There is a chap attempting to interview a cross section of caddies in order to give a bit of an insight into their world and hear some of their stories from the links. And he seems a very nice chap as far as I could tell when I had a quick word with him on the first tee of the Old at the Royal and Ancient Autumn Meeting last week.
However it seems he has a tall order in getting to speak to some of these guys. I overheard a caddie yesterday,
‘some clown was trying to interview some of the caddies’ was what I initially overheard him exclaim and then I basically got the gist that there was as much chance of him getting an interview as there was of seeing pigs fly down Market Street.
I remonstrated that the guy was just doing some research to which I got the blunt answer that he should maybe try doing some research elsewhere.
What a shame to have this attitude. However I must say it’s not across the board at all. There are some very decent and open minded Old Course caddies, some very impressive people indeed. But this guy sucked.
I mean Oliver Horowitz did a great job with his book ‘An American Caddie in St Andrews’ and gave a very interesting insight into life on the links. People like reading this sort of stuff and well done on the chap in trying to give us more of it.
Otherwise all is well in St Andrews. I met two old friends from my days back in the university who were on the golf team in 1979. I hadn’t seen Alistair Russel since my student days actually. I walked up and said hello and he really had no idea who I was. Which is totally understandable given that my dark locks have long since gone. In fact all my locks have gone.
Donald Galbraith certainly knew who I was as we have had some contact over the years and indeed set up Highlander Golf back in our forties. Donald is still very much the ball of energy that he was and as entertaining as ever.
My tours are fading off now but I have had a great season, made some good contacts and I am still plugging away at the gowf.
Today I am up to Fairmont for a caddie job and then it’s an Old Course tour tomorrow morning and then a rush down to Edinburgh for the Autumn Meeting at Mortonhall in the afternoon.
Fare forward passengers.