The little brother will still be a stern test

Caddie's Role:The Smurfit course in Kildare has been reinstated as a golf course, instead of the hospitality area it was reduced to last year for the Ryder Cup. It is a course that could easily disappear into the blight of new courses that erupted here in the past decade. Particularly with the attention its older brother has been receiving in the Ryder Cup run-up, it could be forgiven for having an inferiority complex.

It is actually a good course which is probably less favoured due to the mature surroundings of the main course and its own relatively barren environs. Strategically, it is a very demanding course which will challenge Europe's best this week, hopefully more than the weather will.

A number of key holes will force those in contention to make a decision, particularly over the closing holes which question more the commitment of the golfer than the club selection off the tee.

Starting on the front side, there is almost a very clever hole in the short, dog-legged par four fourth. With the contours of the fairway leading the ball towards the green and the surrounding water, it is close to being a classic risk/reward hole. But a bold suggestion of taking out the bunker situated in the landing area for a drive would tease players into thinking about driving the green. With its present set-up nobody is tempted to hit the driver.

The designer has almost made the decision for the golfer. The best design asks the question of the undecided and demands that they both think and subsequently execute the shot to perfection. The fourth is nonetheless a testing hole, but a bunker away from being one of the classic risk/reward shorter drivable par fours.

Holes six and seven will challenge your accuracy rather than decision-making. The sixth is a tight driving hole and the seventh a perilous drive due to the fact there is a man-made, water-filled quarry alongside the right of the fairway. Thankfully, the faux rock that adorned the centre of the fairway when the event was first held in 2004 has been taken away.

The seventh hole, as an aside, was the scene of one of the most bizarre caddie incidents in all my years of looping. There is a considerable walk from the sixth green to the seventh tee, so many caddies hand their player the driver, march forward and congregate down the left flank of the seventh for a bit of idle banter or a whinge about the fortunes of their man.

One group walked forward in the opening round last year and stood chatting as they saw the incoming ball of one of their players heading in their direction in a low, dipping flight. Instead of following its flight path, they decided to try to avoid decapitation and dived for cover. One of the bagmen both heard and felt the ball brush by him. His act of self-preservation did not take job security into account, survival was more in mind.

The group spent their allotted five minutes looking for the misdirected ball in the tall, thick grass where they assumed the ball had come to rest. They didn't find it, and the player made the long walk back to the tee to re-load.

It had been a bit cold, but with the events of the seventh hole the temperature began to rise and by the time they got to the ninth hole the caddie who had almost been decapitated by a ball decided to take his jacket off.

For caddies, disrobing is a little more cumbersome than for most because we have to deal with the appendages of an awkward caddie bib. You need to plan the shedding of layers well. As the caddie lifted his bib over his head, a ball dropped out of one of the two front pockets. He picked it up and realised it was in fact the ball that had come screeching towards him to the left of the seventh fairway at high velocity half an hour earlier and ended up not in the long fescue grass but nestled snugly in his caddie bib. The stitching on Smurfit bibs is obviously of the highest quality.

Assuming you don't snap hook your tee-shot off seven into a clutch of caddies and you are on target for a good tournament, there are numerous holes on the back nine that will get your attention. The 13th is a demanding tee-shot and approach which will question your club selection off the tee and your accuracy in approaching the green, with water waiting to claim bad shots at both ends.

The Smurfit is a challenging course from both a strategic and shot-making perspective. As with all good courses, the closing holes should test a worthy champion and this is the case at The K Club. Sixteen will test your commitment off the tee, the ambitious will be rewarded and the conservative golfer will make it a very long par four, where cutting the left corner of the sharp dog-leg reduces the distance to the green considerably. Seventeen is a par three which demands a stoic attitude when the pin is front or left. Eighteen has got a prominent life-belt hanging by the lake that engulfs the reachable par five for the longer hitters.

If you can keep your ball out of your caddie's bib and stick to a disciplined strategy, the Smurfit is a rewarding course for those who respect it.