Chapter II
First week on tour
My relatively cheap last-minute easyJet flight to Faro landed right on cue and I managed to get a bus to the golf course to meet my new boss. At 11am that Wednesday morning I hauled Johanna Westerberg’s weighty tour bag on to my shoulder and all of a sudden I felt like a professional tour caddy.
We walked down to the range and then the vision hit me again; dozens of beautiful ladies striking golf balls into the mid-morning deep blue Algarve sky. The sun was coming up over the fir trees behind and with my sunglasses donned I watched, nay gaped in awe at the position I found myself in. In true Hollywood fashion, I asked the guy next to me to pinch me in case I was dreaming.
Johanna interrupted my drooling and asked me to go and buy a yardage booklet. Wiping my chin I went to the pro shop and bought a standard issue Strokesaver and returned to her with a sense of achievement. My satisfaction was short-lived as I was told that I’d bought the wrong book and that a guy would be lurking around the clubhouse selling a customised book designed purely for the event that week.
Feeling rather foolish I returned to the clubhouse to locate said vendor and then spent my time on the range looking at this fascinating guide. Unlike the Strokesavers you buy from your local professional, these books are pretty complex. There is a yardage from almost every known and recognisable point of each hole. None of which made sense to me as I stood there watching Johanna biffing ball after ball into the dark blue sky.
I was a complete novice and stood out like a sore thumb. I had no idea what I was doing and my imposter syndrome was rife. As a single-figure golfer and a regular caddy at Wentworth and Sunningdale, I thought I knew all there was to know about golf but out here on tour where every shot mattered, my inexperience was obvious.
Golf to me was playing what my friends and I have always described as either casual/pub golf or ready golf. If you’re ready – play, that sort of thing. We don't get too hung up about whose honour it might be or measuring who's furthest from the hole etc. Unless of course, we're playing in a match when psychology takes over somewhat.
Whilst Johanna warmed up, she asked me if I had walked the course. I replied, “What for?”. she raised an eyebrow and, turning away delved into the bag. She suggested that before we embark on a practice round it’s customary for the caddy to have walked the course with the yardage book and taken some notes.
Seemed a little over the top to me. And anyway we didn't have time now.
I was still on cloud nine and not really any closer to understanding what I, as the caddy of potentially one of Sweden’s best golfers was supposed to do other than carry the bag. So with precious minutes until our tee time, I made a mental note to wing it – usual style.
Half an hour later we wandered to the first tee and after a brief discussion to determine a line with her hapless caddy, Johanna duly launched her Callaway HX Tour ball straight down the throat of the target I had made up on the spot.
In the nick of time, it dawned on me what the dots and/or numbers in the book corresponded to when we happened to land right next to a red spray-painted dot in the middle of the first fairway. Looking at her yardage book, Johanna said, “Ok, we have 180 metres to the front and the pin is 15 on… What do you think, Chris?”
Mesmerised by her beautiful blue eyes all I could do was gulp.
I'd never had to figure out how far a metre was in golfing terms either. In the UK we use yards. When I play I rarely even look at the 150-yard marker. I suppose I am a 'feel' player. I can look at the flag and determine what club I think will get me there. Detailed yardage books were only ever to tell me roughly in which direction to hit it off the tee and if there were any water hazards or bunkers I ought to be aware of.
Scrambling through my pea-brain, my first instinct was to just to whack a 5-wood down there and see what happened - that’s how I play - but I had a feeling she was after a more reliable plan. She suggested she play a 5-iron down the middle thus laying up short of the large bunker wrapping itself around the front of the green ahead. “Yeah, ok.” was my helpful advice.
Johanna opted for security and laid up nicely clipping a 6-iron in the end to leave a favoured yardage to the flag. This I would never have thought of doing. In my game, the ethos is always to get it as close to the green from whatever distance away - even if it meant smashing down on a driver off the fairway - to leave an up and down for a potential birdie. Playing the percentages has never been an option. I didn't even know it was an option.
