

“Just cozy it down there,” Paul told her on No. 16, a par-3 over water.

Plunk. The birdie from 12 feet closed the match and earned Warren the Scott L. Probasco trophy.

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga sophomore Kayla Stewart beat GPS junior Mary Alice Murphy 3 and 2 in the first flight championship.

“I’m a really good putter, but these are tricky greens, so having my brother as my caddy really helped,” Warren said. “I bought a new putter, a Rife, and I just love it.”

It’s hard argue with the results. Warren, a senior at Belmont, began the match with a birdie on the first hole. She bogeyed No. 6 to square the match and begin a string of score-changing holes. It alternated between Warren being 1-up and all-square for seven straight holes.

Back and forth they went on a perfect course for match play with a possible train-wreck waiting on every hole.

Martindale made the small mistakes and handed control of the match to Warren. The sophomore at Jefferson County High School handed control of the match to Warren by missing three straight greens and making three straight bogeys.

It looked like she would trim the lead to 2-down after her approach on No. 12. But Warren rolled in her left-to-right putt after Paul’s vague — but accurate — read.

“I thought, ‘It’s her day,’ and you can’t do anything about it,” Martindale said. “I messed up when I shouldn’t have. That was stupid to make three bogeys in a row.”

Paul, the caddie, gets credit for more than just this tournament victory. Paul’s involvement in golf inspired Warren — the elder sibling by three years — to pick up the game after watching him play for three years in junior events around the South. Enough with the watching, she started playing in ninth grade.

“I played basketball in seventh and eighth grade and hated every minute of it,” Warren said. “When I started to play I decided I was going to give it my all.”

Now, she’s the state amateur champion. After a week at the beach, she’ll prepare for the state open, concentrate on her senior season at Belmont then ponder a pro career.

“If she goes pro,” Paul said, “there’s no doubt who will be her caddie — me.”

It worked out well this week.

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