Clammy conditions go against the grain

CADDIE'S ROLE:Things are very different for competitors and caddies on the Asian Tour where the stifling climate and strange conditions prevail

A MAN has simply got to rub his hand across his face at midday in Malaysia to realise how quickly things grow when you are so close to the equator. Your five o’clock shadow appears a lot earlier in this hot and extremely moist land.

As a drenched bag-toter standing idly by on a green, scratching your chin in contemplation of your player’s plight as he drips over another putt that he cannot envisage being able to hit hard enough to get it to the hole, you begin to fathom why the greens are so very slow.

Grain is something that us Irish golfers have usually only to consider while choosing our morning cereal. In Asia and most hot countries grain is an added complication when it comes to deciding on what line to hit your putt. As the temperatures soar throughout the day the grain stands up like the stubble on a hot caddie’s chin, causing all sorts of deviations to the course of the ball along its crooked, slow and uncertain path towards the cup.

The common consensus in the air-conditioned locker-room last week was that the greens were the slowest that most players in the modern era could remember. Some players felt like they were swinging their putter harder than their driver in order to get their putts uphill into the grain.

I remember playing golf in southern Africa for the first time and looking in disbelief as I was advised by a local that my putt on a right to left slope was actually going to break left to right because of the strength of the grain. It is an alien concept for most of us from Britain and Ireland and one that favours the local players when it comes to the shorter grass end of the game.

The incessant heat is not conveyed clearly on television as it is close at hand when the slightest exertion from the fittest of golfers results in pools of sweat forming in unusual places, like on their knees or around their bottoms. Your umbrella is used strictly as a true Spanish parasol, a hint of rain would be as welcome and refreshing as a freak gust of cool breeze. You seem to get neither here. Moisture simply oozes and seeps around you; from the permanently lush grass beneath you to the damp air about you there is no escaping the humidity.

We were at the Saujana Golf and Country Club outside Kuala Lumpur for the Maybank Malaysian Open, one of the co-sanctioned events between the flagging Asian Tour and the more robust European Tour. It gives us Europeans a chance to experience the exotic Far-East and all its eastern promise. Simply looking down the starting list with names like Periasamy Gunasegaran, Amandeep V Johl, Akhmal Tarmizee and Somkist Srisa-Nga, there is no doubt Europe has temporarily extended its borders.

I had previously thought that Robert Dinwiddie was an ear-catching name before I perused last weeks draw sheet.

As the capital of Malaysia extends further into the surrounding undergrowth the local wildlife has sought refuge in the remaining foliage of suburban golf courses. The tournament was played on the Cobra course and the king Cobra himself lives between the eight and ninth holes.

There were prominent and plentiful signs about the presence of snakes in the area. There are monkeys all over the Saujana country club and they are keen to show the course is most definitely theirs and is only to be used by humans at their peril.

There are signs behind most greens advising golfers to leave no valuables far from sight as the monkeys are highly likely to take them. A player has had his yardage laser pinched by them in the past. As I shuffled through some dense trees towards the next tee a small bit of debris bounced at the foot of a spectator on the path in front of me. I looked up and a monkey was brazenly gaping down, letting us know what committee set the rules on this part of the course.

Things are very different on the Asian Tour. On the surface the tournament is set up like any other big event worldwide; roped-off fairways and some modest spectator viewing areas. The temporary barriers had a different meaning however, they were there to be ignored. Being in the last group during the final two rounds we had the majority of the galleries with us. In fact driving into the complex was an indication of the Malaysian system; cars were blatantly abandoned along the roadway to the golf course.

I overheard some unruly spectators discussing their viewing strategy on one hole suggesting that they take the left route up the fairway, which was prohibited to spectators, as they had a better chance of been seen on television from that side. The rules officials were reduced to “sheep-dogs” at the weekend with the impossible task of reining in a mob that had a “free to roam” policy.

Kuala Lumpur was soupy, soggy and so different from any European climate we experience. The last time I felt that hot was in a sauna with a towel around me and not outdoors, fully clothed with a heavy bag on my back in the soaring midday sun.

We have all got the crisp dry heat of Western Australia in the relatively low forecasted high-30s to look forward to this week. There are snakes on the course but the local kangaroos do not have the tendency for petty on-course theft like the Malaysian monkeys did in Saujana last week and the afternoon stubble remains less pronounced in the dry heat.