[Phil_the_Author]

After a long day at Kingsbarns of setting slicing records where I was even walking to the right, my good caddy, Jerry the fireman (say hello to him for me, Martin) strongly sdvise me to aim way left over the hills & heather on 18 in hopes that my ball might at least end up in sight of the fairway.

Well, I crushed it straight, high and very, very long. Jerry turned to me with a wee Scottish grin on his lips, and said, "What a shame Phil, you were cursed with the dreaded straight ball..."   

[Steve_ Shaffer]

How about this classic caddy story from Scotland:

An American asks his caddy if he can reach the green with a 5 iron. The caddies reply:"Eventually."

[Matt OBrien]

Ari techners story may be at the top so far guys. 

[Mark Bourgeois]

That Merion story really proves golf is like life.

How bout this one:  Ike at Burning Tree had a habit of improving his lie, under the cover story he was "identifying" his ball.

One day he gave it a roll...and the ball went right up against a rock. He looks up and asks his caddie, "What happened?"

"Mr. President, I'm afraid you have over-identified your ball."

[Darren deMaille]

Has anyone heard of the caddie who tossed a set of clubs off the bridge on to the train tracks at oakmont? 

[Darren deMaille]

One time playing with members, my partner was 155 from the flag.  He went on to top his shot moving it about a yard.  The caddie picked up the bag took one pace and then quoted "you have 154 to the flag". 

[Doug Wright]

1990 my first ever round in Scotland at Carnoustie no less. My jet lagged colleague Norv is really struggling but he has a very pleasant caddy named Stuart. On the par 5 6th after five really  bad holes, Norv duffs his drive about 50 yards. Stuart takes the driver from Norv, saying "Very strategic sir!" 

We've been using that phrase for our really bad shots since.

[Brent Hutto]

I recall a story a friend of mine told after playing at Crail and hiring a particularly useless caddie. There was a long shot over water so the player asks "How long is the carry on line with that pole on the other side?" to which the caddie replied "Looks pretty far".

[Wyatt Halliday]

As told by caddie at Bandon:

Jet-setter gets to the resort, walks onto the property and proceeds to tip everyone Rodney Dangerfield style. He was loud, obnoxious, and a hell of a player to boot. Prior to the round he tells his caddy "Get the memo: don't speak unless you are spoken to". All day the guy is particularly boisterous regarding where he has played, how good he was, asking if the bag was heavy etc. 

He's five under standing in 17 fairway at Bandon. The wind picks up promtping him to solicit advice from his caddie for the first time all day. The advice is "9-iron. It puts you just past that front flag, which is right where you want to be". The player berates him, says "I didn't come here for a haricut, give me the wedge, I want birdie". The player proceeds to cold shank the wedge off the right side, bast the bunker and down the cliff. He then rears back, chucks the wedge into the chasm, turns to the caddie fuming and yells "What now O-great bag genius"?

The caddie replies: "You may want to throw a provisional wedge, you aren't going to find that one"

[Bob_Huntley]

Gleneagles in a pro-am.

Sean Connery, after a not stellar round and having given his caddie a ration of grief for his own abyssmal performance, gets to the eighteenth hole.

The caddie in his long coat, scarf around his neck wearing a rat-catchers hat and drawing on the last millimetre of a fag waited for further instructions.

Connery then said, "Caddie, let me have have my watch. Now take the bag to the car, I don't want anyone taking photos of me and I'll not be giving interviews, so don't dwardle. The caddie, who shall remain nameless looked up and replied. "Excuse me sir, are ye famous, should I know yer?

The squelch of the year.

[TEPaul]

"First guys, I need some help...
Is Smitty the name of the caddy at Pine Valley whose claim to fame, actually one of many, are the volumes of poetry he has penned about the golf course?  Actually, for every one of the poems he has composed there is a caddy story about him.
Quickly, someone jump in...Smitty, right.  I don't want to attribute this story to the wrong looper.


Gordon

I asked the same question on the 'best caddie' thread, and Sulli confirmed that that is Smitty.

James B"




That's Smitty alright. I've been out with him a lot and will never forget the first time in the Crump Cup where it seems like he reeled off a poem probably on every hole most of them seemingly about the ghosts and spirits around Pine Valley that were probably the Indians. It was the greatest. But you know, you're also trying to play and compete and there's just something about Smitty that way---he really sort of gets you in a great frame of mind and you really have fun out there with him no matter what's going on in the match.

Of course, with caddies stories of the humorous variety I don't think it's possible to top Rocky. Some of the stuff he's come up with has made it into magazine articles.

But if the subject of caddies and Pine Valley ever comes up one should always mention Lenny Ward who, in my opinion, basically runs Pine Valley in many ways. How he manages players around that place is otherworldly seamless. Lenny's the greatest!

