Another shake-up in the caddie shack

Until recently caddying on the European Tour tended to be a British preserve. The caddie shack was predominantly a British zone.

The mid-eighties ended the near-monopoly of the British. Australians, Southern Africans and Argentineans started to appear more frequently to caddie at tour events.

Traditionally, Antipodeans and Southern Africans have been convening in London to work on building sites and in bars in order to save up some cash and travel.

With many of their countrymen playing the Tour, some of them made connections with acquaintances from home and were gradually lured onto the caddie trail. Many of them put away tools and pint glasses, which were only a means to an end for them anyway, and went straight into the paid trip around Europe with golf bags on their backs.

With the decline of the South African rand and Zimbabwe dollar, news spread south quicker than a bush fire that in local currency terms you could do pretty well looping in Europe.

Naturally, this caused a bit of a shake-up back in the caddie-shack. The surplus of bags available was draining fast. The word was that these immigrants were working cheap. Which may well have been true, but to them, converting to rand, it was plenty.

The truth was that they looked cleaner and had more in common with their compatriots who were playing than their British counterparts. Ultimately, it was the player who decided who he was going to employ.

One of the Scottish caddies took great offence to the arrival of the foreigners. Although they were good enough to share an apartment with in Spain at one event in order to cut costs, he decided that they should get a good physical introduction to caddying in his back yard. He set upon one of them with a chair one night when he was sleeping.

The judicial procedures in the caddie shack at the time were primitive. That was the Briton's idea of punishment for anyone coming over to steal what he considered to be his bags.

This incident was enough to persuade the severely-injured South African to return home. It did not dissuade others coming over to take his place. They were aware that there would be no welcoming party at Heathrow to greet them; indeed a hostile reception would not have surprised them. Many of these new arrivals actually held British passports and were as entitled as any of the British caddies to work in Europe if they could secure a bag. Technically, back in the mid-eighties, most caddies should have applied for visas when working at a Continental event. Not many did.

The dissent in the caddie shack, however, was not over getting papers in order, it was over the break in their traditional preserve on bags in Europe.

The Sunday night return flight to London was an anxious one for those not travelling on a British passport. There were concerns that a disgruntled caddie might decide to warn immigration about their visa status.

The British caddies were no exception to the rest of the United Kingdom in struggling to come to terms with a change - a new world order - which placed them back in the pack instead of at the helm!

Vincente Fernandez had a policy of bringing young Argentinean amateur golfers over to Europe to caddie for him each season. It was a magnanimous gesture on Chino's behalf. It would have been easier for him to stick with a regular caddie instead of having to train one in every year.

Being good golfers, on the course they were pretty familiar with the routine. The travel aspect was usually more of a challenge for them: many of them had only basic English, getting to the next event meant Chino had to all but lead them by the hand.

The more cynical caddies accused them, like the Australians and South Africans, of working cheap. Either way it was a good way for hopeful young golfers to learn about life on Tour. Even if they were only to realise by the end of a season they were not good enough to make it as professionals.

With the influx of Argentinean players to Europe and Chino's proteges realising their playing limitations, we now have a constant half-dozen Argentinean regular toters. Some of their friends make caddying appearances now and then throughout the season.

While the battle for supremacy was going on in the caddie shack the Swedes were enrolling for a caddie school in Stockholm. Just as the Swedish PGA had recognised the potential for future players on the Tour and set up a programme to ensure Sweden would be well-represented, they also recognised the same gap at the other side of the bag.

I worked for a Swede for some years. I remember being pleasantly surprised by the welcome I received at his home club in Stockholm when we paid a visit. I could not have imagined the hospitality would have been as warm in the equivalent situation if my player was from Britain.

The Swedes were always desirable bags in the sense that they paid well and respected you for what you were, you were never expected to wait around the back. Having said that, they are temperamental and thus difficult to deal with on course.

There are a couple of Swedish caddies on tour at present, products of the Swedish caddie school - trust the Swedes to attempt to transform the seat-of-the-pants art of caddying into a science. There are eight Swedes caddying on tour today.

Despite the augmentation of golf in the rest of continental Europe, with a good representation of players from Germany, Italy, Spain and France, there are not many caddies from those countries attracted to the tour. France has three regular tour caddies, Spain one and the Germans and Italians none.

Although there has been a shake-up in the caddie shack, the main influence has come from countries that have a rich golfing culture. The Continentals have yet to make an impact amongst the caddie fraternity.