Wee Nip at the 19th Hole: A History of the St. Andrews Caddie
- Book Review,
by Richard MacKenzie
Amazon.com
Golfers generally seek wisdom, instruction, inspiration, and sympathy from their reading on the game. A Wee Nip tees up something else: charm. A thoroughly delightful and spirited romp through the subculture of St. Andrews's caddies, it fondly chronicles how toting bags at the game's hallowed birthplace grew from the province of scoundrels--some of whom literally fell down drunk on the job--to a corps of thoroughly knowledgeable professionals. Written with flair and obvious affection by the links' current caddie manager, Richard Mackenzie, A Wee Nip at the 19th Hole is both a history and reminiscence, and, despite its wealth of photos and lore, it is a volume easily light enough to shoulder on your own.
Book Description
A Wee Nip at the 19th Hole celebrates one of the most intriguing, entertaining, and time-honored traditions in golf--the St. Andrews caddie. For over two hundred years, caddies have been walking the most famous piece of golfing land in the world, advising players of vastly different abilities, not only on the club to take, but also on the type of shot required. Richard Mackenzie, Caddie Manager at the historic Old Course and a former caddie himself, brings to life some of the most legendary and colorful characters ever to walk the links in this highly readable and enjoyable book. Filled with vintage photographs and documents, A Wee Nip at the 19th Hole traces the great contribution caddies made to the game and features profiles of characters like Old Tom Morris, who has since assumed a prominent place in golf history. In fact, it was Old Tom himself who in 1864 elevated the expectations of the caddies, insisting that they "appear for work clean, and moderately sober." Old Tom was routinely disappointed, however, by a band of ragamuffins with names like "Stumpie Eye," "Trap Door," and "Boosy Chas." Reading Richard Mackenzie's tribute to the St. Andrews caddie is a little like pulling up a stool at the 19th hole and sharing a pint with these and other famous and infamous characters.
From the Inside Flap
Steeped in history and lore, the Old Course at St. Andrews is one of the meccas of golf. And yet, of all the great stories that have been played out on what are considered the most famous eighteen holes in the game, perhaps the most fascinating of all are those told by and about the legendary St. Andrews caddie.
One of the game's most time-honored traditions, the St. Andrews caddie has become synonymous with the Old Course itself: gruff, eccentric, rough-hewn, challenging, unpredictable, sometimes frustrating, sometimes hilarious, but never duplicated.
Written by Richard Mackenzie, the current caddie manager at St. Andrews Old Course and a former caddie himself, A Wee Nip at the 19th Hole is filled with the written and oral records of some of the game's great unknown sages. The result is a masterful celebration of golf as seen through the eyes of arguably the most colorful characters the game has ever known.
As every golfer is aware, the only thing better than playing the game is talking about it. Part history, part back-nine gossip, and pure entertainment, A Wee Nip offers golfing enthusiasts the next best thing to pulling up a stool at the nineteenth hole and sharing a pint--and a tale or two--with such unforgettable figures as Old Tom Morris, Trap Door, Poot Chisholm, and Stumpie Eye. It's an experience you'll never forget.
A Wee Nip at the 19th Hole celebrates one of the most intriguing, entertaining, and time-honored traditions in golf--the St. Andrews caddie. For over two hundred years, caddies have been walking the most famous piece of golfing land in the world, advising players of vastly different abilities, not only on the club to take, but also on the type of shot required. Richard Mackenzie, Caddie Manager at the historic Old Course and a former caddie himself, brings to life some of the most legendary and colorful characters ever to walk the links in this highly readable and enjoyable book. Filled with vintage photographs and documents, A Wee Nip at the 19th Hole traces the great contribution caddies made to the game and features profiles of characters like Old Tom Morris, who has since assumed a prominent place in golf history. In fact, it was Old Tom himself who in 1864 elevated the expectations of the caddies, insisting that they "appear for work clean, and moderately sober." Old Tom was routinely disappointed, however, by a band of ragamuffins with names like "Stumpie Eye," "Trap Door," and "Boosy Chas." Reading Richard Mackenzie's tribute to the St. Andrews caddie is a little like pulling up a stool at the 19th hole and sharing a pint with these and other famous and infamous characters. -->
About the Author
Richard Mackenzie is a native of Scotland's west coast but has made St. Andrews his home for the last eighteen years. His first passion was soccer, and he came into golf through an unconventional route. While visiting friends in Australia in the early 1970s, he was in the crowd at a national tournament played over the Royal Sydney Golf Course. At the seventh hole, one of the golfers dismissed his caddie in anger and, turning to the gallery, asked if anybody would like to carry his bag. Richard's friends pushed him forward, and the golfer said, "There's the bag--let's play golf!" It was the beginning of his love for the game.