I think some of them actually read GOLFCLUBATLAS.com sometimes and if they read this thread I would like to take this opportunity to say:

Hi Smitty

Hi Lenny

Rocky, go stuff it----you wild and crazy guy! 

[TEPaul]

This has been on here before but years ago and for those who never saw it here it is again:

One day at Pine Valley Rocky was out with this guy who was getting under Rocky's skin because the guy was acting like he was some touring pro caliber golfer the way he was carrying on. He was apparently a big tall corporate honcho or something and for those who don't know him Rocky is short and stout.

So they are on the 17th fairway and this guy hits a good shot onto the 17th green, the surface of which is blind from the approach.

The guys gushes: "Rocky, IS IT CLOSE??"

So Rocky looks at the guy for a while and then says: "Come on over here?"

The guys says; "What?"

Rocky says: "Come on over here."

The guys says: "What do you mean, come on over where?"

Rocky says: "Come on over here next to me."

So the guy comes on over next to Rocky and says: "What are you doing?"

Rocky says: "Put your head down here next to mine and look at the green."

So the guy's got his head right next to Rocky's looking at the green.

Rocky says: "Tell me what you see, pro."

The guy says: "I don't see anythng."

So Rocky says: "Exactly, so how the F.... do you expect me to know where your ball is on the green?"

[David Stamm]

LOL!!! That one's good, Tom!

[Doug Siebert]

My first time at Carnoustie in '91 I started out terribly, duck hooking every tee shot on my way to 49.  On the 10th tee we had a bit of a wait and I was swinging and figuring out something to try and straighten out my drives.  When my caddy tells me to hit I unleash a monster straight down the middle which aided by the following wind carries nearly 300 yards and one hops into the head of one of the caddies in front of us who drops like a sack of potatoes.

My caddy and I sorta double timed it up there to see if he was OK and he quickly stood up and rubbed his head as we approached.  I didn't know what to say and whether he'd be mad at me or my caddy, as we approach he unleashes with quite a string of profanity directed at my caddy who only says "he hasn't hit a decent drive all day, I didn't know he could do that!"  The other caddy just stares at him for a moment, then picks up the bag and walks down towards the green.

As we walk off to the left rough to find where my ball went after caroming off his head I told my caddy to tell the other caddy I'm really sorry and hope he's OK.  My caddy tells me "he's fine, he was never right in the head to start with, it might have done him some good".

Hopefully it'll be the only time I ever hit someone in the head, even on the hop.  Still have the ball I hit him with though, thanks to an ace on 16 later that round.  While I was still a bit shaky on the 10th after that experience and doubled it, I played the final 8 holes in level par to rescue what had looked to be my worst round in many years.

[TEPaul]

"Hopefully it'll be the only time I ever hit someone in the head, even on the hop."


Doug:

I too hope it's the only time you hit someone in the head. But did you know if you can manage to hit attractive Scottish ladies in the ass a few times during the round the chances are pretty good they will ask you to join their golf club?   

[archie_struthers]

 


there's a slew of Rocky Carbone stories but before Rocky there was "TEX" 

just  "TEX"  .....no last name ...age absolutely indecipherable..5'7 135  he dressed like a bantam Ben Hogan .... Tex had a girl friend nicknamed 1-iron ...who weighed about 90 lbs.... LaCasa or Eddie's Palm Garden...the two gin mills at the Atlantic Avenue entrance provided their daily caloric requirements. 

One late afternoon  on our second eighteen Tex's player launched a high hard one wayyyyyyyy right on #6.... it was last seen heading  towards Mr. Shelley's (the famous club historian)  house far down the hill....(many frequent guests to PV would never imagine a house could be there....we're talking way right....As luck would have it the ball came to rest in plain sight ...even from a distance...

  Tex who by now was pretty parched and getting ready for his daily dose  walked  over to the edge of the huge pit with a bunch of clubs in hand....his player asked if Tex was going down with him ....a question which elicited a classic response..

"no sir , noooooooo indeed  I'm not going down there....my brother Elvis went down there a few years ago and never came back"

needless to say it was priceless.....


p.s. we never saw Elvis before or since

[Joe Hancock]

Not really a caddy story, but in the same vein....

I was playing in a 4 some and we were on a green that happened to be very close to another green. There was a 4 some of ladies on the other green, and one was particularly beautiful. One of the guys in my group grabs one of his own clubs, and walks over to the stunner. He asks her if she left a club alongside a green, and after a brief glance in her bag, she declares that she had indeed, and took the club from the guy. Of course, we were rolling, and he had to come clean with his ploy in order to get his club back. I pressed on the next tee.......

