Speaker 1: It's the Son of a Butch podcast on your host
Speaker 1: Claude Harmon. This week we've got three caddies on and
Speaker 1: they've got a new venture that they're trying to get
Speaker 1: out listen. I love talking to caddies about the game.
Speaker 1: I think they probably have the best view of what's
Speaker 1: happening on the golf course other than players. And on
Speaker 1: the pod, I've tried to get as many caddies as
Speaker 1: I can because I think they're they're they're insight and
Speaker 1: the way they see the game is invaluable. We've got
Speaker 1: three of the best this week, Jonathan Smart, Chris Rice
Speaker 1: and Adam Morrow. Jonathan Smarty, you caddy currently for Cameron Chung,
Speaker 1: Ghali ricey U caddy four, Harold Barner the third which
Speaker 1: I mean we could do an entire podcast and looks
Speaker 1: like caddy in for that clown. And then Adam you
Speaker 1: caddy for Thomas Peters. Guys, all of you are based
Speaker 1: in the UK. You all came to caddying in very
Speaker 1: different ways. And Smarty, when we were talking last week
Speaker 1: in Dallas about this new idea, this caddy clubhouse that
Speaker 1: you guys have started to become a caddie, I get
Speaker 1: people asking me all the time how do I become
Speaker 1: a caddy on tour? And I always say the same thing,
Speaker 1: And we talked about this. You almost have to get
Speaker 1: lucky to get asked to be on on tour to caddy,
Speaker 1: how did you Smarty get started? And when did you start? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly that, really I was. I was looking for
Speaker 2: that luckie break. And you know, I played kind of professionally,
Speaker 2: you know, did the mini tour thing turn pro for
Speaker 2: a few years, got stuck, was falling out of lover
Speaker 2: the game, and kind of I was lucky in a
Speaker 2: sense I was good friends with Danny Willett and other
Speaker 2: guys that I'd grown up with through Amit a golf
Speaker 2: who made it onto tour. And I always say I
Speaker 2: got lucky in the sense that I was quite realistic
Speaker 2: and thinking, do you know what, I'm probably not good
Speaker 2: enough to make it. But I was like, I want
Speaker 2: to stay in this game, so caddy in was my option.
Speaker 2: So I was like, right, I'm going to Caddy, thinking, well,
Speaker 2: I've played to a good standard. This shouldn't be hard, like,
Speaker 2: you know, I should be able to find this pretty easy.
Speaker 2: And also speaking to Ann and went to a couple
Speaker 2: of events with him and stuff like that. Just no breakthroughs,
Speaker 2: and I wasn't meeting people to kind of you know,
Speaker 2: everyone had caddies or whatever. It seemed like, kept researching
Speaker 2: it online out of getting to caddying. Nothing came up. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Lucky and introduced me to writing back in Manchester years
Speaker 2: and years ago, and anyway, we stayed in touch. One day,
Speaker 2: I got a call on a Monday, I think it
Speaker 2: was and Rice. He said, you know, I know you've
Speaker 2: been looking at caddy and stuff. I think I've got
Speaker 2: your job. I was like perfect. I was like, you know,
Speaker 2: let me know what it is and you know what
Speaker 2: I need to do. He's like, well, you'd need to
Speaker 2: leave tomorrow. It's going to Italy and it's caddying for
Speaker 2: Brandon Grace on Challenge Tour. I was like perfect, So yeah,
Speaker 2: that's and then that was that was me really. I
Speaker 2: flew out the next morning. Supposed to be like a
Speaker 2: week or two trial and as we all are, we're
Speaker 2: always on trial, I guess, and yeah.
Speaker 1: I said, we're still we're still on trial. I have
Speaker 1: my uncle Billy on the pod, and my uncle Billy
Speaker 1: caddied for thirty years on the PJ Tour for Jay Hass.
Speaker 1: Bill Hass is named after my uncle Billy. My uncle
Speaker 1: Billy has a son named after Jay Hass. I asked
Speaker 1: Billy on the pod, what's it take to be a
Speaker 1: great caddy? He said, find a great player, great player.
Speaker 1: That stuck with me he said the same thing, he said,
Speaker 1: good caddy, bad player, bad player, good player, bad caddy.
Speaker 1: Still good player, good player, good caddy, great team. Right. See,
Speaker 1: you've caddied for Americans. You've caddied you know. I mean
Speaker 1: you were on the back for Tierrollhatton's first win, which again,
Speaker 1: we could do an entire podcast what it's like to
Speaker 1: caddy for that lunatic right See? How did you get started? Though? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean I was similar to Smatty. I was like
Speaker 3: giving it a go. Thought I was good at golf,
Speaker 3: sort of got down the plus two fucking I mean
Speaker 3: it was back in two thousand and six. I never
Speaker 3: really grew up playing golf, to be honest. I played
Speaker 3: a lot of football when I was young, Guys, I didn't.
Speaker 3: I took up the game late, so I was sort
Speaker 3: of newcomer to the game. I got down to plus
Speaker 3: two plus three pretty quick. In the space of a
Speaker 3: couple of years. So I thought I'd just give it
Speaker 3: a go. I was like working in a pro shop
Speaker 3: at the time and I was doing taking taking crap
Speaker 3: off all the blogo members like so, but yeah, I
Speaker 3: just thought I'm going to give it a go full
Speaker 3: time for a year and see how we get on.
Speaker 3: So I was playing sort of British amateur, English amateur,
Speaker 3: and I think when you when you're playing them events,
Speaker 3: you really see the standard of golf that these guys
Speaker 3: can play. It's really eye opening.
Speaker 1: And I'll be honest.
Speaker 3: And then I missed. I mean I played or I
Speaker 3: didn't play great. I sort of missed a couple of
Speaker 3: events at the end of the year. And I was
Speaker 3: good friends with Dave Horsey at the time, who again
Speaker 3: was off plus five. He'd won a few big events,
Speaker 3: and yeah, then I missed the court and he made
Speaker 3: it and he was like, hey, if you're sticking around,
Speaker 3: your fancy caddying for me. So it was never in
Speaker 3: my mind that I ever wanted to caddy, never even
Speaker 3: thought of it as a job.
Speaker 1: So I saw carried a couple of.
Speaker 3: Weekends and yeah, he's done all right, got to I
Speaker 3: think he got to the Semis of the English Amateur
Speaker 3: and then like after them a couple of events, he's like, hey,
Speaker 3: I've just been selected to play in the Walker Cup.
Speaker 3: Uh you know, obviously great Britain and ALAM do the
Speaker 3: USA at Royal County Down Now. I mean it was
Speaker 3: probably one of the strongest American teams of all time.
Speaker 3: It was Dustin Johnson and Web Simpson. What's his name,
Speaker 3: Billy Trip, Keeney, Kyle Stanley. So yeah, we played and
Speaker 3: he got three three out of four points. It was
Speaker 3: it was a great week and I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: I could actually, I could actually take up this caddy
Speaker 3: and Mark it's pretty easy. I mean it's not, obviously
Speaker 3: it's not. But then he was going to tour school.
Speaker 3: He was going to European Tour School. A week after
Speaker 3: he obviously went to Saint and Old Links like the
Speaker 3: day after he'd finished Walker Cup. He managed to win
Speaker 3: fair stage, got through the second age. He missed at
Speaker 3: second stage. He was signed with Chubby Chandler at the time,
Speaker 3: who obviously, back back in them days he had all
Speaker 3: the top players West with Clark Rory. So he got
Speaker 3: a couple of invites onto Challenge Tour. He's like, Hey,
Speaker 3: like you fancy your fancy come and come and doing
Speaker 3: a couple of events. So I was like, yeah, great,
Speaker 3: got a couple of invites, got all status for the
Speaker 3: next year, and then he's like you want to come Caddy,
Speaker 3: So I'm like, yeah, perfect, better than selling Mars bars
Speaker 3: making one hundred and fifty quid a week at the time.
Speaker 3: So yeah, So went and Caddy the full year on
Speaker 3: Challenge Store and he won twice, won the Order of Maria,
Speaker 3: got us talk out on the European Tour and that
Speaker 3: was it been carrying since two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1: Adam, did I read that you started? Did you start
Speaker 1: carrying at queen Wood's that's right, Claud Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: where they throw Overgan so for Yeah. So for people
Speaker 1: that don't know, queen Wood was kind of like the
Speaker 1: first ultra exclusive americanized private club outside of London, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously there's great clubs went Worth what he
Speaker 1: sunning down, they're kind of more in the in the UK,
Speaker 1: mold lots of rules, lots of old kind of UK
Speaker 1: type golf. Queen Wood was started what was the guy's named,
Speaker 1: the American guy, Fred Green? Fred Green. Yeah, so there's
Speaker 1: a lot of. I mean at my club, the Floridian,
Speaker 1: We've got fifteen guys that are remembers at Queen So
Speaker 1: the Queen we was kind of like the first kind
Speaker 1: of ego americanized club. So you started chattying there, did
Speaker 1: you play, Adam?
