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24. 5. bis 27. 5. 2012
Telenet Trophy
Ravenstein Royal GC of Belgium
The Royal Golf Club of Belgium - "Royal" since its foundation in 1906 by decision of King Leopold II - is laid on land belonging to the "Royal Donation". The Château-ferme of Ravenstein owes its name to its first owner, Philippe de Cleves, Squire of Ravenstein. The King particularly wished to implant coniferous of the same species as the ones he had been breedi…
Over the span of two weeks of qualifying, played from the 11-21 of January 2012, over vari…
Sometimes you can shoot an even Par round and feel great, getting it up and down from ever…
In my last tournament of the year I shot a 67 (-5) in the first round at Black Mountain Golf Club. It was probably my best round of the year hitting 16 greens (two missed by a very small margin), hitting all fairways and putting from close range all day. Nevertheless it was not my lowest score. This shows that golf can be very deceiving at times and scores often don't reflect true potential. Mentally you have to be strong to accept those rounds were you felt you left a lot of shots out on the course. The only person who can help you with this during the round is your caddie.
The caddie job is ofter underrated and many think he is just a bag carrier. I often hear from people I could be a caddie too...well you probably could, but as in every other job there are small nuances that make big differences.
What are good attributes to be a great caddie? Of course opinions differ but on some things all professionals will agree that the caddie needs to be on time, meaning he is there before the player gets to the golf course. This is important because once the player arrives at the course he has a set procedure (warm up, physio, stretching, driving range, chipping, putting,...) that he follows to be ready on the first tee.
Furthermore the caddie is also to some extend responsible for the golf bag. He needs to make sure there is plenty of nutrition and drinks in the bag. This can wary according to conditions, so he needs to be informed about the weather. He has to ask himself: do we have enough cloth, rain jacket, wind breaker, cap for warm and cold weather, enough golf balls, tees, and probably most important do we have the right clubs in the bag. Most professional golf players travel with 15-18 clubs and adapt their golf set with the allowed 14 clubs according to the course.
Therefore an experienced caddie can help to make good decisions not only on the course but even before the start to put in the clubs that we are likely to use for that specific day. To be able to make these judgements it is helpful if the caddie has been with the player for a few rounds, to know the players preferences, strengths and weaknesses.
On the course the caddie has also a few very important roles to play so that his player can play stress free. It does help if the caddie knows true yardages of its player and can assist him with club selections if he is in doubt in a rapid manner. Also the caddie needs to know the course at least as good as his player to give him right distances for layups, front or back green yardages or carry distances over hazards.
Very important for a caddie is to be at the ball with the player, meaning not to stroll behind and arrive late to the ball in the fairway. This is crucial because professional golf players have exact time limits to hit a shot and this clock starts ticking as soon as the player is next to his ball. If a player takes longer then the allowed times, he will be timed, warned and then penalized. If you don't hit the ball within the 40seconds allowed the procedure is a bit different on every tour but in the end it all in place to speed up play.
For an example the PGA Tour has these rules in place for slow play:
Coming back to the very important caddie job I was fortunate to have some Supporters that gave me the opportunity to hire professional caddies during the 2010 season. I learned quickly that not every professional caddie was a good match still though now I know with whom I want to work with in the upcoming years.
My experience tell me that these three rules are always true and good caddies follow the three Up' s.
In general I can say that a good caddie can help me half a shot per round or around 2 per tournament. A bad caddy can hurt my score by one shot or more per round costing me over 4 shots in a tournament. More than six shots in one event can be huge and therefore I try to chose team partners wisely.
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