In a local tournament at Muirfield Village, toward the end of the day of the first round, few caddies were left and the one assigned to me was probably a pre-teen and totally new to the game. Not having played the course before, I was having a nightmare on the ultra-fast and firm greens and a course setup that even Jack Nicklaus criticized as being way too difficult. By the time we got to the first tee, we were already over an hour behind schedule.
By the 9th hole we were on a six hour pace and my boy was getting bored a bit tired. Since the group in front of us was still on the tee waiting to hit their shots when, I figured that we had a good 10 minute+ wait so sent my caddy to forecaddy at the bottom of the hill on the left. I told him to relax until he saw the group in front of us hit their second shots, then he was to watch for our tee shots while standing well away from the landing area.
After a seemingly endless wait, it was finally my turn to hit and I surprised myself by hitting the ball solidly, though down the left side of the fairway. At worse, I thought that I had a mid-iron to the green from the light rough.
To my horror, we get down to where my ball should be and there is no ball to be seen; nor my caddy, nor my equipment. My playing companions were too busy doing their own thing, so it was up to me to find my ball, caddie, and equipment. I did find my caddie some 100 yards fom the landing area playing in the creek. It took us a couple of minutes to find my bag which he layed down in the tall native vegetation. We never found my ball. So, up the hill I walk to the tee. By that time there was a group on the tee posing, and another coming off the nearby #8. Of course, I could feel their daggers penetrating my back, and how I made 6 with the lost ball remains one of my most memorable double-bogey in my golfing life.
At another course I had a caddy who was carrying double look at me directly in the eye early in the round and say something to the effect: "You know Lou, if you keep making me chase your divots all day long, we ain't gonna get along". Apparently, he felt that I should be replacing them myself as he had too much to do attending to two players. Of course, his expected fee, around $160 total from his two players, was not to be adjusted accordingly. For a little under four hours of work, is it any wonder that degreed adults are now replacing kids as caddies at many clubs and resorts? He sure could read those greens, though.