Team spirit to the fore in Canada

Caddie's Role:The seventh Presidents Cup, the rest of the world's version of the Ryder Cup, got under way in Montreal, Canada, last week under the guise of an act of patriotism for 'the united states of the rest of the world' against the mighty USA.

I have never competed as a caddie in the Ryder Cup but I have been involved with a number of Presidents Cups so I cannot compare the intensity of the events. But caddies who have worked at both tell me last week's challenge was more like the first round of an average tour event. The Ryder Cup, most admitted, was constantly like the back nine of a major.

Without downgrading last week's event, it seems like it has a long way to go to match the emotion the European challenge arouses. Montreal was the "home" venue for the international team.

Unofficially, home venues for the Ryder Cup are set up the way the hosts like them - the aim being to suit the home players.

For example, when the competition is played in Europe, the rough might be thicker where the longer hitters are likely to land their drives; it's an attempt to Tigerproof holes.

At the Royal Montreal club in Quebec, the oldest club in North America, the course was not set up specifically for the international team. Not that it is any great surprise but French is the predominant language you hear in eastern Canada.

So you may hear something like "Trouvez le trou!" as your putt careers toward the hole, and for many of the International players such support is not what they immediately identify with.

Naturally you could gauge what was happening on the course by the level of cheering, but the Québecois were a respectful crowd who cheered good golf no matter what side it came from.

There are a couple of obvious reasons for the lack of passion for such an event. How do you unite Canada, Australia, Fiji, Argentina and South Africa as a homogeneous group? How do you get such a team to play for an icon of the game, Gary Player from South Africa? It is probably easier for the Americans to rally around a compatriot and legend of the game, Jack Nicklaus.

Any comments I heard from the American victors was that they were playing for Jack.

Despite most of us caddies not really relishing the idea of a week of compromise for 11 other players and not just the one, it was a really enjoyable week. It is the first year that players and caddies stayed in the same hotel and travelled to the course each day as a team. The trip to the course was as much a vehicle of spirit building as transportation.

Traditionally in North America each player travels individually to the course daily so the social nature of shared transport gave all of us an insight into people we had previously only known from the golf course.

Getting 24 players and caddies to board a bus on time was a shock to the players' systems; they are used to taking off when it suits them, not when it suits others, least of all caddies.

With the trip taking 40 minutes we had plenty of time for banter. Gary Player, the team captain, sat at the front of the bus and stood up to tell a few jokes as we cut through the rush-hour traffic of a Tuesday morning in Montreal. We arrived at the course amid laughter and chat such as I have never heard among a group of traditionally isolated people.

There were huge crowds awaiting the first day's practice. This was the biggest sporting event to be staged in Canada since the Winter Olympics.

When we arrived at the picturesque Royal Montreal course with its autumnal foliage of red and gold there was definitely a sense of occasion. Not only were the autumn views appealing, the spectators got to eat sweet, red apples plucked from trees that surrounded the eighth fairway.

At the course we had separate team rooms where players, caddies and wives shared the same facilities. This had been a request of the International captain, who was anxious to build team spirit. Previously there had been separate facilities for caddies.

We are all creatures of habit and by Thursday we had become accustomed to who would be a last-minute arrival on the team bus and who would sit where. A routine had been established and the camaraderie that had been built from the start continued.

After the Internationals' first-round foursomes drubbing vice-captain Ian Baker-Finch took hold of the microphone on Friday morning and did his bit to boost what should have been flagging morale.

Mike Weir, the local talisman, relayed a comeback story of one of the greatest hockey players who ever skated the rinks, Wayne Gretsky, who had phoned Weir on Thursday night to give some words of encouragement.

From tales of Bobby Locke bathing his hickory shafts in water overnight at tournaments to stories of irreverence from caddies by players in an unusually affable team environment, the Presidents Cup is a rare opportunity for us generally isolated units to join forces in an exercise of compromise for the good of the team.

I look forward to the next one.