Caddy Experiences

[Bob_Huntley]

I am not sure if he is still there but I heard my chap may be dealing cards in Atlantic City.

The doyen of the lot has to be Rocco Carbone Jnr., at Pine Valley. His business card reads "Distances from anywhere".

He could make a living as a comedian.

Bob

[JESII]

He has Bob. Absolutely!

[Eric Smith]

It was 1995 and two of us decided to break from the group and hop over from Glasgow to Ulster. A dour old Scot who clearly hates Americans suggested taking Logan Airlines - which turned out to be a fleet of cardboard boxes, with rusty Sopwith Camel engines duct taped to balsa wood wings. It was too far to swim the Firth of Clyde, so we said our prayers and boarded with the least attractive stewardess in the history of commercial aviation.  

Two airsickness bags later, the plane somehow landed in one piece so we rented a six-speed hatchback and blasted off to Newcastle on the left side of the road, trying to figure out traffic circles on a pitch-black moonless night. We stopped at what looked like a quasi-legitimate roadside eatery staffed by a chain-smoking waitress who, after snappily fetching two pints, disappeared never to be seen again.

The kitchen had a swinging door with a broken hinge, hanging by a thread from the dry-rotted frame. Both our stomachs had emptied somewhere over the ocean so we were hungry enough to seek out the cook, a Pakistani fellow puffing away on Gitanes, listening to a cacophonous din of Arabic yodeling on a dirty cassette deck covered with grease.

Thinking at worst this would make a good story someday, I inquired as to the house specialty. Abdul (no clue, but we'll call him that) barked that everyone came for his chicken and rice, motioning us to wait at our table. Since there was no waitress, we helped ourselves to another couple of pints and a snifter of Jameson under the theory that whiskey would kill whatever was in the chicken.  

45 minutes later, out tottered Abdul with two steaming plates of boiled chicken, crunchy rice and what looked suspiciously like fried tree bark dripping in curdled butter. We gingerly took the dull knives and bent forks that passed for cutlery and sliced into our culinary masterpieces, hitting pussy-pink meat right below the skin.

Reasoning that not even Irish whiskey would kill salmonella, we left 40 Pounds on the table and drove off with two bottles of Jameson and a basket of crackers. Not an auspicious start to our side trip, but at least we had our golf clubs, a decent map and the promise of a comfortable B&B about 60 Kilometers down the road.

To be continued:  

Gib,

Thanks for taking the time to share this one. I'd love to think you're hatching a plan to put it and many more of your misadventures into a book or screenplay.  If not, part deux will do. For now!

[Stewart Abramson]

At St Andrews I had a caddy called Sandy who was great. He was like an old friend after just a few holes. We played the New Course early in the morning and I was leaving a lot of putts short. After about 4 or 5 woefully short putts on the front nine, he takes my ball to clean it and sets it down at my marker but instead of my ball it was a pink ball.

When we were teeing off on the Old Course that afternoon the starter reminded us to tip the caddies if they do a good job. I told the starter that Sandy was the same caddy from the morning round  and that I think we compensated him quite nicely. I turned to Sandy and asked if he thought  he was fairly compensated and without pause he said, "you don't think I'd be here now if you hadn't laddie."

[Jeff_Brauer]

Would be remiss not to share this Scotland caddy story, again from the 1995 ASGCA meeting there.  Schedule called for the overnight flight and a 10 AM tee time after a bus ride.  They had arranged a bunch of caddies for our large group, including school kids allowed out of school and some older vets.

I was tired, and sleeping in the back of the bus, and thus, the last one off.  All the caddies had been chosen, except for one obviously drunken caddie, who became mine.  Tee off, walking down the first fairway and the other caddie comes over to me and asks if I know who my caddie is?  How would I know, I just got off the bus?

"It's Alfie, man.  Alfie, who caddied for all 5 of Tom Watsons championships.  Watson even let him hold the trophy!"  (I looked up the picture later....)  Well, he was lots of fun.  When RTJ II heard who he was, he demanded him, since he had worked with Watson at Spanish Bay.  Okay, rank has privilege, I guess (although I was the incoming President, so there was some debate....)  Alfie settled it the next day.  Our groups happened to be on adjacent fairways, and he dropped Jones bag, came over, dragged my 15 year old caddie back.  "He's too serious, and you are a lot more fun, so I'm coming back to you!"

