Sometimes you’re the caddy. Sometimes you’re the pro.

Andrew Hawkins has been both and he knows the difference. Just a few years ago he was caddy at the prestigious Inverness Club in Toledo.

“I tried to keep a low profile as much as possible,” the Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver said. “I never even gave (the golfers) my name. It was nothing I was ashamed of … but I wasn’t really that proud.”

He had played four years of football at Toledo University — he had been the Rockets’ first two-way player in 40 years — and yet when it came to the pros he ran into a road block. A lot of it had to do with his size. He says he’s 5-foot-7 and that may be a stretch.

The fact that he wasn’t from a high-profile football school and juggled between wide receiver and cornerback probably didn’t help. Whatever it was, he was ignored in the 2008 NFL draft.

The Cleveland Browns did invite him to a rookie mini-camp. But after a couple of days they sent him on his way and within a couple of weeks they quit calling.

He ended up sleeping for half of a year on a friend’s couch in Toledo. Although he was a volunteer coach at TU, he had to find a job that actually paid. “I had to help pay bills somehow,” he said. “I worked part time in a factory — Welco in Toledo — they repair the big engines on wind (turbines). I drove a fork lift and swept out the factory… And I caddied, too.”

He said he was good at the latter because he followed the advice he was given: “Be quiet. Just keep your mouth shut … and smile.”

And therein lies the difference between his life as a caddy and now as a pro.

Sunday — in the Bengals home opener against the Cleveland Browns at Paul Brown Stadium — he certainly was smiling. But he wasn’t quiet or low profile.

The little wide receiver with fairy tale story now has a highlight play that is being shown over and over on ESPN’s SportsCenter.

With just over 11 minutes to go in the game — and Cincinnati ahead by a touchdown — Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton rolled toward the right sideline, then looked back across the field and spotted Hawkins, who had slipped away from his defender.

Hawkins grabbed the short pass and ran toward the sideline as two Cleveland defenders took aim. With a couple of water bug jukes, he left both sprawled on the field. He then cut back toward the other side of the field, zigzagged through what was left of the Browns’ defense, got big blocks from fellow wide receivers Brian Leonard and A.J. Green and trotted into the end zone for a 50-yard score — the first touchdown of his NFL career.

The TD was needed in what would end up a 34 -27 Bengals’ victory.

A week ago when the Bengals were embarrassed, 44-13, in the season opener at Baltimore, Hawkins was the team’s one bright spot. He finished with a team high — career high — eight catches for 86 yards.

There was one play in the third quarter of that game in which the Bengals ran a flanker screen pass.

As Hawkins gathered the ball in, the Ravens tried to squeeze him with a triangle defense. That time his shiftiness turned Ravens All-Pro defenders Ray Lewis and Ed Reed into Abbott and Costello and they ran into each other as Hawkins skittered past.

Afterward Lewis pulled him aside. “He told me, ‘You’re a warrior. Keep fighting,’ ” Hawkins said with quiet pride. “He said he was impressed with me.”

But then how could you not be?

“I guess he got overlooked early on because teams saw a 5-5, a 5-7 guy and they thought he was not high-powered,” said Green, the Bengals Pro Bowl receiver. “But man this guy is powerful. He’s explosive. He’s quick. He’s fast. He’s elusive…He’s all of the above.”

And the most impressive thing about him?

He’s grateful.

In a game where the highlight stars bask in the spotlight, the 26-year-old Andrew Hawkins is profoundly thankful just to be out of the shadows. He said it a dozen times after Sunday’s game.

“I didn’t ever think I’d be at this point … ever,” he said. “I’ve come from the lowest point. Nights crying … Coaches telling me to give it up … Living on my friend’s couch … Hearing ‘No’ so many times I got used to it.”

At the onset, NFL teams — to use a term a golfer would know — “whiffed” on him.

He had the genes — his brother Artrell played six years for the Bengals and his dad was a Pittsburgh Steelers running back in the 1970s — he had speed and, as many in the Bengals dressing room now bring up, he has heart.

His brother said the problem is that the NFL is a “copy-cat league.”

“They all get caught up in size,” Artrell Hawkins said. “No one wants to take a chance.”

Hawkins said one good thing did come from his Browns snub. He got some film of his mini-camp workouts and sent them everywhere.

The Detroit Lions didn’t offer a playing position, but in almost cruel irony made him an intern scout for a few months. His job was to find them other talent.

He sent tape to Spike TV and got on Michael Irvin’s reality show “Fourth and Long.” The winner among the 12 contestants got a spot on the Dallas Cowboys 80-man offseason roster. He came in second.

He finally landed in the Canadian Football League — playing two seasons with the Montreal Alouettes — and early last year got offers from St. Louis and the Bengals. He signed with the Rams because he thought Cincinnati had an overload of receivers: Chad Ochocinco, Terrell Owens, Jerome Simpson, Andre Caldwell, Jordan Shipley.

The Rams kept him for one preseason practice and cut him.

The Bengals, meanwhile, jettisoned most of their veteran receivers, picked him up, cut him, picked him up again, put him on the practice squad and then, by week four, had him on the field.

Hawkins finished 2011 with 23 catches for 263 yards. He ran the ball five times for 25 yards. He had five tackles on special teams. He never scored.

Until Sunday.

“I’m definitely gonna keep that ball,” he said. “That’s going in the Hall of Fame in my house.”

When asked where that ball was — it wasn’t in his locker afterwards — he smiled: “Oh, the equipment guys got the ball for me.”

On Sunday, Andrew Hawkins had his own caddy.