Ten years later, in St. Andrews, Richard began to hone his skills as a caddie, soon becoming good enough to work the 1984 Open Championship at St. Andrews, where he carried for five-time winner Peter Thomson. Since then, he has worked seven Opens, has taken time out to work the European Tour, and made an occasional sojourn into the U.S. Tour, eventually coming home to St. Andrews to take over as caddie manager in 1992. His most recent success as a caddie was the 1994 Alfred Dunhill Cup win, when he carried for Canadian Rick Gibson, beating the United States in the final at St. Andrews, played over the Old Course.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction
The game of golf has traditionally been surrounded by a certain mystique, a distinctive quality which has elevated much of the written material from the strictly prosaic into a more philosophical realm. The caddie has always had a place in that body of lore, usually in apocryphal tales or stories interlaced with fun and humour. I found a typical example some years ago, when I read an article in an old local newspaper dating from the late nineteenth century in which the St. Andrews caddies were described standing sentry-like by the corner of the Old Union Parlour, the forerunner of today's Royal & Ancient Golf Club. Over the years this corner had effectively become their property, and the scene was described thus:
Consecrated by the fumes of their three-penny cut tobacco wafting in the air, they stand, blue wi' the cauld of bleak midwinter or bronze-like with the gey strang heat o' midsummer, their fortunes would vary but ever optimistic, and if business was slow, a wee nip at the 19th hole would always warm the inner man.
In truth, until recently the caddie's lot has not been a particularly fortunate one. Although satisfied with their role, in the late nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century they were effectively social outcasts, as caddying was viewed by society in general as 'not a fit and proper job.' In a time of strong class and social distinctions, even local trades people saw themselves as superior to the caddie, who was considered on a par with a street cleaner or a marker in a billiards saloon. Because of the seasonal nature of the work, most lived in a state of poverty. During this period, some members of the R&A took an active interest in their own caddies' welfare by gifting them food and clothing during the hard times when there was no work on the links. With the introduction of the Caddies Benefit Fund in 1891, the Club went to even greater lengths to assure that basic needs were met during the winter months. In spite of this genuine need, the caddies remained a proud and free-spirited band of men, who never lost the hope encompassed in the very motto of St. Andrews itself: dum spiro spero (while I breathe, I hope).
My own interest in the history of the St. Andrews caddie developed from some two decades of involvement as a professional caddie both abroad and here at home. The many hours I've spent in libraries, newspaper archives, and in conversation with old-time traditional caddies have given me a glimpse into the lives of some of the characters who spent their days grasshoppin' over the links of St. Andrews. One such character, 'Auld Daw' Anderson, was a senior caddie whose pawky sense of humour was as legendary as his philosophical wit. He said, "Although devoid of material things, we were rich in courtesy tae oor golfers, which in turn made us rich in life."
Over the years, golf has changed from a predominately amateur to a high-profile professional sport. During this time, there has been a corresponding rise in the fortunes of the caddies, who are no longer merely beasts of burden, underpaid and always at the beck and call of the golfer. Today's caddie is a professional whose knowledge and judgement can make an important difference to the golfer with whom he works, and both his remuneration and his status on the links reflect this. During the writing of this book, I have come to appreciate more than ever before the value of the time-honoured tradition of the St. Andrews caddie, a tradition now embodied in the men and women who today work the land, still serving the golfer just as colourful characters like Lang Willie, Hole in His Pocket and Stumpie Eye did all those years ago.
--Richard Mackenzie
St Andrews, Scotland
The Cawdys
For hundreds of years the business of carrying clubs has been a way of life for a breed of hardy St. Andreans. Golfers have found that local knowledge of the links goes a long way, and perhaps at no other place is it more true than on the Old Course. Deception is the Old's secret weapon. What can seem like a good drive might finish up amongst the prickly gorse bushes, or land in one of the many hidden pot bunkers. With names like the Coffins, Hell and the infamous Beardies, they lurk out of sight, waiting to trap the unwary. It was said many years ago that when you land in any of those bunkers, "there is only enough room for an angry man and his niblick!"
With acres of gorse bushes, those dreaded bunkers and fairways which flatter to deceive, the caddie is an essential companion and guide. At no other course in the world is the continuity of caddie knowledge handed down from one generation to the next, taking you back in time to the early pawky caddie personalities such as Lang Willie, Hole in His Pocket and Stumpie Eye, names that conjure up images of another age. They may be long gone, but the spirit of these men lives on in today's professional caddie. Gone is the complex individual, the perennial thorn in the side of golfers and society alike, who saw himself as a free spirit with a braw conceit, for whom no amount of regulation could improve his language or dress sense! Paradoxically, these very men who often lived hand-to-mouth, sometimes sleeping rough in bunkers or wherever they could find shelter, at the same time formed such a fundamental part of the game that the Rules of Golf decree the caddie to be the only person a player can consult in singles play for advice, and that any infringement of this rule committed by the caddie incurs the same penalty as if committed by the golfer himself.