[Marc Huther]

Had a frustrating caddie experience  that you just can't help but look back on and laugh. I was playing BMCC with my good friend Nigel Islam. First it started that there would be 1 caddie for our two bags and so only 1 caddie fee (plus tip of. course) but when we got our bags there was a caddie holding Nigels bag and someone holding mine. Assumably a caddie. So off we go. As we were walking down the first hole I asked what kind of grass they had on the course? He replied yep nice grass. So I asked more specific just what grass were the greens? He replied uh you know uh maybe you could ask someone else.
A few other questions and answers.
I was behind a tree on a par 5 and was wanting to know the distance to 100 yards out. He answered that yeah it would be a good place. Well how far do I need to hit it. He says down that way and maybe to the right a little. With slight anger I gold him I understand where it is but how far away is it. He answers a pretty good hit away.
Teeing off on a 420 yard par 4 my caddie hands me driver and walks off down the fairway. I tee off and hit a good drive down the left side. I get to my ball to find my caddie digging it out of a lake. He says whew you hit that good but the fairway runs out into this lake. You prob should have hit an iron or something!
There are more of these stories from just this one round but I think you get the point! Haha frustrating (oh yeah had to pay him the full caddie fee)

[Jason Thurman]

This isn't quite what the original post asked for, but still my favorite caddie moment. Like Marc's story, it also occurred in a group with Nigel.

I met Nigel back in July when he happened to be in town around the Fourth. We met up for a round at my club that also included two local friends of mine. One of those friends was my buddy Jack, a 6'5" former college basketball player who probably plays about three rounds of golf a year. He's a really nice, really easygoing, very strong guy who probably would play to about a 37 handicap.

My club runs a very strong Evans' Scholar caddie program, so we picked up four high school kids to caddie for us. Jack had never played with a caddie before, and the caddiemaster matched him up with one of two girl loopers at our club. She's also by far my favorite - a chatty and easygoing teenager with a mess of curly red hair and freckles who, much like Jack, knows very little about golf but approaches the game with a ton of earnestness and enthusiasm.

On the first tee Jack turns to her and asks "So, what's my strategy on this hole?"

"Well, honestly, I don't know a lot about golf," explains the caddie. "But you definitely want to hit out toward the stripey grass and try to get it in the hole fast."

"Awesome!" says Jack, with a real confidence gained from hearing her simple explanation. He then proceeds to snap hook a ball about 120 yards forward and 150 yards left.

Five or six shots later, he's still 160 yards out and on a very steep downslope in thick rough. He turns to his caddie and asks, "You got any advice for how to hit this?"

She smiles the biggest sympathetic smile I've ever seen and says, with an amazing blend of sincerity, optimism, and naivete, "Umm, just keep doing your best!"

I've never seen a better blend of two personalities between caddie and golfer than that day, nor an odder blend physically. A chubby redheaded high schooler and the athletic lawyer towering almost two feet above her, walking the course through four hours of rain and a solid 130 strokes, chewing 10th Tee bars and drinking Gatorade and chatting and smiling the entire time. I'm not a huge fan of caddie golf, but those kids added a lot to the round that day.

[John_Cullum]

One of my favorite poems. The Caddie
 
Whilst God did create many a mystery
Few match those who lie
None create such as he
Who tells the story
Golf
The shot of days gone by
He of bounce gone a wry
Wit so quick story of lore
Without the truth
No more a crushing bore

That's great.  A preemptive strike.

[Chris_Hufnagel]

I really enjoy taking a caddie and especially like supporting caddie programs, especially ones that get teenagers and young adults into the game.  My first job was as a caddie and it still maybe my favorite today...

I have been lucky to have some great rounds at some great clubs - most of them with a caddie, but undoubtedly, my favorite caddie experience was with Tim Bert at this year's HHH.

I started a thread about his epic day this summer - the link is below...

