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Why the Caddie Will Always Be a Part of Golf, Especially If the Caddie is the New Geisha (minus the Sex)

A new take on the often unsung hero of golf -- the caddie.

Creelea Henderson (named for poet Robert Creeley) has been a golfer for nearly 17 years -- longer than most of her new coworkers have been alive. She knows 10 bucks per hour won't pay her $800-per-month South End rent. Instead, she's in it for the love of the sport. Even if she can't qualify to be a member of one of Boston's most elite golf clubs (the proverbial word is that you have to be a multimillionaire), she can still get on the green by becoming a caddie, or as she refers to it "an American geisha, minus the sex."

But sex is an aspect of the game that Henderson worries about since there are only two other females in the Club's caddie pool. Henderson is an attractive woman. She's a commanding 5'9", has fiery waves of auburn hair and a figure that most women would need to pay a plastic surgeon for. When she showed up for caddie training she dressed modestly in simple black pants, a white-on-white argyle Adidas golf shirt and a jean jacket. She pulled her curly hair into a tousled ponytail and placed her oversized gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses, which she reportedly ganked from a house party in Cambridge, on the crown of her head. She was embarrassed of her worn black-and-white sneakers -- her golf shoes were in the mail along with her clubs (she just moved to Boston and couldn't tote everything onto the plane). With only a stroke of mascara on the upper lashes of her hazel eyes, Henderson arrived at 4:30 in the afternoon, a half-hour before caddie training was scheduled to tee off.

With the arrival of each khaki-clad teen boy, Henderson began to doubt her decision to become a caddie. "If you're a country club member, you're gonna want an upstart -- someone who reminds you of your son, not someone you think you may have slept with at a bar," she jokingly lamented as she waited in the chilled early-evening air.

Another boy walked over and sat down.

"I want the golfers to think of me as someone with a lot of potential," Henderson whispered.

Three more teens shuffled over to the benches, adjusting their baseball caps while they talked.

"Shit!" exclaimed Henderson, before she realized she was surrounded by children and needed to watch her language. Lowering her voice, she continued,

"They're going to ask me my handicap," she paused, "It's really high."

The teens began to shift in their seats while waiting for the caddie-master (yes, that really is the proper title of a caddie trainer) to start the training program. As the wind picked up, one 13-year-old with brown hair and braces, seeking refuge from the wind, joined Henderson under a clear plastic tent.

Barely having embarked on puberty, the teen was a veteran in a field that sees a turnover at least once per summer. He had already gone through caddie training at another golf club. Henderson demanded more information about the other club from the boy. Apparently, she had called that club a week ago only to be told that the caddie program hadn't started and may not start at all.

"Who did you talk to? Who do you work for? I need a number!" Henderson demanded.

"I'm only thirteen!" stammered the boy, nearly dropping his iPod as he threw his arms up, "I don't know!" The boy scrammed.

After that awkward attempt to network with a chubby-cheeked teen, Henderson wondered, "Should I just sneak away now?"

In the world of golf, it wouldn't have been surprising if Henderson actually had snuck away then. Today, caddies are few and far between as golfers tend to opt for motorized carts over the "man (or, rarely, woman)-on-the-bag." But is this tradition really lost in the rough?

***
Sports historians estimate that Scottish shepherds, who were passing time while their sheep grazed, played the first round of golf over 600 years ago. But this golf -- or golfe, as it was spelled then -- hardly evoked the aristocratic, outdoor boardroom stereotype that the game connotes today. At first, the very class of people that would come to make the sport popular rejected it. In 1457, King James II of Scotland banned golf, claming it interfered with archery practice -- a key component of battle defense back then. But the Scots didn't listen. In 1501, by the time James IV became the king, golf had accumulated its snobtastic element: "Gentlemen Golfers" composed the prestigious ranks of Scottish and English society and by 1744 the first official golf club, the Company of Gentlemen Golfers, opened in Edinburgh.

By 1895, just a century-and-a-half after the construction of the first golf course, there were more than 1,280 golf facilities, including 80 in the United States (one of them was 236-acre Country Club). By 1930, the U.S. number of courses had grown to 6,000. Today, roughly 16,000 courses in the United States attract nearly 25 million golfers. The caddie, however, has not enjoyed that kind of success. There are not millions of caddies -- there may not even be tens of thousands. Caddies, unlike golfers, are an endangered species. But they're not extinct.

While teaching the 17 young men and the cougar basic caddie rules (there are two fundamentals: keep up and shut up), Michael Boylum, one of the caddie-masters, lamented the decline of caddie popularity. With graying hair, Boylum, like Henderson, also made an unlikely caddie. He began to caddie at a ripe age in 1998 when he grew sick of the crowded public courses. At The Country Club, Boylum began toting clubs for its roughly 1,300 members in exchange for some pocket cash and, more importantly to him, free time on one of Massachusetts' best greens. A professor of gastroenterology at Boston University medical school, Boylum explained, "Caddieing has become my hobby." But Boylum worries that the decline of caddie usage will lead to a decline in the popularity of golf among the young.

Between shots during the six-hole caddie training session, Boylum talked about his love for the game and the caddie hobby that led him to become a de facto member of The Country Club (with his matching navy blue golf attire and oval rimless spectacles, he fit the stereotypical profile nicely).

He carefully teed the ball -- a Titleist 2 -- and smacked it down the fairway, watching it coast off to the right into the wind. One of the teenage caddie trainees grabbed his club, wiped it with a wet towel (Caddie rule number three: Always have a wet towel on you) and replaced it in the bag.

