Golf

This isn’t really about the game of golf or any tips on technique of swing or putting tips. No, this is about being a caddy.

Growing up in suburban America and trying to look very impressive, our family belonged to a country club. Since my father ran a private gentlemen’s club, it only seemed the correct thing to do to show our status by being members of a country club. Of course it wasn’t ‘THE’ country club because that was really restricted and I don’t think dad could afford the dues, so we went with one way the heck out of town but it had all the amities of a country club. A golf course, a swimming pool, and a large dance floor for those weekend parties. Having spent the first few years of my life living at a country club, I sort of knew the drill.

Back in the day, my mother was losing weight with my brother so he could get into college and she needed to not only calorie count but also exercise. She took up golf.

During the winter I was in school most of the day until she came home, but in the summer she couldn’t leave me home alone for what sorts of mischief I would have gotten into, so she took me with her to the country club.

At first I was given to the swim team while she was out on the links. The instructor wasn’t there every day and I could just sit around the pool and flirt with girls in their tight spandex, so I was assigned to help at the clubhouse.

There were already enough hired help, so I was moved into the position of being a caddy. It was thought to be good exercise and a great experience for a fine strapping lad. It was hell.

There were no motorized golf carts to zip around in so the game of golf was the toil of walking. Walking for miles in the sunshine with very little shade in the heat of the summer wearing long pants and carrying a bag of clubs weighting up to 30 pounds.

Being a caddy was not as it appears on those television tournaments. There was no advice asked or given. A caddy was merely a mule hauling the weight while a couple of old white guys in awful looking plaids and Madres pants and sweaty polo shirts talked about business and women while taking drinks from the flask in their back pockets.

Golf is not a fast paced game. You hit a ball with a club then walk to where the ball lands, get another club and hit it again until it lands on the putting green and then you attempt to push it into a little hole in the ground.

My mother was one of the first women to play the game and got pretty good at it. She was a semi-local celebrity and we have the silver bowls to prove it. The other plus was she got to hob-knob with those out of her class.

The caddy on the other hand was just to stand still behind the golfer and be silent. If the ball went into the rough, the caddy was berated for handing the wrong club. The golfer kept the scorecard and rarely noted all the strokes it took to get out the weeds.

After nine grueling holes, the foursome would go into the clubhouse for a sandwich and another drink, which gave just enough time for the caddy to take a dip in the pool.

The second nine was rarely finished as the heat and alcohol took its toil on the old coots. The most refreshing part for a caddy was the ball washers along the course.

Since we were not union but just member’s kids, we didn’t get paid, except now and then one of the old drunk guys would throw us a bill or two our way.

Our house was becoming filled with golf magazines, clubs and talk. I decided to take up the game. Playing must be easier than caddying?

It was easier than baseball or football because with my bad eyesight I couldn’t see the ball coming at me. In golf, the ball just sits there until you whack it. Unfortunately once the white ball became a speck in the sky I lost sight of it. Whoever I was playing with had to point out where it landed, which turned into its own game of hide and seek.

Still I had a pretty good follow through and was a good putter so I could keep up with a par score. I couldn’t keep up with all the paraphernalia that goes along with the game like double knit pants, alligator shirts, visors, wingtips with cleats, fingerless gloves, etc.

The slow pace is good if you want to talk to one another and has been recommended as business mini-conferences with the boss to climb the corporate ladder but it can fester frustration to the point where the clubs go flying into the lake.

In the long run, it was a life lesson and I could probably still play with a little practice.

FORE!