Who's Your Caddie?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
How'd you like a job where you can earn well
over six figures by doing just three things? Show up,
keep up, shut up. That is the job description for
a golf caddy. It's newsy today because this weekend Scotty Scheffler,
the world's number one, claimed another tournament with a new caddy.
His regular looper, as caddies are affectionately known, Ted Scott,

(00:23):
was away on personal business Income's sublooper, Michael Chromy for
four days work. Chromy pockets ten percent of Scheffler's winnings,
three hundred and sixty thousand dollars, easiest cash you can
make legally anywhere in the world. Ted could afford the
time off. Last year, carrying Scheffler's bag, he did three

(00:45):
point six million. The caddy is as old as the game,
born in Scotland late fifteenth century, made popular by Mary,
Queen of Scott's, who history tells us was a pretty
good player, but she wasn't about to carry her own sack,
so Intel was a young cadet the first caddy. Now,
the early courses hardly resembled Happy Hollow. They were seaside

(01:09):
pastures with waist high grass. The first golf balls were hard,
feathery brown sacks very expensive. Just like now, the players
often missed the fairway. You think they went in there
looking for him themselves. Caddies job through the years, like
the game, caddies grew up, went from kids who lugged
the sack to course experts. A great caddy in twenty

(01:31):
twenty five is one part meteorological engineer, with a command
of how much impact of the wind has on the ball,
both in front of and behind it. A swing doctor,
keenly assessing his player's swing on the first few holes
in order to pull or suggest the correct club for
each shot. Today's good caddies know the course so well

(01:53):
they can assess yardage to the foot, not with the
rangefinder reads, but the actual distance with slip and grade.
That gun can't factor the green's firmness, but the caddy does,
and then on the green read the distance, the slope,
win conditions, and the player's mechanics. You become like a
seeing eye dog, all the while remembering it's all just advice.

(02:18):
It's the golfer's shot, but for four hours and eighteen holes,
you're also his de facto girlfriend. After a bad shot,
build him up, restore his confidence, get him off the
bad one and on to the next one. While nobody
was ever confused about where caddy's rank on the social
totem pole, Loopen was a great way to get on tour.

(02:38):
Some of the good players of the sixties and seventies
Lee Trevino, Jim Dent, Charlie Sifford, Lee Elder and before
them Omaha's hoy Poloia Field Club, Hard Scrabbled. Johnny Goodman,
who wrote A Cattle Car to the US Open title
first round, found golf from the caddy hut. Today's top caddies,
the Ted Scott's, bared little resemblance to their loop and ancestors.

(03:02):
With players purses in the eight figures. A caddy for
a top ten money winner does over one million himself.
These loopers are one to five handicappers with college degrees,
business managers, even agents. The caddies have endorsement deals. Look
at what they're wearing on the course logos. But is
the future of caddying in danger? How many clubs still

(03:25):
have them or as the golf carts sent them to
history's dust bin. Thankfully, a lot due most of the
prestigious clubs and resorts still have robust caddy programs, proving
the game is still best walked. Even the local baggers
make pretty good money one hundred and fifty bucks around
or more if they're fun, and most twenty handicappers love

(03:47):
a fun caddy. You know, the one who gives you
the one hundred and fifty five yard distance to the flag,
after which you chunk at five yards and then yelps
you now have won fifty to the flag, Or ask
him can I reach the green with a five iron?
The fun caddy says eventually, Or on the greens when
you leave a four foot or short, the caddy you

(04:09):
want back says, nice lag. You also learn a whole
new language from caddies, like that's a torn pajama putt?
What you know? One ball out? Or the looper who
says stay out of the love grass land it there
you're eft, yes, sir. A great caddy insures a good

(04:30):
walk is never spoiled.