This thread has had its moments of descending into a clustercuss, but has still been quite interesting to follow as an Aussie who has played a lot in the UK and a little bit (30 rounds at 16 courses - 33% with caddie) in the US.
The only caddie I have had outside the US is my old man caddying for me when I used to play in junior tournaments.
I like Jeff Warne's contributions on here, but thought this was absurd:
I'm supposed to tell my members, outings, and guests, why they can't have the caddies they requested and that they have to take a push cart (which would be impossible on our terrain
Few people on this board are likely familiar with Windsor GC or Springwood GC outside Sydney, a few more perhaps with Bonnie Doon. Older members at all three, and plenty of other really steep courses in Sydney, carry their own bag or push in around on a trolley. As far as I'm concerned, if you can play golf on it walking with caddies, you can get around with a trolley. It might be more physically demanding, but can be done. And that's before you look at battery-powered trolleys that require no effort to push.
As for the other matters at hand, I have a few little bits and pieces that the debate in the preceding 10 pages has compelled me to weigh-in on.
Master/servantThe master-servant aspect of the relationship between player and caddie is something I really struggled with the first few times I took a caddie, because it is so totally at odds with how I was raised. maybe because I know that, half a world away, I grew up in a situation where I'd have been a caddie at a US-style private club, not a member!
And so I would find myself trying to chat with the caddies as well as with my playing partners, even though none of them were chatting to the caddies much. It was a completely foreign experience.
But what I saw at a few places I have played was the member hosting me had a regular caddie looping for us, so they knew each other well, had a good rapport and the whole feeling was a lot more comfortable.
I fondly remember walking up the 9th at Lancaster with Rory C and our caddie both pissing themselves discussing the Aussie TV show Angry Boys (if you like to laugh, get it, or Summer Heights High, also by Chris Lilley). That whole day was like the six of us spending an afternoon together without any feeling of "us and them". The golfer's attitude obviously has a big role to play in how the dynamic is.
Cost/valueThere's a good reason caddies aren't commonplace in the UK and Australia. When you're paying only AU$3000 or less a year for membership and play once a week, a caddie at AU$80 means you're paying more for caddies than you are to belong to the club.
So maybe caddies get only $30, say, for a loop, but that still means your caddie bill is 50% of your dues. The economics simply doesn't add up.
And I actually quite enjoy carrying my bag and making my own decisions, so even if there were kids happy to loop for $15 a round, I don't reckon I'd do it all the time.
SocialismA controversial word, but that's what it feels like in some senses. In some places, it seems caddie programs are shoehorned in where there's not a demand for them and people of wildly varying talents get paid the same money for their work.
And a career caddie has no right to expect a job any more than any other person. Journalism has been through the wringer in recent years and I know plenty of people (and am one myself, twice) who watched their job disappear and had to accept that times change. My father-in-law spent his career in photographics and saw the industry for developing prints shrink to nothing in only a couple of years. he had to accept that and find a new line of business.
I don't see that caddies should be immune to those natural changes and evolution that affect the rest of us in our professions.
I appreciate the important place of caddying in the history of US golf, but I wonder if it has any significant widespread presence in its future - though at certain clubs it is perfectly natural, fits like a hand in a glove and will comfortably last for decades and centuries more.
Things change and maybe kids will come to enter the game through other avenues. Things evolve, life changes and I think the proponents of caddie golf need to amend how the system works if they want there to be glory days ahead for caddying in the game of golf.
DoublesI feel bad for playing partners who get the shit end of the stick with a bloke who is carrying double. Tom Dunne got it bad out on Long Island with me one day when our caddie split his attention about 80/20 because I was playing really well and Tom had a slow start.
One upside of a bloke carrying double IMO is that they're not all over you so much.
Generally, the services I most value from a caddie don't involve carrying my bag - ball spotting off the tee, a little course management advice, tending the flag and reading the occasional tricky putt.
We had a forecaddie at The Renaissance Club and that service was pretty much perfect for what I desire from a caddie. my tiny carry bag and 12 clubs weigh about 7.5kg, so taking the weight off is no big deal.
Just some random views from an outsider.