Johanna’s third shot was a lob wedge that spun delicately next to the pin and she confidently rolled the birdie in - a solid start.
I struggled a bit with the yardage book, which tested my mental arithmetic for the first time in years. When the ball was seven paces in front of the red dot on the fairway, I would often add seven metres to the distance rather than taking it off. Johanna’s tolerance level towards me was incredible. It was only halfway through the third round when once again I made the same mistake that she got ever so slightly irritated with my inability to grasp the principle of relatively simple math.
She biffed it around the hilly and typically Portuguese links with consummate ease in our practice round and at the end gave me a fairly sincere hug and told me we had a 9.10 tee time tomorrow morning and that she’d see me on the range at 8am.
I clicked my heels back to the clubhouse, grabbed my suitcase and thought it best to look for somewhere to stay.
After much ado on the internet, I found myself a little studio not far from the course and settled in quite nicely in the rather lavish setting. I knocked up some pasta, had a couple of beers by the pool in the setting sun and patted myself on the back.
I could get used to this.
The following day we teed it up in the glorious Portuguese sun with Joanne Mills and her caddy Craig. Watching Craig was a real eye-opener for me. He hadn’t been caddying long but was a single-figure golfer and had already notched up a win with Jo at last year’s Wales Open. He was regarded as one of the good guys out here.
Standing on the first tee, we were announced by the starter as ‘the 9:10’ group and that we could commence play when ready. At this point I recall Craig saying the simplest words. “Play well, girls.” I thought this was a simple but lovely thing to say. I’ve been saying it ever since.
I learned several simple caddying lessons over the first two days one of which was when I staggered ahead in the sweltering 35-degree summer heat to the drinks cooler to drown myself in cold water. Craig wandered over and taping me on the shoulder muttered that perhaps Johanna would like a drink before me. This little lesson introduced me to the principle that whatever I was feeling should always be secondary to that of my player - a valuable lesson for all caddies on whichever tour.
Halfway through round two, Johanna was playing rather well. We were five under par for the tournament and going in the right direction. She had birdied three of the first seven holes and was marching up the leaderboard nicely. We stood on the par three 8th tee with 145 metres to the pin and discussed that perhaps a 6-iron straight at the flag would be the requisite club. It was at that point I detected a little insecurity in her mannerisms as she warmed up to the task at hand and I couldn’t figure out why. We’d hit the same club three holes before with a yard less and she’d parked it up six feet away. Only when I looked up and saw Spielberg and his team flocking around the back of the tee and the green ahead that I too felt her anxiety.
When you’re playing well, news travels fast. Clearly. The camera crew had heard Johanna was on a charge and wanted to capture every shot. It was almost as if I’d turned to her and said, “You’re having the round of your life aren’t you?!!” She was all of a sudden aware of the round in progress and the scale of it had hit her. She had changed from the cool, calm, in-control player to someone conscious of her surroundings.
Something was going to go wrong.
She eventually hit the 6-iron and as it spun through the blue sky it looked spot on. Straight at the pin it flew and then disappeared. She looked aghast at me as if I’d hit the ball and asked me where it went. I cowardly said, “Dunno.” ducked my head and picked up the bag.
We got to the green and lo and behold the ball was lodged on an upslope behind the green with an almost impossible lie. She then turned to me and asked what on earth we were doing aiming for the back pin when there were acres of green in front to put it. I didn’t really have an answer but inside I know when you’re playing well, you go for everything don’t you? Clearly not.
The cameras were all over her now and she took quite a long time figuring out how to execute her first test of the week. An eternity later she duffed it three feet leaving the ball still within the sticky clutches of the hillside. She was fuming now. Rightly so. Her efforts over the front nine were coming apart and not only did she know it but the cameras were picking it all up. Even the Swedish swearing.