Speaker 4: Growing up to my story as you ask, so, I
Speaker 4: always had desires to play, But I was one of
Speaker 4: these people at a very young age. Maybe I was
Speaker 4: a bit mature for my years. I realized I wasn't
Speaker 4: going to make it as a golfer. The pro shop
Speaker 4: didn't appeal to me, teaching didn't really appeal to me.
Speaker 4: So I didn't really know what I was doing in
Speaker 4: my life. And it was June two thousand and one,
Speaker 4: this creation of Queen was being built. I was a
Speaker 4: Keen golfer, single figure handicap or whatever, and me being
Speaker 4: a teenager, I thought, oh, would be a good idea
Speaker 4: to kind of trespass on Queenwood while it's being built
Speaker 4: with my putter and experience putting on some real American
Speaker 4: style greens. So I went over there with me and
Speaker 4: my buddy went over there. We must have got away
Speaker 4: with putting for about twenty minutes before a golf cart
Speaker 4: came out and we got basically thrown off for trespassing.
Speaker 4: But as we got thrown off for trespassing, the guy
Speaker 4: was like, look, you know our opening weekend is in October.
Speaker 4: This is back in oh one. So he said, our
Speaker 4: opening weekend is in October. We're desperate for caddies. We've
Speaker 4: got all these members, we've got no caddies. Do you
Speaker 4: want to come and caddy in the opening weekend? And
Speaker 4: for me caddy and I've cadded maybe for my coach
Speaker 4: and my golf club. I might have done around at
Speaker 4: sing now when I was a kid, possibly.
Speaker 1: But I'd never really cadded to any I didn't even
Speaker 1: know what caddy in really was, and sure enough I
Speaker 1: turned up an opening weekend. I cadded for a nice couple.
Speaker 1: Probably did an awful job because I had no idea
Speaker 1: what I was doing, and I learn on the job.
Speaker 4: Lord so Queen would actually close and I opened it
Speaker 4: for the weekend in October and then actually closed down
Speaker 4: for six months, didn't open up.
Speaker 1: The following spring.
Speaker 4: So I then spent four years cadine a queen would
Speaker 4: learn learning how the club caddy.
Speaker 1: What would you say, guys, is the difference between club
Speaker 1: caddying and the job that you have a smarty. You've
Speaker 1: been on the you're on the back when Danny Willett
Speaker 1: won the Masters, so you know what that situation's like. Adam.
Speaker 1: You know Thomas Peters, I mean, I like a lot
Speaker 1: of people are surprised he doesn't win more. You've caddied
Speaker 1: for him in the Olympics, You've caddied in Ryder Cups race,
Speaker 1: you've cauted for Harold. You guys have won big tournaments.
Speaker 1: What's the difference between being a caddy at a club
Speaker 1: and then being a caddy on tour Because we always
Speaker 1: say as instructors, it shouldn't be any different, right, the
Speaker 1: golf that you play on the weekend with your mates.
Speaker 1: I mean the courses maybe set up a little bit differently.
Speaker 1: But a time, you know, a young kid gets into
Speaker 1: a big tournament on tour or something, I always say
Speaker 1: on the same thing, it's just golf, right, and the
Speaker 1: golf that you're going to play at home is the
Speaker 1: same golf that you're going to play in a professional tournament.
Speaker 1: The difference is there there's more money, there's going to
Speaker 1: be more people. The golf course might be set up differently,
Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, guys, the game
Speaker 1: is no different. So chattying at a club, caddying for
Speaker 1: your mates and stuff. What's the difference that you guys
Speaker 1: think between that and caddying on tour.
Speaker 2: I'd say Adams probably.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I mean, essentially, yeah, the job, the
Speaker 4: job is the same, but the thing with the club
Speaker 4: caddying is, I mean you'll carry in every day. In fact,
Speaker 4: I'm not even every day. You could be doing every round.
Speaker 4: It's a different person, a different capability, a different standard.
Speaker 4: So you have to get to know their game within minutes.
Speaker 4: You know, it could be anybody. It could be a
Speaker 4: plus five handicap, it could be someone who's playing golf
Speaker 4: for the first time. So the difference between a club
Speaker 4: caddy and talk caddie is probably just that ability to adapt,
Speaker 4: is to adapt to that new scenario that you surrounded.
Speaker 4: And it's definitely a lot more heavily service based, you know,
Speaker 4: it's more of a concierge. That's how the skill set
Speaker 4: would differ.
Speaker 1: Definitely, yeah, I mean, and I think that there is
Speaker 1: a job right from being a caddy at a club.
Speaker 1: So the idea behind this new concept guy's caddy Clubhouse.
Speaker 1: Is it as simple as that. How does somebody who
Speaker 1: is caddying at a club that enjoys doing that, that
Speaker 1: is using that as their job l club in Florida,
Speaker 1: at the Floridian we're open from mid October until mid May.
Speaker 1: So we've got a group of caddies that caddy at
Speaker 1: the club for six to eight months and then they're
Speaker 1: going somewhere else. Right. But the jump from saying Okay,
Speaker 1: I love caddying, I really want to continue to do this.
Speaker 1: I would like to take this to the next level.
Speaker 1: As we said in the opening, guys, there's no way
Speaker 1: to do that. And it's a little bit like being
Speaker 1: a golf instructor, right. People always ask me all the time,
Speaker 1: how do you work with tour players? You have to
Speaker 1: be in the right place at the right time and
Speaker 1: get asked, right. And I think what you guys are
Speaker 1: trying to do with Caddy Clubhouse is say, Okay, can
Speaker 1: we maybe formalize this in a way to where if
Speaker 1: you want to continue to be a caddy you don't
Speaker 1: have to just hopefully have a mate that's going to
Speaker 1: try and play the challenge door or play the web
Speaker 1: or the corn ferry or whatever. It is, and because
Speaker 1: that's what happens. Right, you meet somebody, you go out.
Speaker 1: If you don't have any success, they're not going to
Speaker 1: keep you as a caddie. Right, the job is over
Speaker 1: unless you, guys go out and play well. So so
Speaker 1: many people are like yourself, right, go out, you get
Speaker 1: a break, guy says, hey, want to take you with me.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go try and play qualify for something.
Speaker 1: They qualify, they have success, and they say, okay, do
Speaker 1: you want to keep doing it? Because that's the only way,
Speaker 1: or to go to the Austin Johnson route, which is
Speaker 1: to have a brother who is one of the best
Speaker 1: players in the world and he wants you to come
Speaker 1: and carry the bag for him. So was the idea
Speaker 1: guys to say, listen, let's find a way to give
Speaker 1: people that want to caddy at an elite level a forum,
Speaker 1: a place to go in, a place to learn their craft. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think it's exactly what you said Claude at the beginning.
Speaker 2: You know how many messages do you get saying how
Speaker 2: do I get into caddying? And that's what that's what
Speaker 2: we get all the time. And you ask all the
Speaker 2: other caddies, they're all getting messages I want to get
Speaker 2: into Caddy and what do I do? And at what
Speaker 2: point are we just going to sit here and say
Speaker 2: the same thing. Well, you need a bit of a break,
Speaker 2: but try and get a better experience and do this
Speaker 2: and do that, and you know what, like tool life like,
Speaker 2: to get in the inner circle is really hard. Once
Speaker 2: you're in, you can you're okay, But like getting in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean I say this all the time.
Speaker 1: Tour players they are I say this. My wife always
Speaker 1: laughs at me when I say that. They're like dogs, right,
Speaker 1: they communicate nonverbally when they don't know you, They kind
Speaker 1: of snip around, they bark at things they haven't seen before.
Speaker 1: But you're right, you get out on tour, you have
Speaker 1: some success. Those relationships, as we all know, are never permanent.
Speaker 1: You know, there are no lifetime contracts in the Caddian
Speaker 1: world or the coaches world. But because you're on tour,
Speaker 1: people see you, they're in the same group with you.
Speaker 1: So you guys will get jobs based off of players
Speaker 1: going hey, I've been out with you before, kind of
Speaker 1: like the way you do things. I'm going to make
Speaker 1: a switch. I heard you're in between jobs. But other
Speaker 1: than being in that situation. Historically, there is no professional
Speaker 1: an instruction. Go to the PGA of America and learn
Speaker 1: to be you know, work at a shop, learn to
Speaker 1: be an instructor, learn to club repair and all of that.
Speaker 1: But there's no formal organization that teaches people how to caddy.
Speaker 1: In the US, they have the PGM program, which is
Speaker 1: Professional Golf Management. There's specific colleges that you can go
Speaker 1: to and basically you're getting a degree in becoming a
Speaker 1: golf pro. And every year at the PJ Merchandise Show
Speaker 1: you see these young kids walking around in the PGM uniform,
Speaker 1: you know, khakis they bought out a Walmart that are
Speaker 1: four sizes too big. But there has never been a
Speaker 1: place for caddies. So how are you guys going to
Speaker 1: go about teaching people how to caddy?
