The morning round started fine with three gentlemen from Hong Kong who seemed in a buoyant mood. However one chap was taking it awfully seriously and taking ages to play. He was out with Gordon who is one of the most able and enthusiastic of caddies.
However his chap’s golf got worse and by the seventh tee after a missed small putt I could see that the relationship was under deep strain. Gordon was not his usual self. There were issues.
The gentleman hit a good drive down the 7th, seemed much changed and said ‘oh good I got my swing back’. ( Personally I am not convinced he wanted to get that swing back). Anyway the ball must have got a bad kick and ended up just going into a bunker. He looked at Gordon in no unsevere way and proceeded to take four shots to get out. There were a few words exchanged and I would say unfavourable body language.
At this point a caddie tries to go into switch off mode and lets a player of this kind of temperament come through it. However I believe Gordon informed the guy that he might be carrying his own clubs if this behaviour carried on.
And it did.
On the tenth green James and I were up with our players and realised Gordon and his chap were missing. We looked back, a hundred yards down the fairway, to see a conversation of great animation. There was much gesticulation and some fairly serious points being made by the look of it. It ended finally with Gordon laying down the chap’s clubs and rather significantly making clear his intentions.