Williams’ prickly comments break golden rule of caddying

“I SUPPOSE,” said the boss, “Now that you’ve met Pádraig Harrington you’ll be an expert on all things golf from here on out?”

“Would you keep it down over there?” I hissed. “I’m trying to line up a tricky putt this side of the desk, and to be honest, the wastepaper bin isn’t doing me any favours.”

“What you really need is a good caddy,” he said. “Then you wouldn’t be holding the club the wrong way round.”

It’s an idea worth considering (I lipped out, by the way). I wouldn’t describe myself as a golf fan or follower, certainly, but the notion of having someone follow me around, carrying a large leather bag containing all my life accoutrements, is an appealing one.

There are potential dangers, of course. Readers may have seen during the week that Tiger Woods’s caddy, Steve Williams, spoke out of turn recently.

Williams let the cat out of the bag — caddying joke: see what I did there? — regarding his employer’s view of Phil Mickelson, describing Lefty with a word that rhymes with stick, and we don’t mean trick.

Williams also told a fairly leadránach story about Mickelson which had as its punchline an insult centring on the latter’s comfortable upholstery.

Quite apart from wondering if Williams kisses his mother with that mouth, we were left regretting the lost putdowns of yesteryear; we never thought we’d pine for the bon mot Mike Tyson directed at Lennox Lewis (“I want to eat his children,”), but it took on the glow of a golden age of repartee when we read recent comments from pro ice hockey player Sean Avery of the Dallas Stars in the NHL.

Fans of the television series 24 may know that one of the stars of that show, Elisha Cuthbert, was walking out with Avery once but has since moved on and is now going steady with a player on another team, a man who rejoices in the unique and unpronounceable handle of Dion Phaneuf.

Avery took exception to this and last week made some remarks about Cuthbert and Phaneuf which were a) downright reckless (Mr Phaneuf, it seems, is 6ft 3 inches and 15 stone) and b) unsavoury enough to make one spit out one’s morning scone.

See the benefits of a caddy? Avery could do with a large man in overalls standing behind him and suggesting he rethink his approach before putting his mouth in gear.

ANWAY. Back to the genteel game of golf. Regarding Steve Williams, after a few inquiries we discovered — to our poorly hidden astonishment — that some of his New Zealand countrymen view him as the richest Kiwi sportsman around.

Williams has carried Woods’s bag for the last nine years, in which time Tiger has earned nearly $70 million in prize money, or roughly €50 million.

With a caddie typically pocketing 10% of his golfer’s winnings, that puts Williams’ earnings over the past decade some way ahead of even the richer All Blacks (in fairness to the caddy, it should be pointed out that he’s donated at least $1m to New Zealand cancer research).

But it looks as if he’s forgotten the golden rule of caddying: it’s the man out front who gets to do the talking. because he’s the man who swings the club. The one with the bag is there to offer advice, not to pontificate on the world at large.

As ever, the Romans had the right idea with this kind of thing two thousand years ago: when one of their generals came back home after a victorious campaign and tootled his chariot down the Appian Way in front of a cheering gallery, he had a caddy behind him whispering in his ear.

That caddy was a slave, someone who told the general that all glory was fleeting, over and over, in case he became too full of himself before meeting the emperor. We like to think that sometimes the general got sick of that insistent murmur and piped up: “Enough of the Greek philosophy, oul stock. I haven’t forgotten that cock-up on the 15th at Royal Galatia...”

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