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean the Star is just going to be
Speaker 2: online courses. So there's two online courses because, like you say,
Speaker 2: as hard as it is to get on tool, you know,
Speaker 2: to get in your club exact for example, like the Fluidi,
Speaker 2: and you still got to kind of maybe know someone
Speaker 2: just to go and clip cudding. So there's going to
Speaker 2: be that course as well. So this we want to
Speaker 2: you know as we've all got different always how we
Speaker 2: got into it, and when Adam came on board, we
Speaker 2: realized that there's two roles here in caddy and there's
Speaker 2: tour caddying and there's club caddy in so we provided
Speaker 2: two like really in depth courses. The idea behind the
Speaker 2: tour one is you skip all the mistakes we made
Speaker 2: early on because you know that reputation. You know if
Speaker 2: you mess up on those first couple of weeks, you
Speaker 2: might get the sack and you might never get another chance.
Speaker 2: So hopefully we get those foundations in place for you
Speaker 2: and we go through and all the material is all
Speaker 2: the stuff we've learned over the years, and we've learned
Speaker 2: from other caddiers and other people in and around golf,
Speaker 2: so we've provided all that. But I think the big
Speaker 2: thing as well after that is once you've completed the course,
Speaker 2: you'll be part of a community, so an online community.
Speaker 2: You'll create your own profile, and on that community you'll
Speaker 2: have access to agents, players and golf clubs that are
Speaker 2: posting jobs. So when those jobs become available, you can
Speaker 2: kind of put your CV in or profile if you like,
Speaker 2: and apply for that job. And then from you know,
Speaker 2: agents players and so on can start choosing maybe who
Speaker 2: they want to speak to and so on. So just
Speaker 2: giving you that bit of access instead of having to
Speaker 2: know someone if you like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because the caddy mantra historically is show up, keep up, stop.
Speaker 1: That's basically the training. Historically. It's a joke, right, it's
Speaker 1: a joke within the caddy in fraternity, but that is
Speaker 1: as much as you get historically. Just show up on time,
Speaker 1: don't talk too much, and keep up. I don't think
Speaker 1: I don't think that. I don't think that was in
Speaker 1: my job description when I took the job for Harold Club.
Speaker 1: I'll be honest. I've tried to go in with that
Speaker 1: moth o, but that did last too long. So, guys,
Speaker 1: what's the hardest part? I asked my ask my uncle
Speaker 1: about this. I always ask caddies about this. What do
Speaker 1: you three feel like it's the hardest part about caddying
Speaker 1: that people that look at what you guys do on
Speaker 1: TV that they would be surprised at. That's a good question. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you go ahead.
Speaker 3: I just think it's being able to adapt in certain situations.
Speaker 3: And I, like you say, like no one went to
Speaker 3: say things at the right time. And no one when
Speaker 3: to when to sort of when you say shut be
Speaker 3: quiet basically because obviously that again, like Adam said, it's
Speaker 3: we know the guys that we carry. For when you
Speaker 3: club caddy and you knowing them for like five ten minutes,
Speaker 3: you're having to sort of think of stuff on the spot.
Speaker 3: But I think when, like for the guys that we
Speaker 3: work with full time, it's like we get to know them,
Speaker 3: like we know when when they want advice, when they
Speaker 3: don't want advice, when to say something in certain situations.
Speaker 3: And again when when it comes to dancer situations where
Speaker 3: you're in contention for a tournament, sort of being able
Speaker 3: to understand the games, when to rain.
Speaker 1: Them in, when them when to allow them to go
Speaker 1: for things.
Speaker 3: So like as you said before, we can be as
Speaker 3: good at caddy as you want, but your player needs
Speaker 3: to You've got to ride a good horse.
Speaker 1: Adam, your digees. I mean so in the course, right,
Speaker 1: I mean to me the things that for someone that's
Speaker 1: never caddied before, you need to be organized, right, I
Speaker 1: think organizational skills are something that in my opinion, you know,
Speaker 1: I've been been on tour basically my entire life, you know,
Speaker 1: through watching my grandfather, my dad, all my uncles. I
Speaker 1: was on tour when my dad was playing the tour.
Speaker 1: I think the good ones are organized, they are they're
Speaker 1: fearless at times. Yeah, I think you have to be
Speaker 1: fearless to have the job that you guys have because
Speaker 1: the player picks up on it, right, Just like in
Speaker 1: my world coaching, if a player is hitting it bad
Speaker 1: and I panic, then the player panics. But yardages, the
Speaker 1: numbers and all of the things that go into caddying
Speaker 1: on tour, that's somewhat, Adam, kind of a baptism by fire,
Speaker 1: because a tour yardage book, for everybody that's never seen one,
Speaker 1: looks like an algebra text. Right. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of numbers, there are a lot of nuancewers to the
Speaker 1: yardage book. So, Adam, when for everyone listening the yardage
Speaker 1: book is doing, what and what information do you feel
Speaker 1: as a caddy is the important information that you're trying
Speaker 1: to fall out of a yardage book. Yeah? So I
Speaker 1: love what you're saying there.
Speaker 4: So the keyword that you kind of not missed, but
Speaker 4: the keyword that the narrative of what we try and
Speaker 4: push early on in the course is the word preparation. Now,
Speaker 4: preparation is kind of is where we're going. Really here
Speaker 4: is when we're even with it in terms of our
Speaker 4: yardage book. So we're getting a yardage book, we're getting
Speaker 4: a look at the course earlier in the week, we're
Speaker 4: identifying the numbers we need, specific numbers, and that's all
Speaker 4: part of the preparation. And really, once you have that,
Speaker 4: you know, once you're in that position, you should never
Speaker 4: be in a situation during the tournament play where you
Speaker 4: don't have that answer. And I think that that is
Speaker 4: the beauty of it. Now our course will obviously we'll
Speaker 4: go ahead and it'll teach you each aspect of that,
Speaker 4: and I could go into that in more depth, but
Speaker 4: ultimately the thing with the narrative early on in both
Speaker 4: courses is preparation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that one of the things that
Speaker 1: I see all three of you doing when you're going
Speaker 1: out and walking the course without the players, there are
Speaker 1: always going to be holes on the golf course that
Speaker 1: have funky layups, funky runout the angle of kind of
Speaker 1: where the t box to the So there are a
Speaker 1: lot of times where you guys will be trying to
Speaker 1: get different numbers that aren't in the book. Right, the
Speaker 1: book will give you yardages to front, middle, and back
Speaker 1: from all the sprinkler heads. They'll tell you where the
Speaker 1: bunkers are, off the tees. They'll tell you what the
Speaker 1: carries are. But what are some other numbers? For people
Speaker 1: that have never counted before, there are going to be
Speaker 1: other numbers that you guys are trying to get. What
Speaker 1: are some of those numbers that you want to have
Speaker 1: so that when the player asks you a question, you've
Speaker 1: got the answer? Yeah, do you want to take that? John? No,
Speaker 1: you do it?
Speaker 4: Well, Yeah, I was just going to say for me personally,
Speaker 4: I mean I work for I work for quite a
Speaker 4: fiery golfer. I think you wouldn't mind me saying that,
Speaker 4: you know, So Part five long. Part four's, for example,
Speaker 4: that position, I'm going to need a couple of numbers,
Speaker 4: so I'd have a number I'd be looking for my
Speaker 4: what I'd abbreviate just in case number.
Speaker 1: So that's a number where it's.
Speaker 4: Like, you know, we're hacking out of the raff, or
Speaker 4: we're hacking it into a position where you know we're
Speaker 4: not bringing.
Speaker 1: You can tell everybody in the ottage box there is
Speaker 1: the abbreviated letters which are come on. Ye, So you
Speaker 1: see a lot of j I sees in my books.
Speaker 1: And then of course.
Speaker 4: Ideally you'll have you'll have more of an aggressive sort
Speaker 4: of layup, which is, you know, if you're in the
Speaker 4: semi raff, but if you've you know, if you're carrying
Speaker 4: someone who's a particularly errant t shot and they're thinking
Speaker 4: they're going to hit three wood through a little triangle
Speaker 4: up onto the green, and you're like, there's a wedge, buddy,
Speaker 4: just in case number. That's how I label it in
Speaker 4: my books, and I think everybody does a similar thing,
Speaker 4: and maybe they don't call it just in case. I
Speaker 4: don't know where I picked that from Riseley.
