Getting the royal treatment

Back to America last week and the richest tournament on the US tour with $6 million in prize money. Sawgrass, the tour's headquarters in northern Florida was the venue for the Players' Championship. This is the tournament and course where they try to get everything right. The players come first here, and if they talk the administrators listen.

I was walking the course on Monday evening, trying to refamiliarise myself with the StaDium course. The players had commented after last year's tournament that the rough was too inconsistent, which left luck playing a greater hand in the result of an off line tee shot. So it was decided to introduce more sprinklers in the rough for this year's event. This year the players' had to look for another excuse for playing badly, the consistency of the rough has been taken care of. From last Monday on the sprinklers in the rough were the only ones that were going to be turned on, the fairways and greens were going to be parched. The fairways got faster, the greens harder and the rough thicker every day.

It was a pleasant surprise for me as a caddie to arrive at the caddie shack. We were given the royal treatment compared to how I remember tour events here in the past. We had a separate room beside the locker room for ourselves. We were provided with a hot breakfast from 6.30 every morning, hot lunch and drinks and snacks all day long. We had a wide screened TV with couches to relax on. It's the first tour event over here that I have come to and actually felt like I was a human being.

There is a tradition at the Players' Championship for the caddies to hit a shot to the infamous 17th hole during Wednesday's practice round. With the island green measuring 25 yards long and the same distance in width, the prospect was a daunting one for most of us. I was spending only my second day with my new employer Paul Lawrie and was anxious to instill him with confidence in my ability to caddie. That seemed to go smoothly enough until we reached the 16th green and I looked over at the large gallery that had congregated around the 17th hole and I realised that I was going to have to expose my limited golfing skills to the entertainment hungry crowd and my player.

To compound my anxiety we were playing with Darren Clarke and Lee Westwood. David Leadbetter was helping Lee with his swing which meant that he had joined us by the time we got to 17 along with Paul's coach Adam Hunter and various managers and people with whom I did not want to ruin my reputation by scanking a shot into the water. Billy Foster hit his shot on the green with style and dignity. Lee's caddie Mick somehow scraped his shot on. Now it was my turn.

I felt light-headed, my palms were pumping sweat, my hand was shaking as I attempted to tee the ball up. I was basically `choking' before I got into contention. I was showing all the signs of a golfer under stress. I took a flimsy practice swing. Darren commented that I had "sympathetic knees" as my right leg collapsed under the intensity of the situation I found myself in. I stood over the ball, and suddenly realised that I had made my pass at it resulting in a shot straight off the hosel and heading closer to the 16th green than the intended 17th island. Guffaws of laughter ensued and my ordeal was over.

There was a watch on offer for the closest shot to the pin. A watch and whatever the players contributed to the kitty. A large box had been placed beside the 17th tee for the players to donate to. Steve Flesch's caddie Ben knocked an eight iron to just over five feet to collect the watch and the $2,800 accumulated.

There was a major upheaval in the caddie shack last week with a spate of jockey changes. Fanny's gone to Funk, Basil's gone to Goosen and "Hopper" has gone with "El Nino". In the space of an afternoon the positions had been emptied and filled as quickly as you could pour a glass of water.

The caddie shack is being spring cleaned early this year, there are an awful lot of my colleagues looking anxiously over their shoulders.