The caddy’s job really starts here.
Preparation is all well and good but where your experience matters is now.
You’re down the middle of the fairway – middle stripe in fact – you’re five paces off the red dot and the flag is 9, 4L… eh?
In the yardage book – or bible as you’ll get to appreciate it as – will be a series of random dots that conveniently coincide with painted dots sprayed onto the fairway by the yardage book guy some days before. They have been specifically placed there with a reference in the bible to an exact yardage to the front of the green. So if we are five paces in front of the red dot and the red dot in the book says 150 underneath it you have…? That’s right 145 yards to the front of the green. Well done you.
Then on the little sheet presented to you on the first tee, you’ll be given a series of numbers and letters corresponding to each hole i.e. 9 4L which means the hole has been cut 9 yards on and 4 yards from the left-hand side of the green at that point. So you then relay this ever so complicated math to your player by the way of a figure to the front edge (145) and then the distance to the hole itself (154 - I like to draw a little flag to indicate this but you do what you like - it’s your book after all).
Should the pin be over a bunker and you can’t see the bottom of the flag then a glance at the book will tell you it’s four yards short of the green so telling your player it’s 141 yards to clear the bunker might be worth a mention.
Then a little check on what the wind is doing and it’s club selection time. Most girls hit a 7iron around the 140-150yard mark but always worth checking this before you get on the course – preferably by watching where the 7iron lands whilst on the range. They’ve been hitting balls long enough to know how far they hit the ball but you ought to know really.
You will also have taken into account what the greens are up to on your wander around a few holes in the morning too. Being early will not only please your superstitious player but also allow you to see how the course is behaving on that day too. If it rained the night before then the greens will be soft and receptive. Strong wind overnight will have dried them out making irons into them bounce and run a little first - all important information to know as a caddy. Players are not allowed on the course before a round but the caddy is so providing you don’t get in the way of your fellow competitors you can walk around the full 18 if you fancy it.
So you have a temperate breeze slightly into from the left and the greens are firm after no rain for a few days and with your knowledge of the greens’ receptiveness you know the ball’s going to bounce hard and roll a few yards so in the words of Dennis Hopper in Speed – what do you do?
The breeze is making it an extra club so in your head, you mentally note down a 6iron for starters. Then with the breeze off the left and a left-hand pin location, it’s not going to be worth going for the flag as there’s a bunker looming a few feet away. At this point, you wait as you never commit to a club or shot before the player as it will throw them off their natural instinct.
So when they say ‘I’m thinking 6iron straight at the flag as the wind will take it away from danger and leave me a straight uphill putt as we discussed in the pro-am yesterday…’ you pat yourself on the back, hand them the club du choix and encourage them with the visions of the shot and tell them to commit to targets you spoke about on the range.
Easy.
Well, unless their head's all over the place and say, ‘I can get there with a 7iron and I’m going to fade one in there like I’ve never been able to do before now…’
Ahem, you’re not Tiger Woods, love – back to reality – it’s early on in the day and although you swung it well on the range this ain’t the shot for the first hole. So you then have to dissuade them against the play they want and paint a picture of security for them rather than the catastrophic vision of impending doom you’re predicting. Never that easy I can tell you.
If she has her heart set on option ‘a’ then you gotta go with it. Any caddy worth his salt will tell you that. Not only do you have to go along with it you then have to contradict every principle you've ever lived by and encourage her it's the right shot and with every morsel of encouragement you can muster up, look her in the eye and tell her she's right. You can then turn away and scribble profanities in your book.
Occasionally they’ll pull off a career shot and land it next to the pin leaving a tap in birdie but more often than not they’ll complete the vision of utter disaster you predicted and leave you heading towards the bunker after they fatted it in there.
Lesson one learned then; the player is always right.
Difficult to swallow but there you have it. You can’t have a player hitting a shot they’re not fully committed to. It just won’t work. Our job is to suggest an alternative to their madness and hope they bloody well listen. A good caddy worth his % will convey his humble opinion in such a convincing and authoritative manner as to appear to be the righteous one thus evaporating the original nonsense.
I worked for a very strong-minded Swedish girl for one event only at the beginning of my time out on tour who taught me some of the biggest lessons. She was a tough cookie who knew her game and knew what she wanted out of a caddy and her own career.
We were on the course during a practice round on our first day together when she turned to me after a particularly poor shot and instead of cursing and hurling the 6iron towards me she calmly turned and said, “Chris, you know if I hit a bad shot and it seems like we’ve hit the wrong club, wrong line or whatever that it’s never your fault, ok?”