When does the first mention of a caddie appear? The reputed source of the name is given as Mary Queen of Scots. A keen golf enthusiast, she played the game in France where her clubs were carried by young students called "Les Cadets." Such was her passion for the game, she found time to play in the grounds of Seton Palace in East Lothian only a few days after her husband Lord Darnley was murdered in 1567. The earliest mention of the word caddie appears in the accounts records of one Andrew Dixon, a ballmaker (1655-1729), who lived near Leith in Edinburgh. He was employed as a fore-caddie by the future King James II, then Duke of York. The name was taken up in the eighteenth century by the male and female water carriers in and around Edinburgh, who were called "Cawdys." This sense of the word indicated a messenger or porter, and early references to the Edinburgh Cawdys described them as "useful blackguards, who attend coffee houses and public places to run errands" and "wretches who lie in streets at night, but were always trusted and never unfaithful." In spite of this, the group was cohesive enough to elect one of their senior members as the Constable of Cawdys, who had virtually complete control over this unique fraternity, with the ability to fine a member or mete out corporal punishment. In those days, as now, caddies had to be registered and issued with a badge before they could ply their trade.
Gentlemen golfers were quick to apply the word to mean 'the man who carries the sticks,' and the boy who ran ahead of the players had become the fore-caddie. The first written evidence of the St. Andrews caddies was recorded on 27 June 1771 in the Minutes of the Society of St. Andrews Golfers, the precursor to today's Royal & Ancient Golf Club. This passage, which expresses the first interest in their welfare, reads:
The Captains and Company agree and appoint that in time coming, the caddies who carry the clubs, or run before the players, or are otherwise employed by the Gentlemen Golfers, are to get four pence sterling for going the length of the hole called the "Hole O' Cross," and if they go further than that hole they are to get sixpence and no more. Any Gentlemen transgressing this rule are to pay, two pint bottles of Claret, at the first meeting they shall attend.
The course then was not what we know today. It was about half the width and today's seventeenth hole was then the first. The links were originally covered with rough grass, thick gorse and wild heather, and the course was marked out with march stones, with whin bushes all the way up the right-hand side of what is the outward part of today's course. Given the undulating land, thick grass and rough ground, it is easy to see why the fore-caddie came into his own at St. Andrews. But the hand of man was already at work. Tom Morris was appointed Keeper of the Green in 1864, after which time he developed a new first and eighteenth green on the Old Course and was involved in widening the fairways. The famous double greens were already in place by the time Tom came from Prestwick. The then-Captain of the R&A, Provost Hugh Lyon Playfair, was instrumental in having the seven double greens cut that St. Andrews is famous for today. These enabled golfers to play either the original left-hand course or the new right-hand one. The right-hand course in time became the accepted one and was used for the first ever Open, played at St. Andrews in 1873.
Thus for over four centuries, the business of carrying golf clubs has been a way of life for this unique and at times perplexing breed, who in all kinds of weather can still be seen lugging their man's clubs around the rolling windswept links of St. Andrews. And if the carrying of the clubs is their trade, then knowledge of the courses is their craft, a craft barely understood by the millions of spectators who today follow the sport, either by foot or glued to their television sets.
Over the years the caddie has added richness and colour to this Royal & Ancient game, either in humorous anecdote or in the role played by the early ball- and clubmakers. They cajoled, counselled, inspired and occasionally bullied their man around the golf course. David Corstorphine, one of the senior caddies, always offered the same advice before each round: "Dinna risk awthing, we'll play wi' oor heids." With this wisdom, it seems such a short step to the caddies giving instruction on how to play, and in time becoming the first professional golfers. Even the caddies who never actually played the game themselves knew the links intimately and were well aware of their man's strengths and failings. They saw themselves as a kind of senior partner, who could judge the wind strength, choose the club, and dictate the target area, leaving the simple business of hitting the ball to the player.
Today, the ball- and clubmaking skills may have disappeared, but the good local caddie still has to wait his turn on the daily list and is still in great demand. With over a quarter century of experience in his craft, the St. Andrews caddie can be in his own way a hard and inexorable taskmaster who, from the moment he takes charge of your clubs, assumes the role of the brains of the outfit!
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