130 APRIL 2018 | golf australia
ON THE BAG & STALKING STEVE WILLIAMS
EXCLUSIVE BY ANDREW DADDO | GOLF AUSTRALIA COLUMNISTPHOTO:GETTY IMAGESGOLF
IS GOODI’M on the range pre-dawn of day one for
the New Zealand Open. The gentle hum
of a generator pumping wattage into
the fl oodlights is the bass line to the
non-rhythmic thwack of golf clubs colliding
with golf balls.
As you can imagine, it is a “pinch me”
moment: inside the ropes, pro golfers
everywhere and access to free bottles
of water. First, I’m drawn to the golfers,
crunching balls into oblivion and wondering
how they manage to have almost exactly
the same golf swing. But it wasn’t one golfer
who had me staring, it was the man behind
the golfer.
Steve Williams, golf’s most famous
bagman was on the range. Crisp white
polo tucked into impossibly pressed shorts,
white socks, clean runners and wraparound
sunglasses. God, I wanted to talk to him. You
see, on this day, I wasn’t just a punter (well I
was) but I was also on the bag for Paul Gow.
This was my fi rst real caddying experience,
there had to be something Steve could offer:
some gem, some insight that would help me
help my guy.
Gowie had been honest and up front from
the beginning. He was very matter-of-fact
about our relationship. I was working for
him, he owned my arse, don’t speak unless
spoken to, keep up, and, “I swear to God if
you try and give me a line on a putt I will
forcibly remove part of your anatomy.” Or
something like that.
Still, to me, we were a team and he was
my guy.
If I could get to the Steve Williams
for some tips – even one good one,there’d be a chance me and my guy could
do something special. It’s not that I didn’t
have faith in Gowie’s golf game, I did. I do.
But he’s almost a decade beyond hitting golf
balls for a living. He’s been through the dark
days selling mortgages, the lighter days
sitting on a couch talking golf and these
days, travelling the world for The Golf Show.
The 2018 NZ Open would be his third
professional tournament in seven years. If
I was nervous, he must have been close to
crapping himself.
But I couldn’t muster the courage to talk to
Steve. Not at the range – too many people,
I hadn’t prepared an opening line, “hello”
didn’t feel like it was going to be enough.
Later, at the putting green, with Ryan Fox
going through his paces, The Big Dub was
right in front of me. Dribbling distance, and
he’s not actually that big. So, this was the
moment where I could get that sage advice I
needed for my guy.
Steve could tell me not to stand on
Gowie’s left when he hits. A good caddy
would know a golfer has a side they like,
and Gowie’s side is right. He’d tell me when
my guy was asking me a golf question
he probably didn’t want an answer. That
when he was going through the numbers
and yardages, it wouldn’t be for me to add
anything, it was for his own reinforcement.
And I’m guessing Steve would know what
to do if things went a little pear-shaped.
We all know it’s hard enough playing golf
with mates and watching them blow up,
but it’s an entirely different matter when
someone’s playing for a pay cheque.
Tragically, I couldn’t bring myselfto talk to Steve – I was overawed by the
occasion and his presence and the general
fear of making a dick of myself.
My guy came out of the blocks pretty well.
There was an early fl irtation with the top
of the leaderboard when we got to three
under, it was exciting, and fun, and really
interesting from a golf nerd point of view.
It is a cool feeling when your guy is on a
leaderboard, I suspect it’s the same when
you’re riding in the Melbourne Cup and you
can’t see a horse in front when you hit the
Flemington straight ... you can’t help but
pray that they hang on.
Gowie separates greens into green
and red zones – stop and go. Its landing
distances as opposed to distance distances,
there are right and wrong sides of the
fairway: and whilst I know this stuff, but I’d
never seen it actually practiced.
Things got really interesting on the 15th
when Gowie ‘lost his swing’. He used that
phrase a couple of times. I tried to offer
positive reinforcement to help him fi nd his
groove, and as clichéd phrases like “you’ll
be right,” and “you look good,” and “stick at
it, everything’s going well,” tumbled out of
my mouth, I could tell it was pissing him off.
In the end I went back to Gowie’s fi rst bit
of advice. Keep up, shut up and don’t read
putts. And it was as much fun as you could
have on a stunning golf course without
hitting golf balls.
He managed one under with me on
the bag, and four under with a random
caddy on day two. It wasn’t quite enough,
seven under was the cut, but ‘My Guy’
did well.