With our playing partners safely on the green and not knowing where to look, Johanna played it again and credit to her short game nearly holed it. The ball wandered agonisingly past the hole even dipping in to glance at the bottom of the cup. Playing from the back of the green the dance floor dips from back to front and the ball kept rolling and rolling away down towards the front of the green. Johanna hurled the lob wedge at me and snatched the putter out of the bag marching heavy-footed across the putting surface towards the ball. She marked it and then threw the ball at me to clean it. In a manner the New York Yankees would be proud of I catch it without causing too much fuss albeit with a little wince.
I let her read the putt this time as I didn’t want to be responsible for any further calamity and she rolled a decent effort towards the hole. Not a million miles away but sadly not in. She tapped in for a double bogey and solemnly walked towards the edge of the green.
Johanna is a lady and a professional. Many players would have hurled the putter at the bag and stormed off towards the next tee but Johanna calmly put the head cover back on, placed the putter back in the bag and watched her playing partners finish the hole, congratulating them both for their pars before walking towards the ninth.
She asked me again why we didn’t play a seven iron to the middle of the green. I assumed this was a rhetorical question and stayed schtum. Cowardly I know but it seemed like the best thing to do.
With numerous other calamities littering the week’s efforts with frequent yardage mistakes from her moist behind-the-lugs caddy, we did, miraculously have quite a good result. Considering only half of Team Westerberg had a clue what they were doing, we finished 11th overall with an 11-under-par total. She even shot a load of birdies and eagled the 18th in the final round to complete the week.
I had a great time off the course too making myself at home in my little studio flat a few miles from the course reading books and enjoying the sun on the balcony. The adjoining pool was a delight and the local brew hardly broke the bank at 30 a bottle.
“Work” surely couldn’t get any better than this.
My boss played her cards fairly close to her chest and didn’t let on at all whether our week together was a one-off or if she cared for my services on a more regular, even permanent basis. When she dropped me off at the complex again on the Sunday afternoon after the completion of the event, she drove off saying she’d call or text me later as they were in a bit of a hurry to catch their plane.
With about five hours to kill before I even had to consider heading for the airport, I dug into my bag and found about €4.20 that, thanks mainly to the 30c a bottle beer ‘UP!’ got me remarkably drunk whilst I sat around the pool soaking up the Portuguese summer sun.
Having not heard from Johanna at all I found myself a little morose at the prospect of having come all this way, got myself all excited about a possible career as her faithful caddy and then not so much as a thank you.
As the ‘UP!’ beer flowed through my veins I began to feel unsurprisingly ‘DOWN!’ thinking it had all had been a complete waste of time. Had I really flown all the way to Faro at the cost of £200, spent a further £200 accommodating myself and another £100 feeding and watering myself only to be completely used? All the while she'd taken home a decent wedge for her fine efforts.
As the ‘DOWN!’ element of the ‘UP!’ beer took hold I started to feel rather depressed. Being new to the whole caddying lark, I wondered whether this was normal practice; meet someone for five minutes at a golf club, trust his word that he’s a good caddy, ask him on tour, play three good rounds and drive off leaving him £500 the wrong way up while she banked a few grand?
At this point, I was wallowing in my own self-pity and just when I was considering taking a swim that would not require a towel, my mobile buzzed and a message read, “Chris, we had a great week together and hope to enjoy many more with you as my full-time caddy. Speak in the week, regards J x”
At that moment a song came on my iPod that forever symbolised good news and happiness. A song that whatever mood you’re in will lift your spirits high and propel you into a positive mood; Elbow’s One Day Like This. I must have listened to that tune fifty times that afternoon in the Algarve sun.
I had been given the go-ahead to begin a new career as a caddy on the Ladies European Tour and I was like a dog with a new bone.
I could travel, get involved with the tournament inside the ropes and hang out with dozens of beautiful women who also played amazing golf!
A few days later my bank account was credited with money for doing what I love. A dream come true. I couldn't wait to get home and plan my next adventure on the Ladies European Tour…
CK