Speaker 1: What do you call yours? I don't know if they
Speaker 1: still have it. But back in the day, you know,
Speaker 1: fifteen twenty years ago, they had the initials for just
Speaker 1: in case. You find those initials are I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: still seen yardage books where those are in the box.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think they were. Were they not the strack
Speaker 4: of book? Were they not the original books with the
Speaker 4: orange covers? I think it was some of that that
Speaker 4: you had, like pictures of sharks and the legs and
Speaker 4: stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, that was the ones. I think that's
Speaker 1: where I got it from. Yeah, how do you guys manage?
Speaker 1: I mean the worst place you can be on the
Speaker 1: golf course as a caddy for an elite player is
Speaker 1: they ask you a question you don't know the answer to, right,
Speaker 1: And how much of it? Guys, do you feel like
Speaker 1: caddying is information and opinion? And how do you how
Speaker 1: do you find that balance between the player scheme for
Speaker 1: the information and giving your opinion. I mean, do you
Speaker 1: guys work for guys that you guys have court blanche
Speaker 1: to give your opinion all the time, or do you
Speaker 1: guys have players where they just say, listen, give me
Speaker 1: the information. I'll make the decision myself. If I need
Speaker 1: your input, I'll ask for it.
Speaker 3: I think all three of us were for completely different guys,
Speaker 3: which is a great Which is a great question, Claude.
Speaker 3: I think we've talked about this me and Smarty before.
Speaker 3: Like I work for Harold. Harold just wants me to
Speaker 3: give him a club, Just give him a number to
Speaker 3: let him go. Like, I'll be honest, I got the
Speaker 3: best bit of advice ever from Billy Foster when I
Speaker 3: first started caddying. He's like, when you're standing there, don't
Speaker 3: be ever afraid to say what you're thinking. And that
Speaker 3: stuck with me ever since. So, like, if I feel
Speaker 3: like he's hitting the wrong shot, I'm going to openly
Speaker 3: tell him and listen, we all make mistakes and if
Speaker 3: you're wrong, you're.
Speaker 1: Wrong, you hold your hands up and you move on.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think we all work for different guys.
Speaker 3: I think Smarty and his player a little bit a
Speaker 3: little bit different to what me and Harold are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think like like exactly what Rice he says.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've worked for a range of players and
Speaker 2: they all want different things. And I think, as we've
Speaker 2: kind of touched on before, just being adaptable and knowing
Speaker 2: your player, so you're going to kind of get a
Speaker 2: feel for when they need extra information, when they need
Speaker 2: things reaffirming, or when they just need to when you
Speaker 2: just need to guard the way you know, when it's
Speaker 2: just keep it really simple. I remember when I used
Speaker 2: to work for Dan, Like when he used to get
Speaker 2: in contention, it was always less information. You didn't need
Speaker 2: to really do that much, just give him the real basics,
Speaker 2: kept it simple, whereas like early on in the week
Speaker 2: he'd be asking for every bit of information. So it's
Speaker 2: just I think you just got to kind of learn,
Speaker 2: you know, and you will over time obviously understand your player.
Speaker 2: And I think you know on your question on when
Speaker 2: you don't know the answer or whatever it might be,
Speaker 2: is honesty, Like you know, sometimes you got to be
Speaker 2: feel this in big decisions and big moments and stuff.
Speaker 2: But you know, if there is something you're not sure about,
Speaker 2: like the majority of players, I've word or appreciate that
Speaker 2: honesty and just go listen. I don't know, but this
Speaker 2: is what I think we should do or whatever that
Speaker 2: scenario might be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think the other thing that I
Speaker 1: don't think people realizes when you're watching golf on TV.
Speaker 1: I found this when I started doing television. When you
Speaker 1: watch golf on TV and you're listening to the announcers
Speaker 1: and you're listening to the announcers talk, it seems like
Speaker 1: they've got forever to do it right. But as soon
Speaker 1: as you go on television, you've got about thirty or
Speaker 1: forty seconds to say something. Give what's happening for you guys.
Speaker 1: It seems like there's a lot of time for you
Speaker 1: guys to get the numbers, But you've got to get
Speaker 1: down there. You've got to first of all, take a
Speaker 1: look at the lie then kind of figure out what
Speaker 1: the numbers are. I'm sure you can get to a
Speaker 1: point where you can do that quite quickly. But Adam,
Speaker 1: as you said, I mean you work for someone in
Speaker 1: Thomas Peters to where if Thomas hits one offline with
Speaker 1: the driver or he can hit it a long way
Speaker 1: off line, and then you're out in kind of no
Speaker 1: man's land trying to get Like if you work for
Speaker 1: a player that's got speed and distance, you're going to
Speaker 1: have times in the round where they are going to
Speaker 1: hit an errant t shot that is a long way
Speaker 1: and it's a long way off line, and you don't
Speaker 1: have a tremendous amount of time. You don't have five
Speaker 1: minutes to figure it out and go get You've got
Speaker 1: to do this stuff very very quickly. Do you guys
Speaker 1: feel the pressure sometimes to get the numbers fast so
Speaker 1: that you then have time to talk about the strategy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely no. You know what, clauda something that I've
Speaker 4: never really thought about it. I've always been quite like
Speaker 4: call and collected with it. But since there's been a
Speaker 4: lot more emphasis and scrutiny on like slow play, and
Speaker 4: you know there's people getting fined or getting shot analis.
Speaker 1: I've got to say.
Speaker 4: The last few events, I'm like, you know, we've hit
Speaker 4: an errand shot and we might might not, you know,
Speaker 4: use I work for a long hit has always last
Speaker 4: a hit, so it's never really a problem.
Speaker 1: He's quite quick.
Speaker 4: But we found ourselves in positions and I'm like, I
Speaker 4: need to make a decision here, and yeah, I certainly.
Speaker 1: Think it more and more with me having in mind
Speaker 1: a bit of the slow play thing.
Speaker 4: You know, you never want to obviously pain in a
Speaker 4: position where you're going to cash a player a shot
Speaker 4: or a fine or a penalty or anything like that,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. So it's become I think
Speaker 4: about it more recently, just purely based on that.
Speaker 1: Is there a difference, guys, between caddying and or what
Speaker 1: is the difference between caddying in a regular tour event
Speaker 1: in caddying in a major? What's the difference cadding wise?
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say live then.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I thought you were going to say live. But
Speaker 4: you can use ladies in the US Open, you can
Speaker 4: use lads in the USPJ or that other way around. Well,
Speaker 4: I mean well, clearly would you guys.
Speaker 1: But what's the difference caddying week in, week out and
Speaker 1: then caddying in a major.
Speaker 2: I'd say condition of the course. I think you've got
Speaker 2: to do it, generally a little bit more homework. And majors,
Speaker 2: I think everyone's your players are always a bit more
Speaker 2: on edge, or maybe that's not the right way, but
Speaker 2: definitely trying harder. Whether they like it or not, they're
Speaker 2: all they're all trying to win a major more than
Speaker 2: anything else. And I think the condition of the course
Speaker 2: always takes a little bit more homework because the pins
Speaker 2: are going to get more touck. Generally, the rough's a
Speaker 2: bit thicker, the fair, you know, the greens are a
Speaker 2: bit firmer. Now you've got to look at misses that
Speaker 2: you maybe don't have to look at what you might
Speaker 2: get away with in a regular event. I think just
Speaker 2: the homework side of things, I think you've really you've
Speaker 2: got to be almost more prepared, and then being aware
Speaker 2: of your players probably going to be under a little
Speaker 2: bit more stress that week, so you've got to be
Speaker 2: ready for that and kind of adjust accordingly.
Speaker 1: If you like the harder the golf course. Obviously in majors, guys,
Speaker 1: the test is by design. They want the test to
Speaker 1: be harder when the course set up is tightened, like
Speaker 1: it is in major Championship where they're tucking pins. Where
Speaker 1: the conditions are tougher. Is the information that you're going
Speaker 1: to give the player different when the conditions aren't as.
Speaker 3: Tough, not necessarily like leg smartly touched on, you start
Speaker 3: you start looking at your misses, where the best place
Speaker 3: to miss it is, where your leaves are.
Speaker 1: Going to be.
Speaker 3: I think when the conditions are a little bit more gettable,
Speaker 3: like softer conditions, you're almost you're almost giving them less
Speaker 3: information because you can just aim at flags. When it
Speaker 3: becomes tougher, firm of greens, you're looking at your pitching
Speaker 3: numbers where you want to leave it, to leave you
Speaker 3: the uphill put because obviously you can still hit it
Speaker 3: fIF fifteen feet past it in some of these on
Speaker 3: some of these holes, and you can't keep it on
Speaker 3: the green. So you're obviously the conditions. The firmness of
Speaker 3: the conditions obviously changes to when it's softer, so you
Speaker 3: obviously guys can play more aggressive. You play more defensive.
Speaker 3: In a lot of these majors, you're trying to make
Speaker 3: pause in a lot of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: Everyone thinks are going to move a bit like backwards,
Speaker 3: but images they're only going to move. You all not leadable,
Speaker 3: So you've just got to be more on the ball
Speaker 3: with where everything really.
