Caddying all about connections these days

GOLF:Those days of travelling on a wing and a prayer are long gone for today's looper-cum-travel agent, writes COLIN BYRNE

SOME OF you may have taken advantage of the long holiday weekend and had time to consider summer travel plans. Probably most of you have already pondered summer holidays, decided and, more importantly, booked you destination. I have availed of a couple of weeks’ break myself and tried to plan the next few months of travel according to the pretty reliable schedule my player Edoardo Molinari gave me at the start of the year.

I was trying to figure out the logistics of getting from Columbus, Ohio, early June to some part of the eastern United States that had a direct flight back to Dublin which would get me home on the Monday morning without interfering with a potential late tee off on Sunday in Dublin, Ohio.

Exasperated and slowly accepting I was going to have to sacrifice an extra day at home because the connections available were not going to quite work and may force me to have to abandon my player after nine holes in the final round of the tournament to make a Sunday night connection home, I realised that being a professional caddie is as much about being an efficient travel agent as toting the bag these days.

I am fortunate, being with a golfer who is reliable with his schedule. There are many skittish players who will alter their yearly schedule after a slightly pulled eight-iron into a tight left pin on a closing final round hole resulting in a double bogey and, in a fit of pique, withdraw from a future event which results in a rejigging of the schedule. Ultimately, of course, this could destroy the careful early season planning of an organised caddie-cum-travel agent.

So the temperament of your player is a key factor in deciding how far in advance you think is wise to book your flights. I recall a certain ex-player of mine suggesting forcefully to me as we were stuck behind a tree on the fifth hole of the final round he was never going to play that course again. He enjoyed a barrage of birdies and eagles after this, shot 60 and won in a play-off. Naturally he had to come back and defend his title the next year.

As professional caddie and travel agent you need to make calculated judgments about how seriously to take a player’s flippant, potentially schedule-wrecking comment.

In fact, with some players you can listen and nod when he recites a desired yearly schedule to you in a genuine attempt to be both organised and professional, but understanding his character is what will lead a seasoned professional caddie to book the right flight in advance.

The reason many of us got involved with this less than ordinary world of international porter service, was to enable us to travel and see the world and engage in something of an adventure and for some, just see where the wind took us.

In the early days it was a dream-world of looping when there were slightly more players available than travelling caddies to work for them. If you showed up on the Tuesday afternoon of an event you were considered to be there in ample time. You probably had to make your own yardage book and begin the search for appropriate accommodation without a computer or mobile phone.

Many weeks were adventures, voyages into the unknown, not the organised business trips they seem like today. Today, players are more results oriented and less aware of their location as when the stakes were not so high. If he misses a cut, the player is more likely to stay at a venue these days because the practice facilities are particularly good, not because he wants to enjoy the local sights.

In contrast to the carefree approach of yesteryear I will arrive in Charlotte, North Carolina, next Sunday for the tournament which naturally starts on Thursday. Players now demand more of the caddie’s time and input. I will have a sophisticated yardage book given to me by the tournament organisers. In stark contrast to the seat-of-the-pants travel of decades past, the Wells Fargo event at Quail Hollow has even produced a 12-page caddie manual with hotel recommendations and other travel service suggestions in order to make our visit in Charlotte more enjoyable. No late night Tuesday hotel searches for us loopers next week. Everything has been carefully arranged for us through a dedicated tournament hot-line.

From a professional perspective, of course, such a service is extremely helpful and highlights some of the more established events in America which do not seem to have moved into the modern era of recognising the team nature of the caddie/player relationship. In some of these established events it is as if time has stood still for the bagman with very limited caddie services and facilities.

If you, like me, were trying to figure out last weekend just how far the airport in some strange destination is from a hotel you were thinking of staying in and how long the journey time is likely to be on a holiday weekend in October next you may well have longed for the old days of more spontaneous travel and thus a sense of adventure.

By the nature of travel advanced booking systems the ad-hoc traveller needs to be a wealthy one, pricing systems have numbed the inquisitive traveller’s senses.

For us professional caddies and well informed travel experts, despite bouts of nostalgia for the wing and a prayer travel of old, our nomadic lives have been well harnessed by the need to make serious plans to suit our schedules or find alternative employment.