Ok.
She struck me as someone who would pass the buck as quick as she took praise but she was actually realistic about how things worked between herself and her caddy. Since then it has always been my goal to accept that whatever shot we agree on and whatever club and line we decide on that she is the one who has to be entirely happy with it before pulling the trigger.
So. whenever she hit the occasional shocker she would be understandably mad and might say a few derogatory things to me but I knew deep down that she didn’t mean it. She was just a little disappointed in herself for not playing the right shot or club.
I’ve always noticed, however when professionals from whichever tour are interviewed the plural is always used when a poor shot has been executed or a bad round played, “We played a bad shot out there…” or “Yeah we just couldn’t get it going out there today…’ etc. but when the player has had a blinder it’s; “Yeah I played some great golf; I chose some good clubs and I played a great round…” etc. Professional golfers are a funny bunch.
So your player hits an ok shot – not spinning back behind the flag to three feet but you’re on the dance floor and putting. You hand her the putter and commend her ‘fine’ play.
The Green
When you get to the green there are a number of things to consider: firstly for convenience and to avoid the oldest pet hate in the etiquette handbook you leave your clubs towards the next tee rather than on the front edge of the green that annoys, well, everyone.
Before you put the bag down however you have to consider where your player’s ball is. If you put the bag down on her through line or behind the ball in line with the hole you can be accused of providing a target which is somewhat frowned upon amongst the tournament officials and the R&A – don’t want to get in their bad books.
You then ought to consider if the bag is in anyone else’s line too – not an offence per se but it can irritate the overly superstitious. So that’s seven places you can’t put the bag so far.
Happy that you’ve not ruined anyone’s karma or Feng shui, you safely and quietly deposit the bag on the ground as flat as you can so that it can’t move inadvertently during anyone’s crucial putt. You then grab your trusty towel that if you haven’t already dunked into a water feature or under a tap you ought to have done. A dry towel is as much good as the proverbial teapot. Spitting on the ball might be ok for your own ball but she doesn’t want her ball returned dripping in her caddy’s saliva.
She’ll then mark her ball and casually toss you the ball for a clean. Bad kudos if you drop it. Careful.
Being cautious not to walk on anyone’s line of putt, through line or generally get in anyone’s way you’ll have as casual a glance as you can at the putt she’s left herself.
Every player/caddy relationship is different. Some players need a second opinion on the putt ahead – some would rather stick with their own instinct. Either way it’s good to have a look and use your own judgment in case they ask. There won’t be time to walk around the entire putt twice so do it whilst they’re doing it.
There are a few complications before you reach this point. Should your playing partner have fatted their second shot into the bunker your unofficial role as fellow caddy is to either clean their ball once they have played onto the green or should they not advance their ball nearer the flag than your own player’s, the done thing is to rake the bunker so their caddy can do the job I have just done.
The bunkers are raked, the balls are all clean then it’s etiquette time. Whoever is furthest from the hole goes first aux naturellement but who gets the flag? If your player is last to play as she’s nearest the hole then you ought to get it as you’ll invariably be the last to put it back – make sense?
The exception to that rule is the distance away from the hole of the furthest ball. If they’re miles away then their caddy might want to tend the flag for them. Then you’ll awkwardly pass the flag to their caddy. Complicated innit?
Whilst this complex charade is going on you must take note where you player’s ball pitched and then where it ran on to. Just so you know exactly what the ball is doing on the green for future reference. You also need to find the little red dot again. Whilst all this is going on? You’re kidding! Afraid not.
Should you find the offending spot you then pace out where it is and take a note in your book. You’ll get a pin sheet the following day but its useful to know whether it is up or down a slope and if so by how much etc. It is also advisable to show your player where tomorrow’s pin will be too as she needs to be able to visualise it from the viewpoint of the green now rather than 150yards back down the fairway tomorrow.
So all the girls have had a putt. And now all three balls are within a few feet from the hole. If there were strict rules as to which caddy should take the flag then the player’s ball nearest the hole would take it from whoever currently has it but then that would be dull. Often the caddy whose player has completed her hole will walk over discretely towards the remaining player's caddy who will walk in the opposite direction. It’s amazing what you can get away with out there without the players noticing.
These are just some of the little tricks and gags the caddies do to entertain themselves out on the course for five hours at a time. Providing you don’t disrupt play or worse still upset a player whilst she’s in her pre-putt routine or worse still over a putt it’s all good banter.
So flag deposited you head off to the next tee and begin the process again.
