I am really bowled over by this. It’s one of the few real compliments I’ve had in four years of writing. Notwithstanding the lovely, and individual men, that are Adam Forsyth and Ben Usher-Smith, who last year told me they loved my writing. And as far as I recall my caddie master, Matt, once did enthuse about it. But that’s about it.
So to have BBC presenter Georgia Mann-Smith pay me this compliment is most refreshing, because a lot of people treat it with, let’s say, tremendous indifference. I think they see it as a kind of a slightly sort of odd, quirky, queer thing. A bit like wearing a bow tie or walking down Leith Walk wearing a pink shirt.
My desire to impress the chief Sunday Times Sports journalist, David Walsh, fell entirely flat. I got in touch last year and spent 4 days caddying for him at the Dunhill. Afterwords I sent him my published HK Golf article about my experience with him at the Dunhill, and he never said one word about it. I actually thought it was a fairly good piece, with a rather nice photo of us too. But heho.
Mind you, David never even responded to my email to caddie for him this year, so perhaps he’s just that kind of unresponsive sort of guy.
But writing for me is mostly fun and rewarding, although I don’t make a buck out of it. In fact it has damn well cost me a whole lot of money in foregone earnings. I was effectively sacked from working at the Old Course by the ‘charity’ that is the Links Trust for publishing an article in Asia, about the Royal and Ancient. My writing was seemingly in danger of ‘bringing the reputation of caddies into disrepute’ and a I got a final warning letter. My friend rightly pointed out if it was in fact possible to bring the reputation of caddies into disrepute and indeed Vince has a somewhat valid point.
So thank you Georgia, it is so nice to receive such a positive endorsement, and especially from a rather lovely sounding and intelligent woman.