McDowell has found safe Harbour

Caddie's Role: Finding a partner, for want of a better way of describing the coming together of a player and a caddie, is a curious process. From the "car park" method of the old days to the more formal ways of today, timing plays a vital role in "getting a bag", as we say in the caddie shack.

In the old days we used to lurk in the car park waiting for a suitable employer to lift us from the unemployed line. Since the advent of better forms of communication, i.e., mobiles and computers, this happens less frequently. How a player chooses from the car park line-up is hard to say. The chances are if he resorts to such desperate measures he is not really that interested in having a suitable caddie by his side.

Having a recognisable face is helpful if you are in search of a bag. Whatever it may be recognised for can often be irrelevant. The devil-you-know syndrome can be enough to sway a player in your direction in the car park line-up.

With an abundance of caddies on offer most weeks, no matter where the European Tour finds itself on the globe, it is a player's market.

A newcomer to the trade of international bag-toting can find it increasingly prohibitive to get an "in" to the tour. Without a healthy budget and a lot of patience, the prospective new caddie may well run dry on both counts before he gets a chance to prove his worth to a player.

Matt Harbour was caddying in his ninth event as a professional porter when he struck oil.

I have known others to hit the jackpot on their first outing. Ultimately, there is nothing as misleading as such early successes as one moves into a new and unexplored existence. When you win, everything seems to fall into place, but this tends not to be the case week to week on tour. So for the novice, the early win can lull him into a false sense of well-being .

Harbour was caddying for Graeme McDowell in Italy when they won a couple of weeks ago, but many of the tour regulars have gone years without a win to their name. There are no quota systems as regards time spent and success achieved.

Harbour was an unlikely candidate for the position he took up in February. He had spent the best part of the last six years working in the city of London as an on-line bookie. His desire to travel took him to Perth, in Western Australia, to continue his trade. With a keen interest in sport in general, he naturally had a big interest in golf. With the spread betting in the game he had already been well exposed to the world tours. But this exposure was limited to a bunch of names and numbers; he had little or no connection with the humanity of the tour. His link, through the odd exchange with the most successful of the independent managers, ISM founder Andrew "Chubby" Chandler, was to prove vital. Chubby offers the perfect link between all the different groups involved in the tour.

Having played the tour for many years, he brought a deep understanding of the machinations of tour life with him to management.

If a caddie with some experience and a reasonable reputation needs a bag, Chubby is a very good person to contact. He has an empathy with his players and knows what type of person would suit each of them on the other side of their golf bag.

One of his players, Graeme McDowell, was looking for a suitable caddie; Matt Harbour was looking for a career change and Chubby was the link that joined the two in February.

This is not the normal way it works. Most players these days opt for tried and tested bagmen, experience, reliability and familiarity being important qualities.

McDowell is certainly his own man, particularly when it comes to choosing a caddie. He wanted someone he could mould into the caddie he desired. He did not want someone set in their caddying ways. In other words, as a relative newcomer to the world of professional golf, McDowell had identified exactly what he wanted from his personal adviser early on in his career. He wanted someone who was keen, ambitious and highly motivated. McDowell would make 95 per cent of the decisions, but the other five per cent would come from the other side of the bag.

As we all know, the margin between winners and the rest in professional golf is a narrow one, so that five-per-cent input can often be decisive. Chubby Chandler had the man for him.

I met Matt at the Forest of Arden on Thursday, heavily armed with the statistics of how each hole played in terms of difficulty.

This was exactly what his employer would be interested in. For most players on tour this sort of information would probably lead to an early dismissal. Many would not want to be cluttered with meaningless numbers. Just like the old-fashioned player would only want the basic number to the pin when he asks for a yardage. The more analytical would want three different numbers, entailing the front of the green on line with the pin and the back, where the ball pitched yesterday, and other vital statistics. The caddie's duty is to figure out what's required of him sooner rather than when it's too late.

This McDowell/Harbour partnership would appear to be a perfect match.

Harbour is the type of person who once he gets to know something and understand it gets bored. With golf , you can get to know more about the game by being on tour, but it would be a brave person who would claim they truly understand it. It should keep the newcomer's attention for a while to come yet.

Apart from his bookie background Harbour has taught 5,000 people how to water-ski. He is qualified in neurolinguistic programming and studied psychology in university. He is into maximising the potential of people.

What he must understand is that you can really only be one thing out on tour. The dilettante rarely lasts the distance.

As caddies we do a bit of everything, but the one thing we have in common is humping that heavy bag all over hell's half-acre, and you are quickly branded, no matter what your qualification or title. When asked where he saw himself in a year's time, the confident Englishman replied, "In America with Graeme".

McDowell has probably got very little moulding to do with his well-selected bagman, who is saying and doing all the right things with his equally enthusiastic employer.