Stepping inside the ropes at a PGA Tour event is not for the faint of heart. It requires physical strength, mental toughness, resiliency, good golf course management, accuracy, a lot of nerve and a thick skin.
And that is just for the caddies. For the players, the ability to drive it long, hit precise iron shots and stroke putts like a metronome is also required.
Lately, the caddie profession has been in the spotlight because of Tiger Woods and his recent public split from his longtime caddie Steve Williams. The Internet has been abuzz on the topic, with a flood of serious — and whimsical — missives expressing a desire to replace Williams in the job, which paid about $1 million a year.
To which the appropriate response is, dream on. First, Woods has filled the job — for how long is anyone’s guess — with Bryon Bell, his childhood friend and the current president of Woods’s golf course design company.
So put Woods aside for a minute and consider what it takes to be a tour caddie. The basic requirements: strong back, strong legs and strong golf knowledge are a must. Playing experience at a high level is also a big plus. Must be reliable, flexible, able to travel extensively and make quick decisions under pressure. Salary is negotiable, employment status is subject to change without notice.
That is only the beginning. Then there are the unquantifiable necessities, which include the ability to keep an anxious player calm, get a bored player interested, say the right things at the right times and crack a joke right when your player needs to hear one.
Some or all of those abilities are what separate the top caddies, like Williams, Jim Mackay, Billy Foster, Joe LaCava, Paul Tesori, Ricci Roberts, Tony Navarro, Brett Waldman, Bobby Brown, Mike Cowan, John Wood, Fanny Sunesson, Damon Green, Brennan Little.
Most or all of these have been mentioned as possible long-term candidates for the Woods job. But even the caddies who have not been mentioned are well-schooled in the other skills.
They are traffic cops, psychiatrists and meteorologists. They are chauffeurs, butlers, and bodyguards, buddies, sidekicks and frequent dinner companions. When things get really tough, they are guard dogs, attack dogs — or the dog that gets scolded when the man of the house is unhappy.
And, as Lee Westwood put it the other day at the Irish Open when shooting down speculation that his caddie, Foster, was going to replace Williams on Woods’s bag, “Good caddies are worth their weight in gold sometimes.”
How much gold is up to the player and the caddie to work out. The standard formula is pretty much a $1,000-a-week base salary and a 5 percent cut of earnings for a finish outside the top 10, a 7 percent cut for a top-10 finish and a 10 percent cut of a winner’s check. If a player misses the cut and makes nothing, so does the caddie.
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