Goosen's fitting end to season

Caddie's Role It was the rebirth of a golf course last week in Atlanta. East Lake became the "permanent" home of the Tour Championship, the PGA Tour's annual showcase for its top-30 money winners. With last week's win it was also the rebirth of a season for my boss Retief Goosen. Having won the US Open and backed it up with the European Open at the K Club on his next outing in June, the rest of the year had been relatively tranquil by his very high standards.

East Lake was the legendary Bobby Jones' home course. He won his first tournament there when he was six years old. He brought his trophies back there and made the club known worldwide when he won the Grand Slam in 1930. Bobby grew up in a house that still stands directly behind the 13th green. Fitting then a player that Jones would surely have admired and respected for both his skill and on course demeanour made his charge for the Tour Championship trophy right outside Bobby's front yard.

Retief's run of birdies on the 13th, 15th and 16th sealed his first Tour Championship trophy. Victories with a four-shot margin can often look like a romp to the outsider. There are no romps when Tiger Woods is playing behind you with the ferocity of a uncaged animal. The only indication to us that perhaps the predator Woods was not in his usual Sunday hunting form was the relative silence behind us.On Sunday in America, the crowd will let you know what is going on.

Instead of it being, as the media seemed to have the world wish, a Woods rampage, it was Retief who played the best round of the week. He had worked his way around the front nine comfortably all week, reaching the turn under par every day, then letting the birdies all slip away on the inward nine. You start feeling that the time of year is taking its toll mentally with consistent collapses on the back nine each day.

Retief was aware of his condition. As soon as he finished his round he didn't hang around and practice; we jumped straight in the car and made the 10-minute five-mile journey back to the hotel in downtown Atlanta. As ever, Retief is in touch with what is the best preparation under different circumstances.

East Lake's proximity to downtown was also its downfall back in the 1980s. From a thriving country club with boat slips, tennis courts, swimming pools and Saturday night dances on the clubhouse porch with couples swirling in gowns and white dinner jackets to the sounds of famous orchestras, the club deteriorated into an urban crime scene by the late 1980s.

East Lake found itself in the middle of a social change. It was a fading white oasis in what could only be described as the "Hood". Two members were held up on the third tee. The man who wielded the gun was obviously not a golfer: the twoball got to keep their clubs but were relieved only of their watches and wallets.

The course became the focus of a neighbourhood revitalisation project in 1995 when the architect Rees Jones was called in to revamp the original Donald Ross design. Today it is a championship course as challenging as any other top golf course in the country as the winning score of 11 under par in relatively benign conditions would suggest and you don't need an armed guard to get back to the clubhouse with all your possessions.

The tournament had a definite feel of the last week in school. The small 30-man field, the late starting times, the relatively quick rounds played in twoballs and the weather set the scene for a relaxed end of season event with sizeable guaranteed money.

The scene for the group of foreign players and caddies was very sociable, with most of us dining together at night or meeting for drinks in the hotel bar after. This is not the norm any more on tour, especially in the States, so it was a festive atmosphere shared by players and caddies together that spilled onto the course.

Perhaps Retief benefited from this general mood. He had obviously become concerned with the way he had played the back nine in the first three rounds.

It is often difficult to figure out what comes first - good golf and an accompanying mood or a good mood inspiring good golf. Retief played flawless golf last Sunday. He created 13 realistic chances for birdies in his final round and he converted six of them. That is a pretty good conversion rate, but equally it is an impressive number of birdie opportunities.

When he is in the right mood, Goose is a clever craftsman who has the skills to match the good thinking. Looking back over the round he only hit one shot that was not the correct shot to hit, that was a hard wedge on the seventh hole which spun back down a ridge away from the pin and left him a difficult two putt. Beyond that, Retief left himself on the right side of the pin virtually all the time and when he didn't, his razor sharp short game came to his rescue.

When Retief was putting out on the 17th green I went to the front of the green to try to gauge what kind of lead we had. The last roar I remembered hearing was from the 15th green where Tiger birdied and moved to two shots behind us. I asked Retief if he wanted to know what was going on. He replied without any alarm, that he didn't really want to know.

When we got to the 18th green he obviously thought that it would be better for him to know what the situation was. By then it was irrelevant. But given my boss's acute awareness on the course I am sure he was patently aware that he was in total control of the 2004 Tour Championship.