Speaker 1: The psychologist aspect of what you all do, right, because
Speaker 1: in the course of a round of golf, the players
Speaker 1: going to want you to carry the back, so you're
Speaker 1: basically a modern day sherpa. Right, then you've got to
Speaker 1: be a psychologist. They expect you to know where the
Speaker 1: wind is at all times, so you've got to be
Speaker 1: somewhat of a wind expert meteorologist. You've got to be
Speaker 1: good with numbers. You've got to do a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff in a very short period of time. Guys, how
Speaker 1: do you go about building course content that is going
Speaker 1: to kind of encumbass all of the things that I
Speaker 1: just talked about because all of that stuff is part
Speaker 1: of an eighteen whole round of competitive golf. Right, You're
Speaker 1: going to have to be somewhat of a psychologist because
Speaker 1: you don't know whether they're in a good mood or
Speaker 1: a bad mood. Their mood sort of going to change
Speaker 1: on the golf course. You've got to be pretty good
Speaker 1: or pretty quick with numbers to try and get all
Speaker 1: of the numbers and prepare them in an organized way.
Speaker 1: You got to know where the wind is, You got
Speaker 1: to know the course is drying out. So how did
Speaker 1: you guys come up with the course curriculum for Caddy Clubhouse?
Speaker 1: What did you guys put in? What did you guys
Speaker 1: not put in? Did you guys put in some things
Speaker 1: that you said, hey, we think this is vital to
Speaker 1: be a good caddy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, well, if we can sit here and
Speaker 2: talk about caddy in and go all day long, but
Speaker 2: when someone actually to put something down on a piece
Speaker 2: of paper on how he can design, it's a little
Speaker 2: bit tougher. So luckily that that's why this three of
Speaker 2: us here, Like we've brought all the things together, but
Speaker 2: we've put a lot of the courses stuff that you're
Speaker 2: expected to know. And I remember my first event on
Speaker 2: challenge to her and Grace. I was working for Gracie
Speaker 2: and he was putting the pins in his book, just
Speaker 2: this simple little thing. And even though I played to
Speaker 2: a high level, I've never done that before. So like
Speaker 2: just tiny little things that you are just expected to
Speaker 2: know so we've put that all together in a curriculum
Speaker 2: in order of where we think it should come, and
Speaker 2: we've tried to cover everything. As I said before, is
Speaker 2: all our mistakes, if you like. So we've just kind
Speaker 2: of worked through everything systematically. So we've got a stats
Speaker 2: module from Duncan Carey. So obviously that's a big part
Speaker 2: of golf now, it's something that's expected of caddies to
Speaker 2: at least understand whether your player uses them or not.
Speaker 2: There's all different sorts of modules that we've put together.
Speaker 2: But then obviously when we get out to caddying, as
Speaker 2: you've touched on, when it's talking about decision making and
Speaker 2: things like that, that's all you learning through experiences. So
Speaker 2: we've tried to give you all the factual stuff if
Speaker 2: you like, and the stuff to kind of skip six
Speaker 2: months or a year's worth of experience and learning and
Speaker 2: giving you all our information on maybe how you're going
Speaker 2: to skip through that process.
Speaker 1: You said that part of the impetus behind this is
Speaker 1: to kind of jump start and have people that want
Speaker 1: to take the courses learn from your mistakes. But the
Speaker 1: obvious question, guys, for the three of you is what
Speaker 1: what were some important mistakes you made caddying that helped
Speaker 1: you get to that next level to where you guys
Speaker 1: are where you are today.
Speaker 3: I got along, I got a long list of mistakes
Speaker 3: I can get away where because every guy that I've
Speaker 3: worked for has never carried the ottage book, so the
Speaker 3: emphasis has always been on me, me getting it right.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just a little things like obviously getting
Speaker 3: the wind direction wrong which makes you guys fly agreen
Speaker 3: or leave short of agree.
Speaker 1: And it's just it's because obviously that's got to be
Speaker 1: your fault, right because the player is not going to
Speaker 1: take any responsibility for that.
Speaker 3: Well, it's it's either short, so long as the caddie's fault,
Speaker 3: it's left or right your fault, claude, So.
Speaker 1: Exactly we get that out of the way, all that
Speaker 1: you finish the other way. That was brilliant. So my
Speaker 1: dad was commentating on Sky Sports British TV at the
Speaker 1: at the Players Championship TPC. So the seventeenth pole obviously
Speaker 1: island green, and I can't remember the player, but this
Speaker 1: player is. It's when they put the pin on on
Speaker 1: the island green, they kind of put it up on
Speaker 1: that top back right show, So not the one not
Speaker 1: the Sunday front one, but the one where they put
Speaker 1: it kind of middle ish top and then everybody when
Speaker 1: they miss it, they're they're not coming up short, they're
Speaker 1: hitting it, they're posing on it. So this player's posing
Speaker 1: on it and it goes over the flag. It's like
Speaker 1: two yards too far, goes in the water. So the
Speaker 1: players walk into the drop zone and he is just
Speaker 1: going through to caddy right. It's got the finger pointing,
Speaker 1: and my dad live on air, says, this is everything
Speaker 1: you need to know about being a professional golfer. Longer
Speaker 1: short is always going to be the caddy's fault. Left
Speaker 1: to right is going to be the coach's fault. Body hurts.
Speaker 1: You can blame that on the trainer or the physio,
Speaker 1: go up in a bad mood, wife, or golfin's fault
Speaker 1: or both, but never the player. And my dad said
Speaker 1: it live on air, and that is basically that is
Speaker 1: tour player one oh one. It's never going to be
Speaker 1: their fault. We joke about that, guys, but that is
Speaker 1: part of the job, right It's the part of the
Speaker 1: job that I've got as an instructor. It's definitely part
Speaker 1: of the job that you guys, have. Part of being
Speaker 1: a caddy is you got to thick skin because you're
Speaker 1: gonna get blamed for some stuff. You're My uncle Billy,
Speaker 1: when I had him on my putty, said name me
Speaker 1: another job to where he said this happens. And you
Speaker 1: guys have seen this, It's happened probably to you guys
Speaker 1: as well. You can be right as a caddy for
Speaker 1: seventy one holes, right for four days and the last
Speaker 1: hole you could give one bad number and it cost
Speaker 1: the player of the tournament, and you can lose your
Speaker 1: job almost instantaneously. And my uncle Billy said, name me
Speaker 1: another job where you are ninety five percent right and
Speaker 1: you're gonna get fired for one thing that you got wrong.
Speaker 1: It's like there's no other job in the world where
Speaker 1: that happens. How do you deal with And we all
Speaker 1: get it, we get it as coaches, but you guys
Speaker 1: get it more than anybody. The dynamic on the golf
Speaker 1: course where you you know that you made a mistake,
Speaker 1: he's hit one in the water, he's made double. Maybe
Speaker 1: it was you. He was in between clubs. You wanted
Speaker 1: them to hit one club or you didn't hit the other.
Speaker 1: But you know that you're going to get it right,
Speaker 1: and you know you're going to get yelled at. You
Speaker 1: know you're going to get screamed at. How do you
Speaker 1: deal with it? Yeah, it's probably the best.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well I don't snap clubs if I didn't make
Speaker 4: them take the course. I tend to deal with it
Speaker 4: slightly more, you know, than a slightly calmer manner. But yeah,
Speaker 4: it's just claud it. It's like the secret source. That
Speaker 4: just one of the things you know, experience. You know,
Speaker 4: for the first time you make a mistake as a
Speaker 4: professional caddy, it's like the world has ended. I mean,
Speaker 4: you know that you just want the ground to sallow
Speaker 4: you up and you want it all to be over.
Speaker 4: But then you start to realize as you mature as
Speaker 4: a caddyers and human being, people make mistakes. It's going
Speaker 4: to happen. I make mistakes, We all make mistakes. Anybody
Speaker 4: who takes the course will make mistakes, and it's just
Speaker 4: accepting that, and it's just learning how to handle that
Speaker 4: and come back from that. The best manner not to
Speaker 4: get flustered by it, to stay calm. If you've made
Speaker 4: a mistake, own it, don't you know.
Speaker 1: Honesty.
Speaker 4: When we touched on earlier, on quite cliche at times
Speaker 4: what I'm saying, but it's just it's very much so
Speaker 4: you just got to stay in the moment, remain very calm,
Speaker 4: collect your thoughts, and just concentrate on what you're doing
Speaker 4: next and just make sure you deliver some good information
Speaker 4: for the remainder of the round.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure it is tough guys early on in
Speaker 1: your career where you have that situation, it's a new
Speaker 1: relationship you don't have, you know, five ten years of
Speaker 1: experience you know of doing it. It must be quite
Speaker 1: daunting to have that an experience where you know that
Speaker 1: famous story about Tiger and Steve Williams at the pgat
Speaker 1: I think it was at Medina, Tiger called Stevie in
Speaker 1: on a pott and Stevie backed him off of something.