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,56098.0.html

My favorite part of the day and one of my favorite golfing moments from this summer was this exchange:

There are many highlights from my Hike with Tim, but perhaps my favorite was this exchange on our 115th hole of the day.  By this point, I had converted over to my set of T. Stewart hickories, I had lost about five pounds, changed shirts four times, socks six times, and shoes three times.  I was quickly losing interest (truthfully, already lost some interest), probably in some sort of early dehydration, and in desperate need of a shower and a beer.  

Here is how our exchange went when I tried to pull a club for an approach shot...

CH:  Just give me the Spade Mashie.
TB:  It looks more like a Mashie to me...
CH:  Spade Mashie.
TB:  I like the Mashie.

I could do nothing more than laugh...

[Jud_T]

Solely at the behest of the Kingsley GCA contingent I'll retell this caddy tale, which is perhaps more enthralling after 6 beers and a couple of scotches around a fire pit in Northern Michigan...:

I was playing a match at an outing at Lake Shore Country Club in Glencoe, IL with my former boss, who I was also quite friendly with.  We came to a par 5 at a critical juncture in the match, by which point liquor and bravado had of course raised the stakes to where even the simplest tap-in had significant pucker factor.  I was just off the green with a make-able uphill chip for par, while my boss was barely on the far back right of the green with a 50 foot downhill slider for birdie over a significant ridge in the green.  I was preparing to play as I was off the green even though he was further away as I figured if I could chip it close it would put significant pressure on his putt.  My caddy, a 14 year old kid who weighed 120 pounds wet had pulled the flag at my behest.  Given the gravity and gamesmanship opportunity of the situation I was taking my time.  My boss is getting extremely antsy at my stalling tactics and says to the kid in the most condescending tone "You mind replacing the pin, I'm away here."  The kid does as he's told and I retort "If you even scare the effing hole from there, I'll give this kid a hundred bucks".  Of course he proceeds to drain a one in a hundred putt.  I solemlny walk up to the kid, peel off a crisp $100 bill and hand it to him at which point he looks at me incredulously and says "I thought you were kidding?!"  and I reply, with the appropriate pregnant pause,  "Son, NEVER joke about money"... It was apparently the talk of the caddy shack for the remainder of the summer.

[Nigel Islam]

This isn't quite what the original post asked for, but still my favorite caddie moment. Like Marc's story, it also occurred in a group with Nigel.

I met Nigel back in July when he happened to be in town around the Fourth. We met up for a round at my club that also included two local friends of mine. One of those friends was my buddy Jack, a 6'5" former college basketball player who probably plays about three rounds of golf a year. He's a really nice, really easygoing, very strong guy who probably would play to about a 37 handicap.

My club runs a very strong Evans' Scholar caddie program, so we picked up four high school kids to caddie for us. Jack had never played with a caddie before, and the caddiemaster matched him up with one of two girl loopers at our club. She's also by far my favorite - a chatty and easygoing teenager with a mess of curly red hair and freckles who, much like Jack, knows very little about golf but approaches the game with a ton of earnestness and enthusiasm.

On the first tee Jack turns to her and asks "So, what's my strategy on this hole?"

"Well, honestly, I don't know a lot about golf," explains the caddie. "But you definitely want to hit out toward the stripey grass and try to get it in the hole fast."

"Awesome!" says Jack, with a real confidence gained from hearing her simple explanation. He then proceeds to snap hook a ball about 120 yards forward and 150 yards left.

Five or six shots later, he's still 160 yards out and on a very steep downslope in thick rough. He turns to his caddie and asks, "You got any advice for how to hit this?"

She smiles the biggest sympathetic smile I've ever seen and says, with an amazing blend of sincerity, optimism, and naivete, "Umm, just keep doing your best!"

I've never seen a better blend of two personalities between caddie and golfer than that day, nor an odder blend physically. A chubby redheaded high schooler and the athletic lawyer towering almost two feet above her, walking the course through four hours of rain and a solid 130 strokes, chewing 10th Tee bars and drinking Gatorade and chatting and smiling the entire time. I'm not a huge fan of caddie golf, but those kids added a lot to the round that day.

I had forgotten about that. I guess the motto of the story is avoid taking caddies if I am in your group.  