Joe

[JohnV]

My favorite Rocky story is that a player got to the 14th hole at PV one day and asked Rocky what club to hit Rocky told him a 5 iron.  The player said, "I can get there with a 6."  Rocky disagreed and said he wouldn't clear the water with the 6.  The player was adamant that he could get there with the 6 and took it from the bag.  As he was about to address the ball Rocky came over, bent down next to the ball and said, "Take a deep breath!"

[Michael Powers]

Back in the late 80's I was going to school and picking up loops at LaGorce on Miami Beach.  Most of the caddies were full time drunks at the time and would pound warm Schaefer before their loops.  These guys were not in any physical condition to hump bags, so they forecaddied and just carried the putters.  So one day the Caddy Master Joe comes down and tells me I have a double loop, a couple from Quebec who spoke very little english.  They each had 9 inch Yonex staff bags.  Every club in the bag had graphite shafts and graphite heads and every club had zippered headcovers.  We play the first couple holes and the lady is hitting her 5 iron 3 or 4 times after her tee shot.  So I start putting the 5 iron back in the bag and putting the 5 iron headcover into my back pocket.  She tells me to make sure I put the cover back on the club every time.  This goes on for 12 or 13 holes and I know she is ripping me in french, but I don't really care at this point.  We get out to the back nine and I have just about had enough.  She tells me one more time, I drop the bags, give them my finest "au revoir", hop the fence to the street, and call one of my buddies to pick me up.  The first and only time I have ever bagged a loop.  Joe the Caddy Master (who ran the book on the side) was pissed and I was banned for a year. 

[Gary Daughters]

Somewhere I heard the story of Jim Colbert and his club caddy at a 70's Masters.

It's Sunday and Colbert is in the thing, only to 3-putt #10.  He's devastated, but he convinces himself to collect himself and soldier on.  He stripes a drive at #11 and starts feeling good about himself again.

He's looking at his approach when his caddy catches up to him.

"What do you think?" Colbert asks.

"I think you just pissed the thing away."

[RJ_Daley]

Do any of you fellows who've been around a lot of years know of or remember a caddie nick named, "the Governor"?  He caddied on the tour, before many pros had regular personal caddies.  He would travel from event to event with 2-3 other caddies in a big old aging Cadillac or Lincoln, and they'd drink all the way there to the next stop. 

"The Governor" was sort of a typical 60s-70s boozer and drugie.  But, he was as comical as they come and tragically a loveable harmless young man who looked like an old man from his abuse.  I knew him as a guy from around our hometown hanging in various gin mills.  He had one funny caddie escapade story after the next, with a lot of background humor about well known pros he'd worked for.  I knew him as a friendly fellow always around some of the bars I'd frequent, he would be holding court with the stories and everyone was entertained. 

Unfortunately I had to see him too often professionally due to his drunken escapades and unfortunately a serial DUI, OWI, whatever your local term for drunk driving is.  As unfunny as folks know drunk driving to be, my story isn't about his caddie work but one of his DWI episodes, that if you sidestep the seriousness of it, was one of the funnier things I saw as a cop... 

If anyone actually has heard of "the Governor" maybe I can take the time to tell the story.  It will take a few paragraphs...

He might be similar in legendary caddie escapades and wild living to the poor fellow that got run over by a car at Torrey Pines tournament this year.  The comedy does too often come to a sad end.   

[Patrick Hodgdon]

It was my second or third year caddying at Interlachen in Mpls. It was a normal Friday at the caddyshack (which was then the old garage at the far corner of the parking lot) except that there was a swim meet that day and the parking lot was full. Its about 10am and there about 10 of us or so waiting around killing time before the afternoon play starts around 11. The parking lot there is graded from where you pull in just North of the driving range and runs perpendicular to the range with the shack at the bottom-corner of the grade. There was a new "older" (i.e. 25+) caddy there who no one really knew probably not even been there a week iirc. Lo and behold someone hits a very nasty slice on the range and it must have just gotten to the parking lot it was so bad. Well the ball rolls down the grade just in front of the shack and comes to rest there on the asphalt in front of us. Well this new caddy calmly gets up out of a chair sitting in front of the shack and goes to the side where there were a bunch of old lockers. He comes back with an old partially rusted 5 iron blade that had probably been in locker for at least a decade maybe two. He calmly walks over to the range ball and address' it. At this point all 10 or so of us and the caddymaster are looking at him thinking wtf is he doing. Without even the hint of a wiggle, shake or any type of pre-shot routine or practice swing, he takes the club back and proceeds to hit the best damn 220 yard 5-iron draw (right off the parking lot!!!)  any of us had ever seen in our entire lives, over what had to be a million dollars worth of cars, and back on to the range. We were all speechless and for about 30 seconds and didn't move. He calmly placed the 5-iron back in the locker and sat down with just a tiny hint of a grin on his face. 

