This porter out on a limbo until the boss gets better

Caddie's Role: Without sounding too sorry for the caddie's lot, we are dealing with many imponderables in our job. We all have been victims of travel delays, forgotten passports, misplaced air tickets, traffic jams resulting in missed flights. So have our bosses. Of course if they suffer setbacks en route then we just have to wait for them to arrive, if we suffer setbacks we may well be out of a job. The result is most of us try to get to our destination with loads of time to spare, writes Colin Byrne.

When I am heading on a long trip to the States, for example, I will give myself extra days to get there if my player is not playing the week before. Not only does it limit the risk of a tardy arrival, it also allows time to deal with jet lag.

This might entail setting off from wherever I am on the Saturday before the event starts. This was the case a couple of Saturdays ago, I was preparing myself for my journey to Denver, Colorado, for the International event last week. I got a phone call from my boss's manager. This in itself was a concern as I do not have an open line of communication to anyone on my off weeks. So the mind could not help but race when I received this rare call from my player's manager.

No, I wasn't being given 'a long walk on a short plank' - phew! I was greeted instead with the dreaded words "Retief's (Goosen) been involved in an accident".

Obviously, this was shocking news. As the conversation went on, I realised the accident was serious but not fatal - it was a high-speed mishap while on holiday in Barbados. Thankfully, Retief had had a very enjoyable rest until his unscheduled dismount from a jet-ski. The accident happened just an hour and a half before he was due to leave the island.

What was even more shocking for me, but this time in a nice way, was the fact he had contacted me so promptly in case I would have been heading off to the States early, as he suspected I would. I was not surprised Retief would be so considerate, but I figured he would have more important things on his mind at that time, like how he was going to walk. I can't imagine it is the norm for pros to show such concern for their porters.

I know of some players who keep their caddies on such tenterhooks they don't let them know if they are playing the next week until they make their tortured minds up at the absolute last minute. Many are embroiled in power games instead of showing some respect for their flexible porters.

Indeed, I was the victim myself of such whimsy many years ago when I received another one of those dreaded rare-but-significant calls from a player's manager. That time it was Fred Couples' man. He was ringing me to politely but sympathetically inform me Fred had changed his mind and I was not going to be his carefully chosen bagman after all. The message was clear: 'don't bother coming, Fred's got another guy, see ya'.

This was the night before I was due to leave for the States. He had had a couple of free months to make his decision. Conveniently for him, it was a last-minute decision; inconveniently for me, it was back to the European car-park at short notice. I was not mentally prepared for such horse-trading having had the well-woven rug of the US Tour and a hotshot player yanked so unceremoniously from under my optimistic feet.

Anyway, on this occasion, I slammed on the brakes on my proposed journey over the Atlantic and extended my holiday in the warm and relaxed environs of southern Spain, thanks to Retief's thoughtfulness. It's at times like this that you realise how much you subconsciously prepare yourself for long trips. There was a certain sense of relief that the journey could be at best delayed, at worst cancelled.

The down side is Retief is a golfer very much in form - he has been on something of a roll of late. Golf can be a game of momentum, an injury like this could alter this pattern. This is mere speculation: perhaps it could add vigour to his future play when he recovers. Beware the injured golfer.

The first question my non-golfing friends asked was, quite naturally I suppose, about the more practical issue of what a caddie does when he cannot go to work due to such an occurrence. Tough luck is the answer - if you are looking for stability and predictability, caddying would not be the job for you.

If you are looking for the complete opposite then you have found the right job. Is there compensation? What about your flights? That's another problem. Try getting a seat at short notice on a flight to anywhere at any time over the next few weeks and see how inconvenient it is, if not impossible.

If you are a traveller the old "swings and roundabouts" theory gets used quite frequently. I don't know if this is a swing or a roundabout but it is not the best position to be in, apart from the extended vacation. Retief is still injured and I am still on standby, ready for a quick departure whenever my boss deems himself match-fit again.

Added travel difficulties are cancelling pre-booked rental cars and hotels. On the scale of imponderables, though, I have been greeted with worse.