Running 2020 PGA Tour thread

Caddies are fantastic. You’ve got to just trust them. They say die the ball here, do it and you’ll be rewarded. Nothing better than walking off 1st tee handing them your driver and getting the Bloody Mary back with stogie in other hand.

 

On the other side of the caddie experience. In the mid-80s, my middle brother and I were a twosome in the lateish afternoon at Mid-Ocean in Bermuda. Only caddie left was this think, sort of frail-looking chap named Birdie. I don't want to say Birdie was old, but he did proudly tell us about the time he caddied for Babe Ruth. It's hot and humid as Bermuda is in the summer. Long story short, from the 13th on, my brother and I carried our own bags because we didn't want to be the ones who killed the club's dean of caddies.

 

Another caddie story. George Wright is one of the two Boston city munis (the other is Franklin Park). It's in Hyde Park where the late Mayor Menino lived and used to play. At his insistence, the city's summer youth jobs program included caddies for the course. I used to play there early in the morning with a friend who worked in the county sheriff's office. We'd get these caddies, who were, to be blunt, a mixed bag. Some were diligent, but many had no idea what the sport was even about. As it turned out, tipping them on the first tee and then offering instruction earned you an eager and enthusiastic caddie. When I say instruction, I mean telling them which club was the putter. Not their fault, they were just kids looking for a job, but some of the old fat white guys used to really yell at them. I doubt those guys ever had a ball found from an errant drive. A $20 insured I often did.

 

First time I had a caddie it was so odd. Felt like I had some sort of personal assist, something I’d obviously never experienced. Been fortunate to have a caddie maybe 12-15 times. So fun. My only guidelines are be nice and tip great.

From what I’ve seen, Winged Foot could be monster this week. Will the winner break par?

 

Weather will determine. If Sally heads north by a bit, rain would soften it and yes, par could be broken. Hell, Fuzzy Zoeller broke it when he won.

 

The quirkier the course, the more important a caddie becomes.

At one course during our family's stay overseas, we drove a few hours north to a resort in the mountains. Caddies were, of course, available, and given the mountainous walk and slope of the greens, they were basically a necessity.

Did I say slope of the greens? Slopes, ridges, swales ... some of them made gadget miniature golf courses look tame.

You could have what looked like a run-of-the-mill 8-foot putt. The caddie would instruct you to hit the ball 12 feet out to the right, and the slope dictated that it was the only practical way to drain the putt. My mother have a term for those putts. Let's just say they make some of the sliders seen annually from Augusta National look fairly routine.

Never discount institutional caddie knowledge. If only media outlets valued institutional knowledge ...

 

A member at Oakmont at the 2007 U.S. Open told me this one. Among the caddies at Oakmont in the past were steelworkers and coal miners who would pull a night shift, then go to the club a few days a week and caddie during the day. This gruff, old Italian steelworker drew a gruff, old Oakmont member who was famous for blaming caddies for everything. On the first hole he bitched that the caddied clubbed him wrong, then read the green wrong and blamed him for his triple bogey. They start crossing that bridge at Oakmont from No. 1 to No. 2 that goes over the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the members keeps chirping at the guy for being a lousy caddie. The fence around the bridge wasn't too high and the caddie, having heard enough, threw the guy's bag over the fence, where it landed on a train coal car (railroad tracks ran parallel to the road) and presumably wound up n Ohio at some point. The caddie walked back to the caddie shack and told his boss what happened. Realizing that he had the club's biggest asshole, he told him to go home and give him a week to smooth it out. The member was so universally disliked that the club's board president told the caddie master to let him back to work.

 

Yes. 275 wins it.

 

If you’ve played in the UK, caddies add so much to the experience because eventually you’re going to stand on a tee and everyone is going to ask the same question: Where does this hole go?

 

Name the wager.