During my 12 season tenure as Caddiemaster at Rockrimmon Country Club in Stamford, CT I had a mix of seasonal scholastic kids and about 7 or 8 weekend warriors totaling about 35-40.
On weekends even though I generally followed a necessary program of sending the caddies who would/could do 36 holes first (they needed to be back in to handle the 11:30+ Ladies and Guest play), I also mixed in as many of the WWs - who were salesman, construction workers, electricians, teachers, UPS men, etc - as I could in this cadre of the first 10 caddies out for the day even though most of them could not do "2" loops. (I had one WW who was the head of FCIAC scholastic referees and sometimes in the fall, he'd be cutting it close for his own referee gig and would caddy #18 in his zebra stripes after I drove em out to him...gave you the FG sign if you hit the fairway.)
These guys, unlike the 16-22 age crowd, had family responsibilities, had second weekend jobs, were taking their younger kids to LL, coached LL, and were taking grown kids on campus visits, etc. So, one of the reasons was so that they could maximize their "off-time," (if any) get off the course by noon and get home to their lawns and graduations and weddings. The other central reason I did this is that, like many clubs, the leading members of the club -- in wealth, or golf skill, or board positions, or themselves needing to get off the course by noon for their activities -- usually played at those earliest times.
They needed to be taken care of and these WW were the most popular among them - they did in fact comprise almost the 8 best of my 40 in terms of caddying acumen and skill and naturally, maturity. These earlier players also paid the best in that era, if the going rate was $60, they paid $70, $75, $80. This of course meant a good deal to these WW specifically; this extra 7-8K they earned over 30 weekends a year was vital to having some savings for children, a nice week in Disney World for a family of four or five, a rainy day fund for the cars, washing machines, roof repairs, gift envelopes and extraordinary things that send a lot of middle-class guys to the poor house.
One of these Weekend Warriors was Pete Maar, a 53 year-old US postman in Old Greenwich for 24 years. The slogan on the pediment of the Farley Postal building across from MSG in NYC (Neither rain, nor snow, nor gloom of night shall stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds...) described Pete perfectly. I came to learn that he had missed three days of work in those 24 years. He not once missed a loop or an assignment in the years I knew him. He requested vacation time from the post office only after he asked me about the summer golf schedule.
Pete was well, well -liked by all ages or factions of the club. Hardly said two non-golf words out there and became as requested as the best technical caddies at any club. Guys of all stripes, young old, hackers or club championship caliber happily took him out. Guys that were irritants and squeaky wheels turned into affable, non-plus gems when they came back from a round with Pete. Basically, you could set your watch to this guy.
He took any and every shit assignment I might have to dole out and actually asked that he go out with some of those specifically, if he sensed that the young caddie I was forced to devolve to, couldn't or wouldn't handle a particular loop well. If I was short of personnel for the afternoon players, even though he just walked 30 miles during the week and 5 more concluding a minute ago, he said, "I'll go Vin, just lemme get a shirt and sandwich out of my truck." He drove the world's worst beater...a little Datsun mini-pickup truck that would've been eschewed in 1903, no less 2003. But from this little car, he gave member jumps and changed their occasional flat tire...flatly refused, and would in fact run-away from people offering money. But if you didn't say thank you or didn't acknowledge him the next time you were up at the club, you went down in his notebook, and would never be helped again...as Pete repeated from some movie, "I wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire."
As time went on, I could never do enough for Pete as his second employer. Pete LOVED golf, if Monday rotated as his "day-off" from the postal route and there was no outing at Rockrimmon, he'd use his privileges to play 45 holes (and then fish way out in the sticks of the course); I think he played twice a week after work, walking the Norwalk muni, Oak Hill. Whenever I could get free to use my juice, I took Pete and two other college-age caddies to play Old Oaks and Century and Stanwich and Quaker Ridge and the like; my god were they so appreciative...we used to call it our Semi-annual Loopers summit and used to talk about where we might go that year, as far back as in March. For guys who would likely never see these courses in their life, to have them all to themselves and playign with a cart...we had it better than the members
Pete's favorite movie was, "On the Waterfront" and indeed Pete was like an unaffected and true "Terry Malloy" character, the role that Brando made so memorable. Pete was accepted into Syracuse when his number was called in 1967, and he took no deferment, just went and got his Purple Heart in Vietnam...and then re-upped for another tour after two months stateside healing up.
By all accounts (Pete never spoke a word about it) he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder when he came back in 1973-74. He didn't have much going on outside of his military benefits and he started caddying again at Rockrimmon, where he had looped as a high-schooler before the war. The other caddies tell me that he often wore fatigue bottoms on the course (not so unusual then when caddie apparel was like Caddyshack) and a few other irregularities in deportment and attitude. This post-war 2nd stint at Rockrimmon did not go so well, culminating in Pete dropping the bag, after an argument/dustup with a member on the 11th green, and walking home...never to be seen again for 20 years, the year before I got there.
