Caddy Experiences

[Jeff_Brauer]

In TD's cost thread, caddies were mentioned.  I think we had a similar thread years ago, but what are your memorable caddie experiences, specifically, caddie insults directed your way or to a member of your group?

Playing TOC at an ASGCA meeting, my playing partner, after slicing nearly a dozen OB, decided on the 18th that there was NO way he was going to plunk the hotel or cars just right of the fw, aimed way left, and then double crossed it, hitting OB over the right of No. 1 FW.

Caddy thinks a minute and says, "Well, I've never seen that, but I've only been here 42 years......"

[Matt Bielawa]

Not a huge insult, but a bit of a zinger:

After hitting my tee shot in the water on 17 at Kiawah, I ask "Is there a drop area" and get back from the caddy "You're standing on it."

Best caddy I ever had was at Sawgrass.  It was in a tournament and he loosened me up by getting me talking about college basketball most of the day.  Was good friends with Jonas Blixt and had some good stories to tell.

[Ally Mcintosh]

I took my first ever caddy when I played Boston GC in August with Thomas Dunne. Tom said he was one of the finest he had come across. The guy instinctively knew everything. I was lucky.

Still, I would have preferred the game carrying my own bag. I really don't understand the attraction.

[Matt Bielawa]

On the attraction of caddies, I agree with you when they're nothing more than bag-carriers.  It's nice to not have to rake bunkers, but not worth the money.  However, when they're what I would call career caddies, I think there's a definite benefit.

My guy at Sawgrass definitely saved me a few shots in a tournament round.  First, he saved me from being my stupid self.  He looked at my lies in the Bermuda rough and clubbed me....I wanted to hit a 5 iron once, and he said "No way...you can't get more than an 8 iron on that."  I also told him before we teed off that I'm from the North and have a hard time judging the grain on Bermuda greens.  He was very helpful there too.  A guy like that is more than a bag-carrier, he's a teammate.

[Chris Mavros]

At Chambers Bay, I started off terribly.  My caddie pulled me aside and told me I would never see anyone in my group again (I showed up as a single), so who cares how I play.  He then started walking me through shot by shot until I got back to normal.  He also caddied for Cliff Kresge a lot and had a lot of good stories.  I would say the caddie was a big part of making that an enjoyable round for me.  

[Jordan Standefer]

Not an insult, but certainly memorable.  I had a caddy who had an interesting way of communicating green reads.

Me:  I see about a cup outside left.  What do you think?

Caddy:  I'd play it out a little further.  It's more like a "B" cup.

For the rest of the day, putting lines ranged from A's to DD's and never failed to get a chuckle.

[Josh Bills]

Played in Ireland in 2002 with my two brothers and father.  Our first course out of the gate was Old Head.  We drew a caddy named Tom.  He was giant with fingers like potato spuds.  His idea of a conversation was pointing which way the green broke and that was it.  My brother Jeff was playing extremely well and as we approached the 17th par 5 Jeff was thinking of going for the green in two.  He crushed a driver into the wind and in the fairway pulled another driver.  This time he topped it about 4 feet.  The caddy reached for another club, but Jeff declined.  This time he striped a driver to about 2 feet at which point Tom spoke more words than he had spoken all day, "Nice shot sunshine."  We all smiled and still smile to this day about that day.  

Forgive the old photo but this was before digital.  As you could guess Tom is the caddy on the left.

[Wayne_Freedman]

Playing in China.
Young female caddy informs me that a steep looking roll on the green will, "Only break one puttah."

"Really?"

"One puttah."

So I trust her and it breaks, not two inches, but thee feet. "One putter, huh?"

Caddy holds her arms about 36 inches apart. "One puttah!"

[Terry Lavin]

Played Butler National one day. Not well, mind you, but I was having fun. My caddie was an entitled sort of a guy whose father was the CEO of a national rental truck company. (I learned that on the second tee.). I had a blind second shot on a par five and I couldn't see where it went. I caught up to his forecaddying position and asked him where it ended up. "You'll never believe it. In the middle of the fairway!"  I sent his smug ass back to the shack.

[Joel_Stewart]

Seems like some of the newer clubs have very good caddies, people that are young and eager.

I've had good and bad at the older club.  First time I played Cypress Point the guy was a pro trying to make it on the mini tours.  Next time I had a guy who was mad at the world and wouldn't talk.

First time I played TOC the guy was 80 years old and wore a trench coat.  He had been up all night.

This year playing Mayacama with Ran we had a 30 year old guy who really worked hard.  He literally jogged a good portion of the time.

[Jason Walker]

I've got some good ones, most versions of stories told before.

But a memorable one was this year.  Playing St Andrews Old with my father for my 40th and his 70th birthday.  We get set up with two fantastic caddies and let them know I'm a 6 index and my father is a 19.  A small match with two locals in our group ensues. We're having a great day, and I am even par through 16, striking the ball as well as I have all year.  We get to 17 and I proceed to knock one dead into the hotel, just a horrible golf swing.  I plug in again, and as is usually the case pump one on a perfect line.  I hand my driver to the caddy and mutter a few bombs about ruining a great round with that swing, and he calmly puts his arm on my shoulder and says "I've been waiting on that one since you went out in 1 under"

[Tim Martin]

Favorite was on the short 1st hole at Westchester CC where my host knocks it to 10 feet for birdie and three putts. The caddie looks at him and says" You know sir three putting is a lot like jerking off. You feel real bad about it but you know you are going to do it again". Plenty of laughter ensued and kicked off a great day.

[Matt Glore]

The best caddie I ever had was at Whistling Straits.  He's double bagging me and by golfing buddy.

We are on #7 tee box waiting for the group ahead.  I go and eat a snack and get a drink of water.  When the green clears he walks to the back of both our bags to club us, and steps on my buddy's banana that he pulled out to snack on.