"Caddieing is not brain surgery," Boylum said as he walked toward his ball, "but it's kind of an art."

He began to gush about The Country Club's homegrown hero, Francis Ouimet, and the subsequent book and movie that he inspired, The Greatest Game Ever Played.

Boylum spotted his ball and prepared to hit it again. Whack.

"He used to live right around here," Boylum explained of Ouimet, handing his club to one of the teen lackeys.

The Greatest Game Ever Played by Mark Frost chronicles the true tale of Ouimet. Too poor to join the club, Ouimet became a caddie in the early 20th century. He practiced after all the members went home and eventually became a pro. He shocked the golfing world when in 1913 he not only qualified for the U.S. Open, which was played on The Country Club's course, but he won, beating out all the top players who had come over from Europe.

According to Boylum, if Ouimet had not been a caddie, he would not have become one of the world's finest golfers and golf in America would not be the same today.

Caddieing has long been a way for junior golfers and those who come from less privileged backgrounds to break into the sport. According to an article published on the web site of the Professional Caddie Association, "The declining use of the caddie has hurt junior golf tremendously." Ouimet was not the only golfer to get his start carrying clubs for others, but so did professional golfers Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Sam Snead.

Perhaps, the biggest culprit leading to the demise of caddie usage in the United States is the prevalence of the motorized golf cart. Boylum noted that the reason that the caddie program at The Country Club has been so successful is because it is a "walking course." (That's how the Professional Golf Association likes it, too.) Golf carts are only allowed for senior citizens and those with medical ailments.

"They believe here that golf should be walked," said Boylum as he walked briskly and determinedly down the fairway of the first hole, "Either you carry your own clubs or you go with a caddie." If members opt not to use a caddie, they get downgraded from the 18-hole course to the nine-hole course. According to Boylum, nearly all the Club's members use caddies. "The program here is unique," he continued, "It is completely member supported" (if not by a little peer pressure).

But The Country Club's policy is rare. A Professional Caddie Association article notes that since the mid-'50s, the golf cart has made the caddie seem obsolete. Even The Country Club's other caddie-master, Tom McLaughlin, who has icy blue eyes and grayish hair (cut as closely to his head as the grass on the putting green), gruffly noted that the caddie's main function is simply to "carry the bags." Boylum added most players at The Club are "just asking them not to get in the way." So why would a caddie be necessary when there's now a machine (that you don't need to tip) that can carry the clubs? Also, didn't Boylum equate caddieing to an art form?

The art in professional caddieing is evident. They read greens, check winds and offer invaluable psychological and game advice to the player. In an article published in Golf World, professional golfer Phil Mickelson, who's won two major tournaments, tells of his appreciation for his caddie of 15 years, Jim "Bones" Mackay (it's pretty much a prerequisite to have a nickname as a caddie): "I can't verbalize what Bones has meant to me. Besides admiring him as a good person, I respect his grasp of the game. He's right about 80 percent of the time out there -- to my 20 percent."

But Boylum and McLaughlin didn't mention any of those skills during the training. So, where is the goddamn art when caddies aren't pro?

Around the fourth hole I got my answer when Henderson became an artist. She grabbed Boylum's golf bag, slinging it over her left shoulder, wearing it like the brown leather Bally bag she carried on her right. McLaughlin was lining up to make a putt and Henderson walked around him, placing the bag just off the green. Boylum said under his breath, "I can tell that she's played before because she walked around the player and not through his line of sight." Eureka! The art is in the etiquette.

In a phone interview with Brian Shell, the caddie services manager with the Western Golf Association in Chicago and one of the few caddie experts in the nation (he was the only name provided by the caddie-ignorant United State Professional Golf Association), further expounded on the art of the summer caddie. In a stereotypically cheery Midwestern voice, Shell said, "From a physical perspective, it really improves the condition of the course," referring to the stress that motorized carts put on the course as well as sloppy players who don't bother to fill in divots or other club-inflicted course damage. But the most functional art of employing a caddie, according to Shell, "It speeds the game up." When a group of players tee off with just a cart, they tend to waste time weaving between the course and the path. Shell continued explaining that, with a caddie, players simply approach the ball and "Boom. You hit it," said Shell. Then they move on.

***
Henderson doesn't care whether she's a rarity -- being both a female and a caddie -- on the links or whether she's upholding some artful tradition. She's just happy to be able to get on the course, and after graduating from caddie training she finally got her chance.

After a mishap with her alarm clock that caused her to miss her 5:30 a.m. wake-up call the morning that was supposed to be her first day on the job, Henderson disciplined herself and arrived early the next day. She was less nervous than when she first arrived for training, but still felt out of place as a woman.

Henderson promised to keep a blog to document her caddie escapades, but she only updated it once after her first day on-the-bag. On May 7, Henderson let her poetic namesake shine through:

Today, on the anniversary of Joan of Arc's Siege of Orleans, I made like the virgin saint and trudged the links carrying a big heavy bag. And like the virgin saint, my presence on the green at first aroused hostility in the men, one of whom said "I never seen a caddie with a purse before."

"It's a Michael Kors handbag," I gently admonished and before long we were on excellent terms, T-Bone, Mo, Tommy, Sonny and I were. They call me Red.

Since then, Red, who seems to have spiced up the caddie pool, has caddied nearly every weekend at The Country Club. She reported that when she dons the obligatory caddie bib, a shapeless green smock designed for function over fashion, her lady lumps disappear and she's just another caddie, like T-Bone, Mo or a 14-year-old boy, and she plans to stay a caddie as long as she still can't afford to become a member.