[Richard Hetzel]

Terry Lavin (and another GC'er I cannot remember his name), Bill Steele and myself played our Sunday round at Lost Dunes and the caddy (cannot remember his name either!) was great. He is Mike Ditka's regular caddy and he told us the story about how Mike Ditka went off wile playing and tossed his Cameron putter way out into the middle of the lake. The caddy walked to the edge of the lake to see where it landed. Ditka asked him why the hell he was watching it, and the caddy  said that he was going to retrieve it after he got off work. Ditka, not knowing how shallow the lake was, told him if he walked into the water he "could have the putter". The caddy retrieved it, and he said it had Ditka's name engraved on it as well as a a Bob O'link logo. He has it hanging in his house as a conversation piece. Pretty funny.

[Tom ORourke]

My wife (30 handicap) was playing at Aronimink last year on an open day. She hit a tee shot over a hill and found it in the rough but with a great lie despite some tall grass around it. A few holes later the exact same thing occurred. She asked the caddy if he had moved her ball as it seemed to be an incredible stroke of luck to get those lies. His response was "We are here to have a nice day, aren't we?" Neither confirmed nor denied, but she got the message and laughed.

[Dan Herrmann]

My best experience when when I looped for Laura at our club championship.   I was the only person looping for the ladies, and it was match play.  She was playing a friend who's a good stick and a good friend.

Laura ended losing 3&2, but she played well against a much better player.  When were done, the opponent smiled and said, "It felt like it was 2 against 1 out there!"

The next year, about half of the players had their husbands looping for them

[BCowan]

Great story Dan, it is funny how it only takes one person to get people thinking

[Rob Curtiss]

I was playing Merion a few weeks back and my caddies name was Steve- awesome caddie- played on the mini-tours in the Arizona area in the off season.

He read ever putt perfectly-and by the fifth hole - he knew exactly what club to give me by watching my previous shots-

One thing I do when I play with a caddie is ask him/her for stories . Do they get a lot of good players or mostly bad players.

He told me this story-

So he has this guy that is struggling like crazy- he gets an 12 on the first hole ( par 4 ) and a 15 on the second hole ( par 5 ).
The guy asks the caddie - what do I put on the score card ? Dont we stop at 8.
The response he wanted to say but couldnt " If you were going to stop at 8, then pick up the F-ing ball after 8 and stop making me look for it"

Talk about someone that slows the game down

[John Cowden]

What are the chances?  Last October on a three week Scotland trip, two different caddies, at two different courses, both told me the biggest a.....e they ever caddied for was Dan Quayle.   The details were a bit different but the gist was the same.  Just a world class jerk.

[Joe Bausch]

What are the chances?  Last October on a three week Scotland trip, two different caddies, at two different courses, both told me the biggest a.....e they ever caddied for was Dan Quayle.   The details were a bit different but the gist was the same.  Just a world class jerk.

Mr. Potatoe-Head!

 

[CJ Carder]

I've had several really good enjoyable experiences with caddies.  A few were memorable, and only 1 or 2 I would say was a waste.  Among my most memorable:

1.  Playing Kingsbarns, I had a caddy Gavin.  He was probably 20 or 21 but had caddied for a number of guys in the Dunhill.  Anyway, I get around in 37 on the front and as we're walking up to the 10th tee, my friend asks me "What'd ya shoot? 42?" Gavin blurts out and retorts "F*** 42, it was a 37."  While my buddy was teeing off on 10, Gavin proceeded to stuff all my trash (coke bottle, snickers wrapper, etc) into my buddies golf bag (where the clubs go, not in the pockets) and mutters under his breath "Here's your f***ing 42."  To this day, no one in our group shoots a 42, it's a f*** 42.

2.  Playing the Old Course, I had hit an awful tee shot on 13 way left and was blocked out from view of the green by the large mound.  I asked my caddy how far it was and he replied "ah, tis a 3-wood and a taxi from here."  I laughed and figured I'd take a swipe at a 3-wood.  When my ball crept on the front edge, my caddy took my club and said "beep beep."

