CADDIE'S ROLE:Lee Westwood's caddie, Billy Foster, is doing a charity walk for children with cancer, writes COLIN BYRNE.
US CADDIES don’t particularly like walking as a past-time. Strolling is something we do when we get paid, not an activity we engage in for fun on our weeks off. One of my colleagues, Billy Foster, is taking this week’s walking a few steps further; he is going to caddie from Loch Lomond to Turnberry with a golf bag on his back but no player at his side.
Not only is he going to walk the 90 miles southwest to the Open Championship he is going to give up a week’s work with his current in-form employer, Lee Westwood, in order to complete his mission.
Of course in keeping with caddie sentiment the walk is not for fun. Foster has had his heart-strings tugged by a visit to St James’ Hospital in Leeds. It is a cancer care hospital for children and when Foster visited last December he made his mind up he was going to complete his walk and raise some money for the unfortunate kids that he saw in the hospital.
Back in 2000 Foster had come up with his original idea of arriving in St Andrews for the Millennium Open Championship having walked from Loch Lomond. For a caddie with a sense of nostalgia of course the home of golf would have been the most appropriate destination for an historic walk. It didn’t work out and the veteran caddie vowed that if the opportunity arose again he would definitely make it happen.
Foster had been sharing Sergio Garcia’s bag with Glen Murray last year. So when they were planning their schedule for this year he had requested the week of Loch Lomond free in order to make the long march to the west coast. When Sergio decided that he didn’t want Foster to caddie for him anymore, his first thought was that this was going to disrupt his walk apart from the obvious concern of who he was going to work for next.
Golf has been a vehicle to raise money for charity since hickory shafts gave way to steel. There are countless charity pro-ams which players are constantly trying to squeeze in between tournaments, many of them, of course, include a sweetener for the players so their intentions are not completely altruistic. Every event you go to on the US Tour has got a very visible indicator of how much the event has raised for charity in the past and how much it hopes to raise during the present event. It would be reasonable to say that they don’t miss the advertising opportunity of their generosity.
Foster has taken this project on board himself with no ulterior motive other than giving something to young cancer sufferers who have obviously had a profound effect on him.
Even the lodgings that he has booked on the carefully planned trip have been paid for by the generous bagman.
We got chatting about the proposed long walk to Ayrshire last week in the caddie-shack and of course the calculations began about how quickly Foster should take to reach Turnberry. He has taken no chances on caddie-shack seat-of-the-pants predictions and has sought the advice of a fellow member of his home club Bingley in Yorkshire, who is an experienced walker. Between them they figured a three-mile-an-hour average would be attainable.
Stuart Hooley is a hill walker who has completed a 100-mile walk in 30 hours. Of course the bravado in the caddie-shack suggested that nobody is more experienced at traipsing than us loopers. Constant walking, though, it is a totally different type of foot challenge.
Foster himself admits the furthest he realistically has walked in over 25 years of international porter service has been about 300 yards after which he dumps the bag down and engages in idle banter, reads out a few numbers to his player, pulls a club out of the bag and waddles off towards the ball again for another chat and a break. Hardly as arduous as you would have some of us bag carriers dramatically lead you to believe.
So with Hooley’s experienced tutelage in serious striding Foster has had a number of trial runs from his home in Bingley along the least busy bye-roads 18 miles away to Leeds with a ruck-sack on his back. Of course he had blisters, aching ankles and throbbing thighs, none of which he ever suffered in the normal course of caddying duty.
He has also been guided by Westwood’s mother with her own expertise in chiropody. The anti-blister trick is to apply surgical spirits to the feet a week in advance of the departure date.
Already the feeling of good spirit Foster has experienced is going to go a long way to motivating him over the final tough miles of each day. His plan is to set off on Thursday next from the driving range at the Scottish Open in Loch Lomond and cover 17 miles, including a boat trip to Largs for his first overnight stay.
He will be accompanied by his marching mentor Hooley and his wife and friends will join him on his last eight-mile leg into Turnberry next Monday for an afternoon entrance to the British Open Championship.
He will be carrying a TaylorMade bag which he hopes to fill up with note donations, preferably, due to the weight that coin donations would add to his already burdened shoulders. Although he will be grateful for all support. Already the donations are flowing in and Foster has been astounded by the generosity.
So if you feel like supporting the altruistic bagman on his long walk to Ayrshire this week you can do so by logging into www.justgiving.com/billyfoster. All donations go to the Candlelighters Children’s Cancer Trust.
With Lee Westwood’s second place finish with Foster by his side in France last week it would appear that good karma is on his side already for this magnanimous gesture from the Bagman from Bingley.