He ended up being an assistant pro in the shop later that month and was a scratch golfer and is now a head pro out in Arizona I believe.

[RJ_Daley]

That is very cool.  Nice recounting of the story Pat. 

[Bill_McBride]

Do any of you fellows who've been around a lot of years know of or remember a caddie nick named, "the Governor"?  He caddied on the tour, before many pros had regular personal caddies.  He would travel from event to event with 2-3 other caddies in a big old aging Cadillac or Lincoln, and they'd drink all the way there to the next stop. 

"The Governor" was sort of a typical 60s-70s boozer and drugie.  But, he was as comical as they come and tragically a loveable harmless young man who looked like an old man from his abuse.  I knew him as a guy from around our hometown hanging in various gin mills.  He had one funny caddie escapade story after the next, with a lot of background humor about well known pros he'd worked for.  I knew him as a friendly fellow always around some of the bars I'd frequent, he would be holding court with the stories and everyone was entertained. 

Unfortunately I had to see him too often professionally due to his drunken escapades and unfortunately a serial DUI, OWI, whatever your local term for drunk driving is.  As unfunny as folks know drunk driving to be, my story isn't about his caddie work but one of his DWI episodes, that if you sidestep the seriousness of it, was one of the funnier things I saw as a cop... 

If anyone actually has heard of "the Governor" maybe I can take the time to tell the story.  It will take a few paragraphs...

He might be similar in legendary caddie escapades and wild living to the poor fellow that got run over by a car at Torrey Pines tournament this year.  The comedy does too often come to a sad end.   

We're hanging here..........

[Gordon Oneil]

"First guys, I need some help...
Is Smitty the name of the caddy at Pine Valley whose claim to fame, actually one of many, are the volumes of poetry he has penned about the golf course?  Actually, for every one of the poems he has composed there is a caddy story about him.
Quickly, someone jump in...Smitty, right.  I don't want to attribute this story to the wrong looper.


Gordon

I asked the same question on the 'best caddie' thread, and Sulli confirmed that that is Smitty.

Ok, back again...

I was playing up there with my old friend Jim Waddell shortly before he passed (BTW, on this trip, but not this particular day, he shot 70 just six months before turning 70, both the round and his golf swing had to be seen to be believed).
Smitty was totin' my potato sack for the first time on the first day of this trip, which was kinda surprising since I'd made several trips with Mr. Waddell and played dozens of rounds over the years and we'd never been together.  Well, the beautiful spring day, great company and some pretty good play actually made Smitty's hole by hole recitations of his poetry more than tolerable, practically enjoyable.
Well, he finally came up for air and noticed something about someone else in our group other than himself, setting aside "The Complete and Unabridged Works of Smitty" for a moment, walking down the hill to the 13th green.
"Hey Gordon" he started while checking out my (one) bagtag "you're a member at Indian Creek, huh?"
"Yea, unfortunately for them I'm the Kent Dorfman (legacy) of ICCC.  No way they could avoid me."
"I'll never forget caddying for a couple of groups from there 10-15 years ago.  All supposed to be really good players.  Low single digits.  Well this one guy, to this day he played worse than ANY guy I've seen claiming to be around a 3.  Waddell was one of the members.  Two others, three groups.  Most of them playing for some pretty good cash, not Mr. Waddell but the rest every which way.  Well, this poor guy, I don't think he made but a couple of pars in three days.  Couldn't hit a fairway, even these generous ones.  Horrible putter, just freaked out on every green.  Atrocious iron play.  He hit it in almost every conceivable horrible place that you can think of out here.  Gotta hand it to him though.  Never yelled, carried on or broke a club, I wouldn't have had any left.  He just kept smoking his Cuban cigars (could smoke on the course back then), smiling, drinking CC and losing money.  Poor guy, since then every time I've got a bag who freaks out around here and plays really rotten, I think of this guy, nice guy, but one of the all time worst "good" players I've EVER seen."
"Wow Smitty, quite a story (and I appreciated that it wasn't in iambic pentameter).  Look, I've been playing down there for 10 years or so and gotta know most if not all of the good players.  Tell me, what was this guy's name?"
"I'll never forget that either.  His name was John O'Neil."
"John O'Neil, REALLY Smitty."  "Small world, cause he's my dad."


Only last year did I finally judge my father's pride, ego and self-esteem mature enough to share Smitty's recollections with him...
Believe it or not, still playing some pretty good golf at 78.
And although we'll always be partners, his handicap is still too damn low.

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