I’m not a very effective caddy. I can push a bag, engage in small talk when necessary and can color co-ordinate my clothes and my player’s so we make a pretty impressive looking team. If you think I’m being unreasonably judgmental wait. The proof is in the pudding.
A friend, and one of the most quality daddy-caddy / son duos out there on the tour, greet us on arrival at the Season starting tournament on the rain soaked practice green. “Which of you is going to be out there with Rob today?” I replied that Max would be and I will walk with Bear (at least 9 holes until Max takes over there too). “Good plan”, he says. “Rob can use all the help he can get and Bear pretty much does it all on his own anyway.” He is absolutely right.
Max to me : You can’t say anything to him (Bear).
The rain beats down on the tee box but Bear is unphased and sticks it long and straight. Perfect set up for an effortless par on hole 1.
Me to Bear : Beautiful shot !
Bear : Will you please not comment on any of my shots.
We start the walk down the fairway and Bear rolls up the umbrella and practices Star Wars light-saber moves as we walk. Frankly it annoys the hell out of me but I remember advice Dr. Tiffany Jones had given specifically for Bear : Keep him talking and light hearted. If he goes quiet he is getting too much inside his head.
Bear is a very different personality – goal orientated, perfectionist, unwavering in the hunt for the pro circuit in the future. Blessed with a photographic memory he walks along describing each and every one of the 18 holes ahead of us, where the hazards lie, where he will have to lay up, what shots he is likely going to have to play down to the slightest detail of a 5% fade to the left along the tree line …..
On hole 2, with the rain beating down, he misses a 3 foot putt for par, sending it 5 feet past (the greens very fast regardless of the flooding). He sinks it on the return but you would swear it was the end of the world! Unable to recover immediately he sends his next drive into the semi-rough then lodges it in a small sand castle at the edge of a green-side bunker then promptly into the bunker. A 3 putt follows and the Dark Side closes in. I remind him he has spoken to enough performance coaching experts who work with the heads of tour professionals to know that one bad hole must just be one bad hole.
We move on and there are no more light-saber duels and Star Wars talk. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. We drop another shot due to putting. If there is one thing I can’t stand hearing from my boys it’s : It’s not fair ! I don’t want to hear it on the golf course (it just attracts more of what’s ‘not fair’) and I don’t want to hear it anywhere else either. At the moment it’s the greens that are “not fair“! Everyone is playing under the same wretched rain. Everyone is putting on the same unforgiving greens.
Me to Bear : You are a nationally ranked player. You are a tough competitor and a champion golfer. Now play like it.
We sit in the rain and wait and wait between holes.
Bear to me : Talk to me about something ……
A far cry from Rob who is loathe to talk about anything!
The weather ?
Photosynthesis ?
He launches into a detailed discussion of the different light-saber colors – what they mean and who uses them. We discuss how Rob completed a Star Wars questionnaire that indicated that I mostly closely resemble Emperor Palpatine. He pars the rest of the first 9 holes and Max catches up with us on the turn.
Rob apparently performed wonderfully with Max on the bag. 43 (just 4 off the leaders who played a 3 hole sudden death to get the win) – 6 pars, 1 bogey, 1 double and 1 triple which was firmly attributed to Max’s faulty putt read on hole 8.
I can’t help thinking I am a disadvantage out there. Talk too much with one; talk too little with the other. Can’t read a putt even if my life depended on it.
Max takes over with Bear at the turn and Boom : Birdie on 10. He then proceeds to shoot under par on the back 9.
There. Pudding !!!