Shivas,
We do agree on some things:
I DO hate slackers of all ages and I hate the foolish miscreants who are there for a dodge and a quick buck that's gone for vice and entertainments the moment it crosses their palms. Where I do most of my work now is a course I first worked 28 years ago and it IS 60% shitheads who can't even bring a proper towel to work. Because I'm in the VK business first and foremost, it worries me not a notch, because it only increases my pay rate by comparison.
I DO agree that a man's money is his to evaluate and spend but that $1500 that I'm talking about is $1500 is on top of or in the middle of (what has been) a 60-120K initiation, and between a 20-35K "soup to nuts" yearly nut to belong to a club. Why is that club boards allow $10-12 to be charged for a hamburger, $3.00 for ice tea, and underwrite the golf professional's markup of 2-300%, but this extra $1500 - IF you play 40 rounds with a caddie at your club - is what is compromised and the tipping point of things for one's own decision?
This last portion however brings me to that which we essential disagree:
Institutional Memory: In 1988, the rate in these parts was 20 bucks per bag, it is now 70-80, with some clubs still at $60, some at 65 and some other clubs at 50, I know three where the caddies get 100 per bag. Though populated with members I like, those three places suck...to keep it at a GCA pitch, their courses are two Fazios and a Gary Player. anyways, so even if we say $30 then and $80 now...have you been to a grocery store lately, a gas pump, a home Depot, a ball game, paid a cable or electric bill, paid tution? It is not 1988 any longer - the 150% difference in pay you cite has no where near kept up with the prices of the things, even the kids want, no less the lifers...I recently finished my undergrad degree at age 40 at the same school i had stopped attending 19 years ago. I paid $846 in state tuition and fees then (1992) and $4600 a year ago...my grad school bill is $5700 a semester. a first row box seat at Yankee stadium cost 32.00 then, it is hundreds...per game now. the upper deck $5.00...it is $25.00 now. chopped meat was 89 cents...3.29 today...gas? 98 cents in summer of 1990...first gulf war went to 1.09 by end of Bush I term, $1.23....6 years later it was only 1.48...6 more years later 2004 = 1.78...now what do you have? - even allowing for the fact it was $2.60 not three months ago. Caddies have been a bargain by comparison to the other costs on a mere percentage...OR gross basis.
My last generalization about the cretans...no, WF has - to my knowledge no people like that - the WF membership is absolutely aces, fast players, nice guys, not aloof, a real golf club where enjoyment of the marvelous golf frames every bit of conduct. They're proud of their yard, they treat most Caddies like fellow members who don't use the clubhouse. They have some old, slow black dudes who can barely handle nine with one, no less than 18 with two...but just yesterday I was out with old Walter, 79 years old in July, been at WF for 61 years. We had an outing and drew two guys from Southern Hills, one from engineers and a fourth unaffiliated slasher. My god did we show them a good time and my god did we have one too. That's exactly what they came to WF and signed up for this outing for...to give a small part of their wealth to Covenant house, play the famous WF course, and be escorted by Walter and Pro VK around the famous links...Walter was pointing that flagstick at the line and telling em how he had the two round leader in the 1980 Senior Open...while I was wiping down clubs and tellign the guy who was in his pocket about the set up for the 2006 Open. They couldn't give two shits if Walter was 80 yards behind...they puffed on their cigars, told dirty jokes and then departed for their balls which I marked with a separate towel in the dense rough. We played in 4hrs and 20 minutes - which is positively a miracle for double up tees and all manner of slashers on winged Foot's difficult courses. they paid me and Walter the equivalent of $200 a bag and gave me contact info should I ever find my way out to oklahoma...they finished 3rd low net in the tournament of 26 teams...
But Shivas...I only do 20% of my rounds at WF, most of the other rounds I conduct are at a smaller club where I started long ago AND I was an administrator/Caddie master/starter for 15 years. At THOSE clubs (and at one time I talked and visited with Caddiemasters at all the 50 leading clubs in the area in my role as President of the Met Caddiemaster's Assoc) there is all manner of these cretans. Email me privately and i'll give you a dossier of no less than one dozen actual names - among scores - of wealthy people trying to skim their club.
I had a guy, a grocery store magnate, who spent 45K alone on flowers for his son's wedding (I saw the bill), flowers that would be in the dumpster the next morning, trying to beat a 15 year old kid for $5 the morning of the wedding when they had a groomsmens party foursome the morning of the affair. He also thought the club should waive the guest fee for the best man and father of the bride, though they were permitted to play on a Saturday morning when no guests are permitted. The manager at the time, acceded to the request on both counts, as this man was the House Chairman and controlled the manager's favor and his budget.
I wasn't thinking generalizations for their own rhetorical sake. I was thinking specificity...
anyways, I really have no objections to anybody thinking what they want - it has no bearing on me. I ended up pouring some gas on flaming part of the thread I wanted to extinguish. I would be happy to return any subsequent conversation to what constitutes a good job by a Caddie and leave the economic considerations to everyone as they must tackle them.
I love Golf and Golf Course Architecture, that's why I'm doing what I do, including posting on this board. I also like giving people a good day, not just on the course but in life and when I was Caddiemaster, if I saw a kid or a lifer deficient to his primary duties, he was on Strike Two in an instant.
That brings to mind one last point. I honestly think that a few important reasons there aren't more "kid" caddies are:
1. Kids are soft and easily defeated by the early rigors of the job. I don't know how I made it taking Dr. Graine and Joe Silverstein in 1983. not only were the bags twice todays size with a razor-like leather strap and no stands but these guys shot eleventy-seven on every hole which they played to the death. You needed a pith helmet. Today's kids are not up to that kind of boot camp, though it be much easier and coddled an experience.
2. No Caddiemaster wants to deal with f'n parents like its Youth Hockey or something. The old days, your parent might drop you off at the club gate at 6:45 and, "Be back at 2:00" even if you were done at noon. My dad would break my balls if I didn't make a good day's pay. Now? Jesus christ, even the poorer minority youth has six phone messages to inquire about the schedule from home. "Johnny can't make it, he has lacrosse..." "Carl won't be there saturday, we're going away for the weekend..." "I thought Billy said he would make at least 80 dollars a day" and the worst one of all..."How come Michael didn't get out two days in a row?" Many parents treat it as day care...a Caddiemaster goes mad as his balls are already in a vice with the members complaints about the underperfoming youth as he watches every other managerial position hit a six figure home run working for the wealthy...
3. the club members wan't nice kids with good haircuts and attentiveness...check out your average 16 year old boy. As Caddiemaster I've had kids come up for the second season of work with mesh truckers hats that say "Brain Dead." there's good ones to be sure, but Christ you gotta fight to keep them good...
cheers
vk