3.  Playing Troon, we had a guy in our group that was playing horribly and visibly shaken.  So his caddy starts talking to him about alcohol and finally gets the guy to open up a bit.  The guy says that he's a big fan of scotch and that while his game sucks, he's a scratch handicap when it comes to drinking.  The caddy points to another caddy in the group who had been stumbling all over the place from the first tee and says "see that guy up there?  He's a +4."

4.  My last memorable one was the first round I played on the Ocean Course @ Kiawah.  I can't remember the guy's name, but I remember he had played baseball at UConn and was working at Kiawah while getting his masters at the College of Charleston.  I was playing in the afternoon in August and there was no one teeing off within an hour of me either side.  So it was just the two of us walking the Ocean Course and talking about everything.  He pointed out stuff you'd never notice in a normal round of golf (and certainly not in a cart) and we had a great time with the course mostly to ourselves.  I had a rough start (+6 through 5) but he settled me down and I played the rest of the round even par to shoot 78.

[Dave McCollum]

Most of my limited caddie experiences have been positive and humorous.  I’ve told this one before, but worth repeating.  Playing the old course, I quickly learned my caddie didn’t play golf and couldn’t read putts.  He was the dour type and didn’t say much.  The other caddie in our group could read putts and was funny and outgoing.  I had this very lofted fairway metal I carried instead of 4 iron.  It was called a “Loft Wood” by Ping and just had a “L” on the sole.  My buddies soon dubbed it my lesbian wood.  Early in the round I automatically asked for my lesbian wood.  Puzzled, I had to show him the club.  For some reason for the rest of the round I kept hearing “Dave, I think it’s a lesbian.”  I hit it well all day.

At the end of the round, the other caddie came over noted that I hit my lesbian wood pretty well.  He then looked at my shoes, Nike running shoe styled golf shoes, and asked “are those the new Nikes for dikes, the ones with extra long tongues that you can get off with one finger?”  We ended up sharing a few pints at the Dunvegan.

The one cool thing my caddie did that day was at the 10th, the short par 4 playing downwind in a good breeze.  I hit my drive, turned and handed him the driver.  Without a word or a change of expression, he handed me my putter. 

[ed_getka]

Opening day at Pacific Dunes and I am playing the most wretched golf of my life by a wide margin, to the point that I am truly thinking about giving up the game of golf. I ask my caddy (a good golfer as I remember) if he knew anyone in the market for clubs. He said he didn't and went on to recommend that I mention the virgin sweet spots in my ad. That cracked me up and my game showed some signs of life by the end of the day. His comment turned my trip around. Still have those Wilson Staffs.

[astavrides]

What are the chances?  Last October on a three week Scotland trip, two different caddies, at two different courses, both told me the biggest a.....e they ever caddied for was Dan Quayle.   The details were a bit different but the gist was the same.  Just a world class jerk.

I'd like to hear some details.

[Jamey Bryan]

A couple of years ago I was playing May River.  Nobody in my group was playing well, but we were all so pleasantly surprised with the quality of the course we were enjoying ourselves greatly and the caddies were great sports.  Along about the end of the front nine, all four of us hit good approach shots and, upon reaching the green, found all four inside five feet or so.  One of the caddies announces loudly "Damn!  Brokeback Mountain!!"   We all looked at him and someone asked what the hell he meant.  He responded.....

"Two pairs of balls both close to the hole."

It was ten minutes before we could putt......

[Bruce Katona]

Jamey: That was a good one....coffee spray onto the laptop screen!!

[Jim Nelson]

Playing Royal Portrush a few years ago and while the round starting out with hope and anticipation, it quickly went south with me hacking may way thru the front nine.  My caddie, George, was in his mid-70s, had played plenty of golf but recently had to give up the game because of various ailments.  I began to moan and complain about my shots and finally turned to George, whining about how I was playing, frustrated to come all this way and play so poorly.  George turned and look me up and down carefully, finally saying "Laddie, I'd be happy to change places with ya" in his Irish brogue.  I felt like an idiot but embraced the message and said "How right you are George".  From that point on, I stopped feeling sorry for myself, picked up my game and had a wonderful day.  I'll never forget George and his message and hope he is well.