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Learning lessons from caddies
I'm sure my editors will roll their eyes, but I've found that playing golf helps me do my job better. Playing gets me more interested in the game, and opens my mind to all its aspects. It makes me more sensitive to what a player faces in competition and how fine the line is between success and failure. It brings me in contact with people from all areas of the game, who introduce me to new ideas. In short, it helps me be a Golfhead. Having said that, I don't play nearly enough. I really can't blame the job. Since I starting with Sports Illustrated's Golf Plus in 1993, my colleagues at the magazine have all gotten better. Gary Van Sickle has gone from a 5 handicap to a solid 1, and Rick Reilly from a 14 to a 6. Don't let John Garrity's self-deprecatory tone in Mats Only fool you -- his best shots are truly tour caliber. And Alan Shipnuck, a good athlete, is improving rapidly. Meanwhile, I've gotten worse. Basically, I'm a slow writer, personally disorganized, and in the last four years I've spent what would otherwise be free time writing some books you've never heard of. The result has been that my intermittent rounds are almost always peppered with disaster shots, three-putts and big numbers. But at 47, I harbor the conceit that my best golf is in front of me. I hit the ball farther than I ever have, possess better understanding of the golf swing, and by osmosis, if nothing else, have picked up on some good things from watching the best players in the world. In those sporadic periods when I do play often, my game improves noticeably. I'm close, I think. I just need to streamline my life. Yeah, right. In lieu of this ever happening, I think about golf a lot. About my swing, about equipment, about the memorable holes and courses I've played, about what the smartest people in the game tell me. Those obsessions and ruminations, for better or worse, are going to be the engine for this column. The last time I played was the Monday of the Nissan Open, and it was one of those special days. I was invited to the Los Angeles Country Club by Susan Naylor, a gracious and generous woman who runs the Darrell Survey, which each week counts all the equipment used by players on the major professional tours. When the tour hits L.A., Naylor shows her appreciation to the tour caddies for their cooperation by hosting them for a day at one of the great courses in the world. This year Linn Strickler, the inestimable "Growler" who caddies for Ben Crenshaw and is featured in Golf Plus' Caddie Cam, brought me along. L.A. Country Club is pure. It sits right off one of the busiest surface streets in the world, Wilshire Boulevard in the heart of West L.A., but once you turn into the main driveway, you enter a secluded, old-world paradise. The club's north course, in particular, is a masterpiece; the bunkering, by the late architect George Thomas, is the definition of classic. The USGA would love to bring the U.S. Open to LACC, but the membership always resists. About a dozen caddies took part, a colorful crew which, while respectful of its surroundings, definitely livened things up at a club that likes to stay under the radar. Even though the Playboy Mansion sits off the 14th hole, LACC is averse to the local entertainment culture. It once rejected Randolph Scott's application on the basis that he was an actor, but when Scott howled, "C'mon. Have you seen me act?" he got in. Another guy whose movies mostly sucked, Ronald Reagan, is also a member. I played with Linn, who has been out on the tour since 1973, and another caddie whose rookie year was 1978 and who prefers to be called "Reptile" ("No one ever forgets it," he explained). Naylor's 14-year-old son, Bruno, filled out our foursome. Strickler is a piece of work. A schoolboy baseball star and a Vietnam vet, he has a seriously weathered, angular, squinty, Clint Eastwood thing going on. Curtis Strange started calling him "The Growler" because of the ferocious way he had of telling the gallery to be quiet and get out of the way. When Bill Murray sees Linn at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, all he says is, "Grrrr." I found out quickly that Growler and Reptile can both play a little bit, with Strickler, in particular, showing speed through the hitting area. What was interesting was how little help they asked for from their own caddies. All they wanted to know was where the 150-yard marker was, what direction (not how much) the putts broke, and some kind of description of the speed. To tour caddies, the whole Bagger Vance thing is b.s. "Most amateurs ask for way too much information before a shot," said Strickler. "They think they need it, but you can see them get overloaded. All it does is encourage overcaddying, which is what tour pros hate more than anything. The art of caddying is doing the job while basically staying invisible." Our caddies, a couple of LACC old-timers named Carlos and Zeke, were wonderfully unobtrusive, and even though it rained, our round clicked right along. I was most impressed by Growler's and Reptile's playing demeanors. Their expletive loosing was creative but mild, their jokes dry, their overall mood was one of easy contentment. They were clearly two guys who really love the game. As for me, I played well enough to avoid becoming the laughing stock of the caddie pen, but otherwise didn't fool anybody. After the round, Bruno asked Susan, "Hey, Mom, who did that writer guy think he was playing with the caddies?" Sports Illustrated senior writer Jaime Diaz is a regular contributor to the magazine's Golf Plus edition. Click here to send him a question or comment.
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