Speaker 1: But it does take guts to do that, right. The
Speaker 1: wind switches. It's early in your career. You're in between
Speaker 1: seven and eight, and all of a sudden he's chosen
Speaker 1: a club and the wind switches. It's going to be
Speaker 1: hard to say, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, the wind just switch.
Speaker 1: We got to go with something else. Early on in
Speaker 1: your career, it's hard to make those calls, isn't it,
Speaker 1: because you don't have the experience to say no, no, no,
Speaker 1: this is what we do here in this situation. No, no, exactly, Claudon.
Speaker 4: And also like that's relative to prize money as well,
Speaker 4: you'll cut into the vent or, you'll cut in a
Speaker 4: lower rank. Event a mistake, of course, it might it
Speaker 4: might cost you, as a caddy, a couple of hundred
Speaker 4: and two, three hundred euros. But you get to the
Speaker 4: you get to the big stage, and you make a
Speaker 4: mistake of that, I mean it can cost I mean,
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 1: I'll be honest to give you a story.
Speaker 4: Now, I remember we were playing, so we were playing
Speaker 4: it was the last time we were playing the Hondas.
Speaker 1: It wasn't that long ago. I want to say it
Speaker 1: was twenty twenty two.
Speaker 4: We're playing the Honda, and for some reason they had
Speaker 4: no Sorry I take that back. We're playing Bayhill. Sorry,
Speaker 4: I don't know why I said the Honda. So we're
Speaker 4: playing We're playing Arnold Palmer Bayhill twenty twenty two. I've
Speaker 4: carried seventy holes brilliantly. And my man hates I mean,
Speaker 4: he hates that place. He hates that He just and
Speaker 4: somehow I've got him around, he's laid up on the
Speaker 4: par five. He's hit it on and we made but oh,
Speaker 4: it's just and for some reason, I don't know why
Speaker 4: Bayhill did this, they thought, let's get the seventeenth pole
Speaker 4: and let's put the tea on the bottom level, not
Speaker 4: even the top level. Some reason they started putting down
Speaker 4: the bottom level. And I'm like, we've just played sixteen
Speaker 4: and the winds wind's been into so I'm like, we
Speaker 4: spin around up and the wind's gonna be helping off
Speaker 4: the right and I'm uber confident, feel like everything's going perfectly.
Speaker 1: It's a perfect nine nine now in the time we've
Speaker 1: walked from the sixteenth into the seventeen through the winds.
Speaker 4: Obviously later on the date st just to creep round
Speaker 4: and maybe there was a slight old Yeah, I've cut
Speaker 4: it up into right left wing. Anyway, this thing's short,
Speaker 4: I mean too, it's not even made the bunk splash
Speaker 4: with a nine iron.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He twenty yards out, I mean twenty yards out.
Speaker 4: And the worst thing is, yeah, we said we have
Speaker 4: to trop forward to the drop zone, yeah, which is
Speaker 4: about twenty yards in front of us, and he said,
Speaker 4: look for me, went nine.
Speaker 1: One again a I went.
Speaker 4: Hits a nine zero from the drop zone, stiffs it
Speaker 4: makes bogey and went absolutely mental. But I mean and
Speaker 4: that that was only two years ago, so I mean,
Speaker 4: it happens. Look, it happens. I did a like your
Speaker 4: uncle Billy said, I did a great job for you know,
Speaker 4: ninety eight percent of the whole tournament. And what my
Speaker 4: point was that mistake there, that that shot might have
Speaker 4: cost him there or I cost him or whatever whatever happened.
Speaker 4: That was two hundred and forty thousand dollars that mistake.
Speaker 1: He made the point.
Speaker 4: He made the point about telling me on the driver
Speaker 4: Jack from Ville, next week, you're kind of players next week,
Speaker 4: of course he did. Yeah, so that's the personal story
Speaker 4: of how much you know, how how it can affect you.
Speaker 4: But at the time it was you know, it was
Speaker 4: a hard one to swallow, but you know, it happens.
Speaker 4: Is there's times where you know, I'm sure caddies have
Speaker 4: given maybe got wrong numbers wrong the ardent. It's work
Speaker 4: in their favor and maybe they've gone on and made
Speaker 4: money out. I don't know, but yeah, that's what a
Speaker 4: person sorry to me.
Speaker 1: My favorite thing about tour players is they do the
Speaker 1: same things to you guys that they do to instructors.
Speaker 1: They can get into that headspace like we're trying to
Speaker 1: have them not play well like I want like I
Speaker 1: want to give you like from a caddy stamp. But yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I wanted to give you a bad number here so
Speaker 1: you can rinse it in the water and we go
Speaker 1: from making four point fifty this week to making you know,
Speaker 1: seventy eight grand. No, No, that's exactly what I've wanted to
Speaker 1: have happened here, is I want to make this little
Speaker 1: amount of money this week as possible. It's crazy way
Speaker 1: they think. Sometimes, guys, give me caddies that you guys admire,
Speaker 1: Caddies that you look at, you know, either currently in
Speaker 1: the game or in the past, that you've been out with.
Speaker 1: But give me some names of caddies that you guys
Speaker 1: look out and go. Man, he's a good.
Speaker 4: Cattle Mick Doran for me, Mick Doran, Oh yeah, currently
Speaker 4: currently Lee Westwards bag man. He's always been a bit
Speaker 4: of a role model and a bit well a good
Speaker 4: friend of mine and for me, a bit of my
Speaker 4: sort of like I'm not gonna say caddy crush, but yeah, certainly, yeah,
Speaker 4: I like, I think.
Speaker 1: Mix it, I got a great one.
Speaker 3: We call him he throws cross because every everything that
Speaker 3: he throws across wind. So I remember the sixth doll
Speaker 3: at Race to do buys caddying for Thomas Bjorn and
Speaker 3: it's a short path three over water. It's probably one
Speaker 3: forty five, so there's like four yards that pins on
Speaker 3: four yards over the water. So he stood there with Thomas.
Speaker 3: He's given him the number wherever he's ready to go.
Speaker 3: He's got I think he's got nana and it's slightly
Speaker 3: into the window wherever it is. And I stood there
Speaker 3: and Thomas is over the ball and mixed gone, whoa, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 3: And I've looked at him.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, he goes, there's a there's a gust coming.
Speaker 1: So we're all we're all stood there looking like where's
Speaker 1: this gust.
Speaker 3: He goes, yeah, just give it, just give it fifteen seconds.
Speaker 3: So we're like, where's this gust coming from?
Speaker 1: Next thing?
Speaker 3: This gust comes from over a house, and I stay,
Speaker 3: that's on on Jamira Golf. This gust comes through, goes back,
Speaker 3: goes past us, and he's like, right, Thomas, you're good
Speaker 3: to go now.
Speaker 1: Fans over it hits this nine nine, it's like two
Speaker 1: foot and I'm like, what was that?
Speaker 3: Like, it was unbelievable how he noticed his gust. And
Speaker 3: it's like it's thinking. It's situations like that where you
Speaker 3: think these guys have been around a long time and
Speaker 3: the experiences is creeping in.
Speaker 1: I mean, if he's to if he wanted to kind
Speaker 1: of model a caddy program off of I mean, I
Speaker 1: can't think of a better person Billy Foster, Right, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you look at the job that Billy Foster is done,
Speaker 1: if you look at the bags that Billy's been on
Speaker 1: major champions I mean, it's just smarty. When you're looking
Speaker 1: at the curriculum for doing a course like this on caddying,
Speaker 1: are you looking when you're coming up with the courses
Speaker 1: and the information and the curriculum, are you looking at
Speaker 1: specific individuals that that are caddies that you say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he does that really really well. That's something
Speaker 1: we could put into the course because I think everybody
Speaker 1: that caddies at the highest level, again, we're all in
Speaker 1: the same boat. We're hired by professional golfers. Everybody's role
Speaker 1: and everybody's skill set is different, Right, did you take
Speaker 1: smarty real world experiences with other caddies and say, okay, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: this guy does this really really well, we're going to
Speaker 1: put that in. We like the way that he addresses this,
Speaker 1: We're going to put that in. Because obviously the wealth
Speaker 1: of caddies, everybody's got their own strength as a caddy, right,
Speaker 1: everybody's got their own you know, as you said, see
Speaker 1: the secret sauce, Right, caddies have the secret sauce as well.
