With Caddies,
the Bill Always Comes Due
By Mike Eovino
I caddied and worked in the bag room at a club on the Jersey Shore all through high school and college (late 80s, early 90s), so I've encountered my share of delusional golfers.
During my first year caddying, I was carrying for a gentleman and his twentysomething daughter (who shall remain nameless) in the Parent-Child tournament. He might have been a 30-handicap on his best day, and his daughter was only slightly better. The tournament format was net better-ball, and they were maybe 5-under coming into the last hole. This was certainly not a horrible round. It was going to be a respectable, middle-of-the-pack finish, but there was no way in hell they were going to be competitive.
I'd been doing a pretty good job for them, and everything made me think that this would be a perfectly forgettable loop. There’d be a Bloody Mary or a Mount Gay Madras on the veranda for them and 20 bucks (flat rate, no tip) in my pocket for me. He was a lousy player and a bad loop, and I was a new caddie paying his dues. We all had to carry bad bags to get good ones. It was a rite of passage.
We started on No. 11, and the 10th hole at this course is a nothing little par-4 — maybe 290 yards from the back tees, with a green that's impossibly narrow front-to-back and ringed with bunkers, other than a 10-foot wide ramp to the right. Back in those days, if you couldn't put the ball in the front bunker from the tee, the play was to hit an iron and leave yourself a full wedge. An approach from that awkward in-between distance just wouldn't hold the green — especially when you’re playing a Top Flite or an Ultra.
My man hit his approach shot, half-pulled, half-fat — and for all the world, it looked like he finished short of the front-left bunker. This being our last hole, I dropped his bag, handed him his pitching wedge, and pulled his putter.
Well, somehow the ball managed to limp its way into the bunker. I was mortified, of course. I knew I'd screwed up, and I offered to run the 100 yards back to his bag and grab his sand wedge. It might have taken a minute, tops. He instantly turned red with rage, became furious with me and announced that he'd use the club I gave him.
He left his third in the bunker. He skulled his fourth over the green, then played bunker pong a little while before picking up. His daughter made her 5-net-4, and they finished at 5-under.
He proceeded to berate me the entire way to the pro shop, which I deserved. But then he announced, “YOU COST US A CHANCE AT WINNING THIS TOURNAMENT.” It was all I could do to keep from laughing, as I knew that the top three finishers in the tournament would be the three really good juniors at the club, whose 18-handicap dads would make a bunch of net birdies as their sons covered them when they blew up. Sure enough, 15-under won the damn thing. I think 10-under finished third.
Fast-forward a year, and I was working in the bag room one afternoon. The same guy strolls in and asks me if I wanted to take his bag and one of his guests in a one-day member-guest being held the next day. I shot the caddiemaster a look (he worked so hard to keep from laughing that he was crying), and I politely declined the chap's offer. Perhaps he didn't remember what had happened the year before, or maybe he saw me on better bags after the incident and figured he’d give me another chance. But loopers never forget a bad bag.
Mike Eovino sells and manages consulting for a great software company with a funny name. He's a volunteer coach for the First Tee of Greater Richmond. His Twitter handle is @meovino. He occasionally posts pictures of moderately priced golf courses on Instagram at @linkspebbles and pictures of other things at @hardcorelooper.
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