Psychology
That is all logistics though. What happens when everything’s going well; you’re a couple under par through the front nine and you're both getting on like the proverbial house and then she slaps one out of bounds off the par three 10th? It’s a pretty straightforward six iron and she pulls it straight left with a vicious snap hook and you watch through your fingers as it bounds down the hill out of sight. You throw her another ball and tell her to trust her swing, slow it down, whatever she needs to hear and then she leaves her third short of the green, chips up and three putts. She’s gone from two under par to two over on one of the easiest holes on the course.
You know it’s just a minor glitch so you give her a minute to gather her thoughts – no point talking to her now. The last thing she needs is a good telling off right now. She watches her partners teeing off and then it’s her go. She’s had time to think negatively so now it’s time to focus positively on the shot ahead. You hand her the driver and tell her to focus on the target, trust her swing, concentrate, forget about the last hole, grit her teeth, get angry and get on with it.
She pulls the trigger and pushes it so far right you crane your neck looking at it drift into the trees. It’s a natural reaction to push a shot after pulling the backside off it not ten minutes before. You know it’s gone and suggest a provisional. She’s not listening now - her head’s gone completely. She says it’s fine and starts walking off after it. You’re left there wondering whether to leave the bag on the tee because you know she’s going to need to come back and hit another. Sadly you can't.
As we learned earlier you aren’t the one in charge but as the saying goes you have to be the one who "keeps their head whilst all around you are losing theirs". So you gingerly suggest another whack once again but she’s 100yards away now and fuming, steam emanating from every pore.
So you have to go with her. You spend your allocated five minutes looking for the ball. When you have to find it you never do. Sometimes when you’ve had the forethought to hit a provisional and wander into woods to look for the first you suggest to your playing partners not to look too hard or better still look in totally the wrong place pr neater still with your eyes shut. The second ball is in the middle of the fairway – if you find the first ball and it’s embedded in a bush with nowhere to drop it you could be playing your third from deep within the trees and hacking your way out for the rest of the afternoon. It’s often a better option to take your medicine and look for a minute or two, declare the ball missing in action and play your fourth from the middle of the fairway.
This is called using the rules to your advantage and where an experienced caddy earns his extra money.
There are a number of things to do or say to your player at this point but it all depends on whether they are prepared to listen or not. The experienced caddy will have earned a level of respect over the years and the player will have employed him based on this. So she's more likely to listen to him than some young whippersnapper who merely says "There there, love."
So you’ve declared the ball lost (thankfully) and weigh up the next shot to the green ahead. It’s not a tricky shot - 113 to the front and 123 to the pin. Under normal circumstances it would be a good nine iron leaving an uphill putt. She’s all over the place though. Cursing under her breath, swearing to herself, beating herself up mentally. You have to get her out of this or it’s curtains for the week.
She’s a good golfer – one of the best in her country – that’s why she’s here. She played herself on to this tour and why she’s not teeing off at 8am in the morning like the girls who are struggling this year. A sensible 10am tee time means she’s in the top flight on the Ladies European Tour. Not only that but she can afford a caddy meaning she must be doing ok!
She had a minor lapse in concentration and sprayed one left on the last hole. You don’t play like that all the time do you? You’ve built a trustworthy swing and one that works so trust it and use it. Concentrate on the task in hand and commit your target.
Plan it; See it; Feel it: Trust it.
Plan it together and agree on a shot and club.
See and feel what you want the ball to do in the air and where you want it to land.
Trust the shot. Trust your swing.
Sometimes you need to pull her away for a minute and pop on the old school teacher head telling the pupil to behave herself and listen. With these points absorbed and understood you wait to wait for some confirmation that all is well in the camp before reconfirming it to her whilst she’s lining up.
Alignment
There’s a proverb in this game that suggests that 90% of the golf swing is alignment.
Hard to know exactly whether that is scientifically accurate but I would say this; if you're not facing the right way the ball ain’t going to go the right way is it?
So whilst you watch her hit countless balls on the range you, as a caddy have to keep an eye on where she’s aiming and, equally as important, how her set up looks. If you’ve been doing this crazy job long enough and are a reasonable golfer yourself you’ll know a fair bit about the mechanics of the golf swing. So when she’s spraying them consistently left or right you’ll probably know what to look for.
So at this point you’ll just wander behind her and have a look where she’s pointing and providing all is well you’ll remind her to commit to her target and stop being such a big girl’s blouse etc.
With any luck this will strike a chord within her and she’ll park a little nine iron up to about three feet and roll a positive putt in for birdie thus restoring a little bit of self confidence.
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