DURING the compilation of this issue I read with great interest Geoff Ogilvy’s column regarding the Tour pro-caddie relationship and, in particular, how his long-term partnership with Alistair Matheson has worked so well.
He likens the player-caddie relationship as something akin to a marriage where there are good and bad days, complicated times but at the end of the day the partnership survives.
It got me thinking about my rounds with caddies over the past 30 years. In my experience, caddies are a fantastic resource during a round. Their role goes well beyond hauling your clubs and nine times out of ten you will score better on an unfamiliar course than you would have going it alone.
If Ogilvy reckons the Tour pro-caddie relationship is like a marriage, then being paired with a club caddie as an amateur is like a blind date. You just don’t know what you’ll get and what will unfold in the next four or five hours on the course. The problem with this blind date is there is no escape plan if it all goes pear-shaped.
Perhaps the worst ‘blind date’ I’ve had was at Turnberry in the northern summer of 1997. My mate and I had organised an afternoon tee time on the Open Championship-hosting Ailsa course. We arrived at the tee where our allocated caddies were already familiarising themselves with our clubs. While my mate had a keen, yet inexperienced, young caddie, I was partnered with the most experienced caddie the club had. I say that because he looked old enough to have caddied for Old Tom Morris. Not that I had a problem with that but this caddie was a dead ringer for Wilfred Brambell, who played the father in the 1970s British sitcom, Steptoe & Son. This bloke also had Steptoe’s bad manners to match.
He wasn’t at all happy about being sent out on the course for his second round of the day and I became the victim of his displeasure during the next four hours. Not that it worried me too much because I was hitting it so badly, which probably added to my caddie’s frustration.
After offering only a few words conversation through the first 15 holes, he suddenly piped up with a club selection as we stood in the middle of the 16th fairway. I had already pulled a 6-iron for the approach shot into the green lying beyond the ‘Wee Burn’, but ‘Steptoe’ insisted I only needed a 7-iron because the breeze was helping. I middled the 7-iron straight into the burn and then caught the hint of a smile on Steptoe’s face. Thankfully, the blind date from hell was nearly over.
Then there have been the good ‘dates’. After shooting 75 for my first-ever round at the Old Course at St Andrews, my caddie ‘Balty’ and I retired to a local drinking establishment to celebrate for the next ten hours. Without him I’m sure I would have scored far higher. By the time I poured him into a taxi at midnight, there was much exchanging of man-hugs and handshakes.
Female caddies are the norm in Asia. In Thailand, no matter which course you go to, you will find them covered head-to-toe in bright uniforms and wearing a wide-brimmed hat. Teaming up with a caddie at a Thai club is more like speed dating. The caddies will usually mill around the club entrance and when you pull up at the bag drop, they clamber for a number and go and stand next to a bag as they are unloaded. That’s usually the last you see of your golf bag before reaching the 1st tee where the caddie is sitting behind the wheel of your cart.
This process is a bit of lottery in terms of the quality of the caddie you will get but most of the time what they lack in reading the sometimes difficult Bermuda grass greens, they make up for with words of encouragement and high-fives when you’ve played a good shot. If you’re lucky you might even get a shoulder or head massage as you wait to play your tee shot.
Club-employed caddies are almost extinct here in Australia but I believe clubs could benefit from running some form of caddie program.
I have long been an advocate for clubs to return to the old days and utilise junior golfers as caddies, particularly in full-field member’s Saturday competitions. This actually has several benefits.
Firstly, it gives the aspiring young player the experience of learning the finer details of rules and etiquette from senior members of the club. The juniors can also earn a few dollars to pay for balls and equipment.
Finally, and most importantly, the pace of play in member’s competitions will speed up. The last point here is a proven fact. With a caddie leading the way and taking care of time consuming practices like bunker raking, divot repairs etc, five-hour rounds would become a thing of the past.
What have been your experiences with caddies? Would you support a caddie program at your club and do you think such a scheme would be beneficial? Let us know your thoughts.