Speaker 1: So did you try and take your experiences and say, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: we've got to put this in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent. I mean I still do it
Speaker 2: to this day. You know, you'll see something a caddy does,
Speaker 2: whoever that might be.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: And I got lucky early on in my career because
Speaker 2: I was working for Dan and he was around Westy
Speaker 2: and Billy was caddying through the time. So I've got
Speaker 2: to spend a lot of time with Billy. I can't
Speaker 2: sit here and say that I've not learned loads from him,
Speaker 2: and everything that's probably a lot of stuff in this
Speaker 2: course has probably come from him at some point. And
Speaker 2: if you look at the way I write notes in
Speaker 2: my yardage book and everything like that, it's all from
Speaker 2: basically what I've learned from other caddies. It's not you know,
Speaker 2: it's stuff I've picked up along the time. And you know,
Speaker 2: when we talk about building this course, we're trying to
Speaker 2: give you like a real broad spectrum of knowledge. So
Speaker 2: can you work Brighton one day and work for someone
Speaker 2: you know like Rice? He said with HAROLDY just wants
Speaker 2: real simple there's your close.
Speaker 1: The answer to the answer to that is now, yeah,
Speaker 1: the answer to that. The answer to that is no, guys,
Speaker 1: because it worked. If you worked for Bryson for any
Speaker 1: sort of time period and then worked for HB three
Speaker 1: for any sort of time period, you'd end up in
Speaker 1: a mental asylum because having to deal with both of
Speaker 1: those two guys would be so so difficult. Chalk and cheese,
Speaker 1: Chalk and cheese. What attribute do you, guys think makes
Speaker 1: a great caddy someone who wants to do this course?
Speaker 1: If you said, listen, we've got this course Caddy Clubhouse.
Speaker 1: We're going to try and teach you how to be
Speaker 1: a great caddye, But in my opinion, to be a
Speaker 1: great caddy this is a non negotiable from me.
Speaker 3: I think you've just got to put the work in
Speaker 3: Claud I think lazy caddies will get caught oun't because,
Speaker 3: like like we said before, preparation if you if you're
Speaker 3: lazy in your preparations, not where it needs to be,
Speaker 3: and you need to start answering. Answering questions that your
Speaker 3: golfers putting that you're on the golf course and you
Speaker 3: can't answer them, you soon get caught out quick. So
Speaker 3: I think for me, it's all about putting the time
Speaker 3: and effort in being being properly prepared for every situation.
Speaker 3: I mean, the game's changed so much nowadays. Obviously a
Speaker 3: lot of these guys are in the gym before the round,
Speaker 3: after the round, you see. I mean you see it
Speaker 3: with the guys week in, week out. But I just think,
Speaker 3: like Smarty said before, and like you said, preparations massive
Speaker 3: is just putting the time, the time and effort in
Speaker 3: and being fully prepared ready for them questions that you pop.
Speaker 3: Your players going to ask.
Speaker 1: You, Adam, what do you think makes it? What? What
Speaker 1: are some non negotiables for you from a caddy standpoint right?
Speaker 4: One one word And I know the boys know what
Speaker 4: I'm going to say because I said all the way
Speaker 4: through the club.
Speaker 1: Course, adaptation.
Speaker 4: It's just the one thing if you can adapt to
Speaker 4: the whether it be your thirst extended gap, your Harold Vanna,
Speaker 4: you need to constantly adapt, whether it be a different whole,
Speaker 4: you know, different tournament, different weather conditions. The ability to
Speaker 4: adapt is just absolutely crucial for me, and it defines
Speaker 4: caddying Smarty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll throw the other guys under the bus. You're
Speaker 1: the only one that's that's carty for someone with a
Speaker 1: major champion and a green jacket. When you get those things,
Speaker 1: they're differentiators. You were caddying for someone that was a
Speaker 1: friend in Danny Willett. Was there a point in that
Speaker 1: tournament when you guys won the Masters where you guys went,
Speaker 1: holy shit, we're about to win the Masters.
Speaker 2: Not about to win it. But I remember walking off
Speaker 2: that fifteenth green because you know, it's like at golf tournament,
Speaker 2: you have no idea what's going on elsewhere. And I
Speaker 2: remember walking off that fifteenth and guys stood up in
Speaker 2: the grandstands hand, you know, head in the hands, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, what is going on? Anyway, they changed the
Speaker 2: scoreboard and I remember stood on that tea and Dan
Speaker 2: went to the bathroom on sixteen and Billy and Westy
Speaker 2: are there there one behind us? And Billy goes, oh,
Speaker 2: it looks like it's just me and you kid, and
Speaker 2: I was like, oh shit, shit. I was like, so yeah,
Speaker 2: we're not wonned by one shot lead. And then walking
Speaker 2: up eighteenth onto the green and he had seen he
Speaker 2: had a twelve foot pot, I'm like, and he asked
Speaker 2: me to read it. I'm like, what you're asking me
Speaker 2: to read this for? Just just nudge it near the ole?
Speaker 2: Who cares about the line, Just get it? So, yeah,
Speaker 2: I remember those moments and stuff. It's it's ridiculous and
Speaker 2: you don't probably appreciate it the laughter, to be honest,
Speaker 2: but yeah, it's we had three holes where you feel
Speaker 2: some serious, serious pressure and they are the best moments
Speaker 2: by a mile.
Speaker 1: But yeah, to be a professional caddy, how do they
Speaker 1: find you? Guys? What's the process?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've you know, we've got the website Catti clubous
Speaker 2: dot com and you can go on there. All the
Speaker 2: informations on there, all the information about courses, different modules.
Speaker 2: It's going to be live in roughly three weeks. You're
Speaker 2: going to be able to work through it, work through there.
Speaker 2: Everything will be step by step it'll take you through work,
Speaker 2: you through into the community and all the different access
Speaker 2: that we're going to give you or be there for you.
Speaker 2: So it should be. We've made it, tried to make
Speaker 2: it as simple as possible for people, and you can
Speaker 2: do it at your own pace, and you can do
Speaker 2: it from your own home and we'll we'll try and
Speaker 2: help you every step of the way.
Speaker 1: And Adam, I think because of your background starting off
Speaker 1: at a private club and being a club caddy, I
Speaker 1: do think that. I mean, every single tournament we have
Speaker 1: at my club, the Floridian, there will be you know,
Speaker 1: they're trying to get caddies for every group, for every
Speaker 1: you know, every player, there's always a couple of caddies
Speaker 1: that are new. They don't know, they're not good, they're
Speaker 1: just basically going to carry the bag and you know
Speaker 1: they're not thinking about it as a profession for the
Speaker 1: people that want to get their feet wet at the
Speaker 1: club level, how important do you think something like this
Speaker 1: is and how important also, Adam, do you think this
Speaker 1: is going to be moving forward to where you can
Speaker 1: go to caddy masters at clubs and say, listen, we've
Speaker 1: got these guys. They've taken our course this is their
Speaker 1: kind of CD because that, to me is something I
Speaker 1: think that is going to be. If this thing takes off,
Speaker 1: it can be vital. Like you said, agents, coaches, caddies.
Speaker 1: I mean, we all have players, you know. I teach
Speaker 1: a girl on the LPGA three weeks ago her caddie Quintin.
Speaker 1: She's like, I got to find a new caddy. If
Speaker 1: you're on tour, you can go through the tour caddies, right,
Speaker 1: you can ask around and stuff. But when you're at
Speaker 1: a private club and they're looking for good quality care,
Speaker 1: I think this could be something that clubs, head pros,
Speaker 1: caddy masters use and utilize so that they can get
Speaker 1: the best caddies for the members at their club. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I agree with you, Claude, And I think something I
Speaker 4: thought about before we did this pod let me ask
Speaker 4: you this. So, I mean, I don't know anything about
Speaker 4: the collity of the caddies at the Floridian, but how
Speaker 4: much is a green Triit green? Like a green fit
Speaker 4: the Floridian if I wanted to go play, if I could.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a private club, so I mean they're
Speaker 1: I think guest fees are. Yeah, they're in that kind
Speaker 1: of three fifty to four hundred range and the caddies
Speaker 1: you know, normally are getting probably you know, anywhere between
Speaker 1: fifty to one hundred US per play. Yeah, okay, fair enough.
Speaker 4: So I think if you're going to go to a
Speaker 4: gold club and for example, the Fluidian or whatever, and
Speaker 4: you're paying, you're in that sort of three to five hundred.
Speaker 1: Green pea mark.
Speaker 4: I think the club owes it to you to provide
Speaker 4: a good caddy, and I think that's where we come in.
Speaker 4: I'm not saying these clubs they've all got all the
Speaker 4: clubs of good caddies, but the inconsistency throughout the caddy
Speaker 4: program is something that is real. It's something we're going
Speaker 4: to go into the golf clubs, and we'd like to
Speaker 4: encourage golf clubs to utilize our services so we can
Speaker 4: elevate caddi program. Because having done four or five years
Speaker 4: club Acaddy, myself and I've done a bit of research
Speaker 4: and still in touch a lot of members, and definitely
Speaker 4: in consistency throughout caddi programs is something we were looking
Speaker 4: to address. And I really do think if you're going
Speaker 4: to spend if someone's going to spend five hundred dollars
Speaker 4: playing and really good golf course. We owe it to
Speaker 4: them as caddies or the golf club to give them
Speaker 4: that experience back in the caddy Yeah, and I mean I.