He bends down grabs the destroyed fruit, holds it up high and announces  "Sorry boss I stepped on your banana!"
It's become a running joke when we are at a course and see bananas around.  I'm sure people are passing judgment that we are crazy.

[John Kavanaugh]

...

[John Kavanaugh]

...

[Gib_Papazian]

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 food.  

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:  

[Rob Curtiss]

last year I played Mayacama- my first time with a caddie-

I was practicing on the range just hitting bee bee's when my caddie introduced himself to me..I froze

I couldnt hit the ball anymore- got the shanks- it was horrible

I shot 63 on the front 9 with someone that was nice enough to host me- was so pissed.

we made the turn and the caddie comes over to me and smacks my arm and says are you going to stop f-ing around and play, i saw your swing on the range...

i shot 39 on the back- and he got a healthy tip for it

[Jason Topp]

Season long four ball match play event semi finals.  The biggest challenge with such events is actually scheduling the matches.  My partner negotiates for weeks to schedule the round which can only be played at 5pm in August meaning that darkness could become an issue if the match is close.

An all out pillow fight ensues and we reach the 18th green even as the sun is beginning to set in the western sky.  We turn back into the sun, halve the first hole and face the hobson's choice of either finishing the match in the dark or trying to schedule a time to play a hole or two.  We decide to play on.

I block it right in some pine trees and it is really dark there.  I manage to punch a shot along the ground onto the green.  My two putt is enough to win the match.  Our caddie, my partner and I all congratulate each other and start walking back to the clubhouse.  I hand my caddie the putter and look to his shoulder and then to the panicked expression on his face.  He left my clubs somewhere!  It turned out they were in the trees.

We mentioned that incident a few times with the caddie over that season.  He is now graduating from college and will do very well in life.  

[Ronald Montesano]

To be continued:  

TO BE CONTINUED?!?!?


YOU SONUFABEACH...DON'T LEAVE US HANGING LIKE THAT!!!

[Dan Kelly]

...

Darn. Had my reply all ready:

Do you really have to choose?

[Paul Carey]

Me:  "Will we find that one?"

Caddie (in a great Irish accent):  "Find it?  Fuck, we aren't going to even look for it!"

[Padraig Dooley]

I got to know a lot of caddies the times I was down in South Africa. One of them, Jumbo, used to invite me in to Soweto to play a round in Soweto CC but with one thing or another never got around to it, until the last time I was down there in March 2008. Jumbo wasn't around but one of the other caddies, Matt, took me there.

We had lunch and headed down to Soweto, on the journey down he was telling me that he was on a housing list waiting for a house. He was on the list 3 years at the time and could be waiting up to 8 years for a house. We stopped off at Soweto CC to have a look around. It was a damp early Autumn's day so we didn't play. During the week they used branches for flagsticks and at weekends used flagsticks.

Here's Matt holding a 'flagstick'



And a couple of other poor quality grainy images of the course.



Can just make out the branch on the right hand side of the green



Distance Marker



We proceeded on to where he was staying. Matt was a pretty good caddy and would have worked regularly on the Sunshine Tour during the season and in Randpark when tournaments weren't on. He was also a pretty good player as well. So he had a regular income and would have made good enough money in comparison to some of the other residents in Soweto, where there would have been up to 70% unemployment in areas of it. He was staying in a rented room at the back of another house, in the room where his girlfriend and son also lived was a double bed, on either side of the double bed was a bedside cabinet and about a meters room to each wall and there was also about 2 meters from the end of the bed to the wall, where there was some cabinets, a tv, microwave and an electric hob.

We headed on to the Hector Pieterson Museum which chronicles the events around a Police Massacre in 1976

Hector was one of the slain children and here is a photo of him being carried away by another child.

 

After the museum just before I headed back to Jo'Burg's Northern Suburbs, we headed to a large shopping mall, the Maponya Mall, with the conspicuous consumption associated with every shopping mall around the world there, which really contrasted greatly with the thousands struggling to make a living not too many meters from its doors.


  

[Bill Brightly]

I have hundreds of caddy stories, both as a player and as a caddy. I'll think of a few good ones.

But I want to talk about one of the coolest caddy programs I have ever seen: Beverly CC in Chicago. (Thanks to Terry Lavin and Jack Crisham!) They only use high school kids, and each kid carries only one bag. (The club wants to support the local Southside Chicago community and has a policy against full-time "professional" caddies, they even discourage college-age caddies.)

They were clearly only bag carriers, and made no pretense about being able to read your putts or suggesting a club. But there was always one or two kids forecaddying, there was not a hint of a lost ball, and they were standing next to your ball when you get there. (That is a major plus to me, an unabashed fusspot about caddy techniques, I hate waiting for my caddy to arrive!)

Each kid carried a container of divot mix and filled in your divots.

We had two boys and two girls in our group, and they all were enthusiastic and happy for the opportunity to make $70 or $80 for their time.

If you are from Australia, the UK or Ireland, you'll never understand what a refreshing change this was from the caddy experience at most private clubs in the US. But I loved it, and still chuckle when thinking back to the thought of these little troupes of people all over the course: four golfers and four young caddies. It was wonderful.

PS: I left the club on a tight time schedule and went straight to the airport. When I arrived back in New Jersey, I realized that my caddy had accidentally left her divot mix attached to my golf bag. Naturally, I scattered that mix as well as I could in my front yard in the hope of introducing a good bent grass strain, and hopefully I'll be able to bring the container back soon!

[John Kavanaugh]

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

[Ash Towe]

Not quite what you are asking.

Best caddie experience was at Sebonack.  The guy was called Aussie Dave.  Really added to a great experience.