Dodging the wildlife and the dodgy nightlife

CADDIE'S ROLEBy all means shoot the birdies and the eagles but don't bludgeon the egrets or the herons when you go golfing down Florida way, writes Colin Byrne

WEST PALM Beach in southeast Florida is a region of America where you are most likely to encounter a rather dense population of high-waistband, flared pants, 1970s bouffant-style hairdos, big old roly-poly Cadillacs and old-timers with leathery skin ravaged by decades under the gruelling, tropical sun.

We were back on the east coast last week for the start of the Florida swing of the PGA Tour. The PGA National golf club hosted the 2008 Honda Classic and as is usual in these older-style country clubs the starters on the first and 10th tees were of the Cadillac and high-waistband variety. If the player has a tricky name or residence to pronounce they will often sound out the caddie for advice on the syllables to accentuate.

Last week I had the most unusual request - in all my time looping - from a starter. I was asked, in the most polite fashion, to shoo with my hand only and not with a club any of the birds that might encroach upon our space near the greens.

With an abundance of lakes and ponds, the course is a natural habitat for an array of birds, and despite being well accustomed to club-wielding humans tramping around their neighbourhood, they are understandably unversed in golf etiquette.

It would obviously be a little unsettling for bird-loving viewers to observe caddies lashing out at tame cormorants or egrets as they got a little too close to their players' balls, hence the first-tee announcement.

The trick to getting your ball around the Nicklaus-redesigned water-lined course was to avoid those wild-life habitats.

On the 11th tee last Friday a blue heron glided across the flight path of the tee shot of our playing partner, Robert Allenby, and barely rose high enough to avoid what had looked like a mid-air collision that would have resulted in disaster for both parties, if fatal only to one of them.

The sixth hole ran parallel to a waterway that looked and smelt like an aviary; it had herons, egrets, cormorants, pelicans and flamingos perched all over the foliage burgeoning out of the wetlands.

The wind was heavy with the odour of birdlife. The only advantage of the same fetid wind for a golfer was that it blew your ball away from the water on what was one of the toughest holes on the course.

The breeze did not, however, help the hapless caddie of Ben Crane on the same hole. He had set Ben's bag down on a slope beside the green but leading toward the water. When he looked around the bag had managed to lose its footing and slide down the slope and into the drink.

We have had some stories of colleagues accidentally dropping individual clubs into hazards - but never the whole set.

Thanks to its mild weather, Florida is a popular winter golf destination.

There tends to be plenty of work for caddies who loop for amateurs. Many of them try the old-fashioned way of "getting a bag" in the car-park of the professional tournament venue. It is not uncommon to see 10 or more old time cads with their faded visors and threadbare towels lining up on the chance of a loose bag.

The amateurs who play in the pro-am on Wednesday must take a caddie with them; the rules here forbid electric carts.

As we took off down the first last week I realised one of the caddies with us had won two majors with Mark O'Meara in the late-1990s and found himself back in the local scene after reaching the pinnacle of the professional game in the not-too-distant past.

When you are not familiar with an area it is easy to get stuck in a hotel that you really do not want to be stuck in for a night, let alone a week. I had never been to the Palm Beach area before, and had assumed that the lodging recommended to me, given its proximity to the exclusive golf course, was situated in a reasonable neighbourhood.

The price was three-star, but the stars soon became clouded over in a murky scene of dubious night-time activities.

As I left for an early tee time I was panhandled on my way to the car. When I inquired about the hotel some locals advised me it was not far from the crack neighbourhood. Indeed, the night-time goings-on seemed distinctly shady.

I survived the ordeal and it took those of us caddies who stuck it out for the week in the no-star hotel back to our roots of looping on a shoestring when such frugal accommodation was the norm.

Next time I am in the neighbourhood I think I will try to move closer to the high-waistband crew instead of the high-wasters district I inadvertently found myself in last week.