Speaker 1: Think that for a long time, caddies were kind of
Speaker 1: thought of not only in the in the club situation,
Speaker 1: but you know, in the professional game as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're caddying for a superstore, you're going
Speaker 1: to make a lot of money. But historically the caddies
Speaker 1: have not been treated well. They've been kind of treated
Speaker 1: like their third class citizens. And it's got to be
Speaker 1: frustrating for the three of you because they're like, listen,
Speaker 1: this is this is my life's work, this is my profession,
Speaker 1: this is my job. I'm not messing around, screwing around,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to follow the sun and get us sometime.
Speaker 1: This is what I do for a living. And there
Speaker 1: are people that, you know, like instructors. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: incredibly lucky to have been in the right place at
Speaker 1: the right time to work with the players that I have.
Speaker 1: But you guys know, there are loads of caddies that
Speaker 1: could do what you guys are doing at the elite level.
Speaker 1: They're just never going to get that opportunity, right, They're
Speaker 1: not in that fraternity, They're not in that kind of club,
Speaker 1: so to speak of people that are ever going to
Speaker 1: get access to elite golfers. I also think one of
Speaker 1: the things that this would be great for guys is,
Speaker 1: you know, in the summertime, elite juniors that are going
Speaker 1: and playing the junior circuit. I mean the I teach
Speaker 1: a kid that who I just had on the pod,
Speaker 1: no a caain't. He lost in the semi he lost
Speaker 1: in the finals of the USM, but he got a
Speaker 1: caddy at the Porter Cup where he finished second, and
Speaker 1: he kept him this entire summer and used him at
Speaker 1: the USM. And he's talking about using him when he
Speaker 1: gets to the final of the USAM. You get into
Speaker 1: the Masters in the US Open. So no, even though
Speaker 1: he didn't win the USM, he gets into the Masters
Speaker 1: in the US Open next year. I think this could
Speaker 1: also be a great kind of resource for parents of
Speaker 1: junior golfers that say, listen, I'm going to play in
Speaker 1: a tournament where I need a caddy. Let me get
Speaker 1: somebody that has some experience that has worked for all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you are a dream chaser. Trying to
Speaker 1: get through Q school and you're going to finals in Europe,
Speaker 1: or you're going to finals to get on the corn ferry.
Speaker 1: That's where I think you guys, guys coming out of
Speaker 1: college could utilize caddy fluffof citizen. I've made it to
Speaker 1: final stage. Now I want to get a real caddy
Speaker 1: that's been to final stage before, or then maybe has
Speaker 1: some history caddying for someone that's got.
Speaker 2: Status exactly that. I think it's an opportunity both ways,
Speaker 2: whether it's you know, like the amateur that you said,
Speaker 2: you know, whether he's working through the US ARM he
Speaker 2: gets his big break in the Master's US Open, who
Speaker 2: knows what he might do there. If you're caddying for
Speaker 2: him and you've provided value and hopefully helped him, he
Speaker 2: might top ten that week. You never know, we might
Speaker 2: top five. It gets another couple of PJ tour starts
Speaker 2: saying for someone at Q school, you know, like you
Speaker 2: could be working for the right person at Q School
Speaker 2: and you might be working them for five ten years
Speaker 2: and have an unbelievable career with them. So I think,
Speaker 2: you know, just having access to those jobs both ways,
Speaker 2: whether it's for parents, you know, for players coming up
Speaker 2: or just pros that are trying to make the way
Speaker 2: and like you say, just chasing their dream. Like do
Speaker 2: you know what, I'm just going to give it that
Speaker 2: extra push. I'm going to try and add that one
Speaker 2: percent on and get a good caddy and just give
Speaker 2: it everything I've got.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, if you look at Shane Nider, he's
Speaker 1: from Victor Hoblin. I mean, Shae caddy for a long
Speaker 1: time on the PGA tour, caddy for a bunch of
Speaker 1: good players, and I think through Wasserman, who's now management company,
Speaker 1: they got him to caddy for Vic in the two
Speaker 1: majors that he played as an amateur. He turned pro.
Speaker 1: As soon as he turned pro, they called Shay And
Speaker 1: I still remember when Shaye called me and we're at
Speaker 1: Memori and he was like, listen, I'm caddying for Luke
Speaker 1: list right now. I've got this opportunity to caddy for
Speaker 1: Victor Hoblin. I caddied for him when he was an amateur.
Speaker 1: We got along really well. What do you think I
Speaker 1: should do? I mean, obviously the rest is history. Vic's
Speaker 1: one of the best players in the world. He won
Speaker 1: the FedEx's probably going to win majors. But that's a
Speaker 1: great example of someone caddied for him while he was
Speaker 1: still an amateur in big tournaments. And I think that's
Speaker 1: where you guys could maybe get ahead of the curve
Speaker 1: and say, listen, we have a resource now to where
Speaker 1: you do get into the US AM for the first
Speaker 1: time as a junior golfer. You've never played in a
Speaker 1: big tournament before. You know, the kid that I teach,
Speaker 1: no Ah Can he qualified for the US Junior last summer,
Speaker 1: had a risk injury. So the Usam that he got
Speaker 1: into and made it to the finals, that was the
Speaker 1: first UFGA event he'd ever play, So it's the biggest
Speaker 1: tournament he's ever played. And in that situation, you want
Speaker 1: to have a caddy that knows what they're doing, that
Speaker 1: has been in the hunt and so in that respect,
Speaker 1: I think you guys can kill it doing that. So
Speaker 1: Datty Clubhouse dot com. It goes live next next month.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but around three is the website's already up and
Speaker 2: you can have access to it now that actually being
Speaker 2: able to complete the course is going to be another
Speaker 2: three weeks.
Speaker 1: And everything's online.
Speaker 2: Everything's going to be online. It will go into in
Speaker 2: person training down the line, but at the minute, we
Speaker 2: just made it as easy as possible for people and
Speaker 2: just keep it online courses.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I think it's a great idea and
Speaker 1: I think you, the three of you, I think it's
Speaker 1: smart because, like said, I mean, people ask me, I
Speaker 1: get you guys are like, like, we're in the same boat.
Speaker 1: People DM social media, Hey how do I get out
Speaker 1: on tour teaching tour players. I'm like, yeah, I wish
Speaker 1: I knew how to do that. Maybe I'm going to
Speaker 1: do the same thing in reverse for for people that
Speaker 1: want to be for people that want to get yelled
Speaker 1: at by tour players, create a course for that guys.
Speaker 1: I think you guys are going to have some success
Speaker 1: with this, and I think, you know, this could be
Speaker 1: something that we look back on in five ten years
Speaker 1: and we think, man, why didn't somebody come up with
Speaker 1: this before? Because caddying is fun. I mean it is
Speaker 1: and as you guys can attest to, you get the
Speaker 1: right bag, you can make a living now. I mean
Speaker 1: you can make real money. I mean just ask Teddy
Speaker 1: Scott Caddy AND's doing for him one thing. Do anybody
Speaker 1: does Anyboddy, the three of you, does anyone think Teddy Scott,
Speaker 1: Missus Bubba Watson anyway, Yeah, I do think Bubba Wats
Speaker 1: and Missus Teddy's golf. I guarantee that Missus Denn Scott
Speaker 1: guys really cool to talk to you. I think this
Speaker 1: can be really really cool. I'm happy to help in
Speaker 1: any way I can. But this is this is an
Speaker 1: idea that I don't think people realized we needed, but
Speaker 1: we definitely need a way to make caddying become a
Speaker 1: viable profession. It is for the people that do it.
Speaker 1: But just like if you want to be a golf instructor,
Speaker 1: if you want to work in a pro shop, if
Speaker 1: you want to be a club bitter, there is a
Speaker 1: way to go about. If you want to be a
Speaker 1: GM at a country club, there's there's degrees and ways
Speaker 1: you go about this. I think what you guys are
Speaker 1: doing is smart, and I think you guys can be
Speaker 1: at the forefront of kind of creating that next generation
Speaker 1: of caddies at the club level or at the elite
Speaker 1: tour level. So good idea. Wish I would have thought
Speaker 1: of it. And uh, you guys are definitely buying buying
Speaker 1: dinner next time for sure. Thanks Thanks close, great stuff. Guys,
Speaker 1: we'll push people to it and Caddie clubhouse dot com
Speaker 1: go check it out. Guys, Thanks for coming on and
Speaker 1: really really enjoyed talking to you. I think you guys
Speaker 1: are gonna get some good people in the database and
Speaker 1: we will look forward to seeing how this takes off
Speaker 1: down the line. Some of a bunch, great review. Subscribe
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.