Well, back to the early-morning loops and my Weekend Warriors... I did have one "problem" - if you could call it that. There were two lovely guys, Rich Sheingold and Peter Weisbard who weren't that good (a 22 and 25 HCP when I first met them), were not part of the "in"-crowd, but often wanted to play early too...the earliest if they could. This was a problem because they often didn't have a third or fourth and had to take pot-luck hook-ups an hour or more later than those early times, which made for both a much slower round and a total conclusion time 2 hours later than they hoped. Also, this meant they got the low-priority caddies on the younger and immature end of the scale. They said nothing to me, never complained, always understood, treated me like I was powdering their ass instead of screwing them and were perfect gentleman. I wanted to, but I couldn't get latitude to do better for them, because they had a reputation, never honestly tested, that said: "They are bad, therefore they are slow."
Well one Saturday morning, Pete couldn't be there until 8:30am (he apologized six times before the day actually came) and Sheingold and Weisbard were taking their de-facto morning screwing over by me, waiting for the Back nine to clear, when I decided to use the opportunity to send them out with Pete. Four hours later, they came back into my office, and said in stereo, "We don't ever want to go out with anybody else again, if you can do it Vin." Then Pete came in to get his chit pay, and before I could mention what they said, he said, "Vin, if it works out for you, I'll take those guys every morning, no matter when they play or who they play with." I know Rich and Peter were great guys, and may have slipped Pete extra dough now and again, but back then they were not the easiest loop...they were everywhere and you needed a pith helmet and a compass to get them under 95, if you were lucky.
And for the next 4 seasons, anytime Sheingold and Weisbard were playing and Pete was there to caddy, out they went. Early on in this match-making, I also realized that they were playing noticeably faster with Pete, enopugh so that I could also hook them up and, if they would get a third or fourth early enough, I would have them lead off the day at 7:15. They got their third, another lovely, low-key chap named Ed Fuhrman and often, in short time, another prince, Ernie Stern (a Legion of Order recipient from France - a "Chevalier") and from then on, Sheingold Wesibard, Fuhrman, Ernie stern... and Pete were first on my tee sheet, unless they wished to play later. when Pete couldn't make a governor's cup one time, we got Jerry the pro to bump their match a half-hour later.
Then Rich and Pete started getting better and better scores...Rich brought Pete beers from the grill deck when they broke "90" the first time, and when Weisbard did it his first time, cigars in the caddie yard. The scores became lower and lower and for Sheingold, 80 was in sight...but he couldn't get over the hump. (Remember, this fellow [who looked like a debonair Jackie Gleason] was shooting 97-105 with four Xs on the card, not three years earlier.) then one glorious day in 2002, Sheingold lay 75 shots right in front of the 18th green, 10 yards of troubleless turf and 4 shots to do it, when Pete handed Rich his "Texas Wedge" putter, and hugged him...saying "Rich, not even YOU could fuck this up." Sheingold three putted for 78. Think about Nicklaus hugging Jackie after the 86 Masters and you may understand what we witnessed from the back porch of the bag room that day. Pete could have floated home and died right then.
A year later in 2003, June came along and because Weisbard was out of town, Sheingold did not play in the Governors cup tourney either. And without his regular loop, I was happy to send Pete with another group which included Michael Bolton the singer and the CNBC -defense attorney Mickey Sherman, who were on a cart and two opponents - one of whom lost his son seven years earlier in 1996 TWA smith Point disaster, walking. Because Pete always forecaddied on #1, he never really glad-handed Bolton and Sherman on the tee, he just grabbed their putters and headed out to forecaddy. They played #1 and when Pete put the flag back after it was halved, he extended his hand to Bolton, taking his putter back from him and making a proper introduction, "I'm Pete."
Those are the last words Pete spoke, as he when he reached the forecaddy spot on the par 4 2nd hole, he dropped dead from an aneurysm. Age 54.
The superintendent, another WW caddie Tommy (who Pete first trained was Tommy was 12 years old in the 60s) and I were on him with defibbs and CPR within 90 seconds of his collapse, but as the EMT's who showed up only 6 minutes later told us, no medicine in the world was going to reverse what happened - it was his time. Rich got wind of what happened from somebody playing at the club and was on the back porch with me and the other top contingent of caddies, eyes as red our ours, sobs as loud as ours, and perhaps the most heart-broken man you have ever seen.
It was a shell-shock of the first order to the culture of the club that summer. Four days later I gave Pete's eulogy to a throng of probably 250 people in the cramped funeral home, about 60-80 of whom were members, some may have had Pete five times total by my reckoning, but they were there.
On the next Saturday, six days after Pete had died, I was still in a daze...I was aimlessly driving around on the course - actually, hiding from everyone in the trees if the truth be told, I was emotionally spent. Richie was playing somewhere on the course and I just wanted to talk to him or be near him, life was returning to normal, going on and it was all happening a little too fast for me. I knew he was somewhere around the 7th or 8th hole and I'd figure to catch up to him at Rockrimmon's par 3 9th hole over water...
I'll let my story "An Inch from Belief" pick it up there...i n the next post
cheers
vk