An American Caddie in St. Andrews: Growing Up, Girls, and Looping on the Old Course

by Oliver Horovitz

  • • •

  It’s Thursday morning. I’m going to try to film in the shack tomorrow morning, so I’m doing a double today. I’m currently heading down the first fairway of the Old. Fifty yards to my right is the Himalayas putting green. And on the green is the Ladies’ Putting Club. Composed largely of women between the ages of seventy-five and ninety-two, the Ladies’ Putting Club is one of the most serious golf games in town. The focus of the club is weekly putting tournaments on the Himalayas (a stern sign by the entrance reserves the green on Thursdays from ten to eleven). Here elderly ladies, usually carrying handbags, often wearing pearls, stage brutally competitive matches. Most are deadly inside ten feet. There are handicaps in the tournaments. Tea breaks. Also modest prizes (usually, a golf ball or a pen). If you get a hole in one, you win a free golf tee.

  The ladies are out in force today, since it’s ten thirty in the morning. As I walk, I can’t help imagining them in a scene for my documentary, and I point out the group to my golfer, a Spanish guy, from Barcelona. We reach his drive and now have 142 yards left to the pin. “Eight-iron!” I say, and hand him the club. “Good!” he replies, then shanks his ball directly toward the Himalayas and the thickest cluster of grandmothers. “Oh my God! FOOOORRRRE!” I scream desperately, then watch in horror as more old ladies hit the deck than at social hour on a cruise ship. “I think we should just . . . leave that ball,” I whisper to the Spaniard after we quickly play another shot, into the burn. “No, I need! Is Pro V1!” he responds. I wince, then hastily make my way onto the putting green to retrieve our ball—forty formerly sweet old ladies now glaring at me, milliseconds from revenge by handbag.

  * * *

  The shack isn’t usually silent. But it is now.

  I’m holding my PD-170 camera, training it on several caddies in the shack, waiting for something to happen. Nothing’s happening. Everyone’s gone quiet. Switchy, Stevie Martin, and Mark Eglinton are sitting uncomfortably on the front bench. Meroë Wilson, wearing an orange visor with shades perched on top, is silently playing solitaire behind them. James McHugh (“Scruff”) is in the corner. A couple other caddies sit on the back benches. It’s early morning in the shack. The old TV (locked behind a glass cabinet—you have to ask for the remote each time to change the channel) is softly sputtering out UK music-video noise. It should be relaxed in here. But there’s an obvious tension inside the room. And I know it’s because of me. Everyone was laughing and joking when I walked inside ten minutes ago, but the second my camera emerged, the mood changed. The caddies shut down. Maybe I’m pushing this project too fast. I get up close on Stevie to film. Stevie sees the camera in his face and quickly turns to me. “Easy, Tiger,” he growls. More guys come into the shack now, bursting with laughter . . . and then instantly stopping when they see me and my camera. I’m killing the mood. Intruding on the morning. Some guys get up now and simply walk out of the room. This is not what I was expecting.

  It’s now my first official day shooting inside the shack. I’ve made sure that none of the same caddies from yesterday are in here right now. I mean, there are 160 guys down here; some of them must be okay with being filmed. My goal for today, and for this whole film, is to be a fly on the wall. Unobtrusive. I don’t want to make a flashy documentary full of on-camera interviews and narration. I don’t want to insert myself. I want to show the real shack, the real caddies. I want to just stay in the background, observing, allowing the caddies to forget that I’m there. Just a fly on the wall . . .

  Yeah, right.

  If I’m a fly on the wall, right now I’m a three-hundred-pound-elephant fly. And I’m even more uncomfortable than I’m making the caddies. All of a sudden, I’m an outsider again. The American kid with his fancy school project from his fancy school. What the hell was I thinking, deciding to do this? By showing up this summer with a camera, aren’t I just distancing myself from the other caddies . . . undoing all the work I put in over the last two years to earn a place here? In this highly closed world of the shack, am I about to screw everything up? A gruff caddie on the far bench whom I don’t recognize, and who up until now has been quietly reading his paper, suddenly answers this question for me.

  “Turn that fookin’ camera off!” he snaps.

  I hear grunts of approval from around the room. I turn off my camera. Slink out of the shack. This is not what I wanted.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  I’m sitting out by the pier.

  I’m here because I’m feeling lonely. Which is not a great move, because sitting on a pier by yourself isn’t, like, the best antidote for loneliness. But I really just need to get away from the shack for a while, to think. In front of me, the North Sea swells smack into the left side of the granite pier and roll gently off, their force slackened, heading toward East Sands Beach. Out in the surf, about ten Scottish surfers sit on their boards, waiting for the biggest wave of the day—a wave the height of a deck of cards. Three riders grab the wave, ride it for two seconds. They exchange high fives, seem pumped. Whatever works.

  As I lean against the top of the wall, I can’t help replaying the events of the last few days. Rick. The stares. The back-turns. The “Turn that fookin’ camera off.” I guess I’ve kind of brought this on myself. No, wait, I’ve totally brought this on myself. I didn’t have to bring over this camera and shoot this thing. I didn’t have to create all this tension for myself. I could have just caddied this summer. Played golf. Worked. Made money. Now, though, this film might not even happen. And worse, it feels like I’ve violated some unwritten code in the shack. That I’ve lost the trust of the other caddies. Maybe, by switching on my camera, I’ve also just switched myself back from caddie to outsider.

  My phone beeps. It’s a text message, from Greaves. “Heard about the film (!!!) Lots to discuss. Golf on Jube later?” I think about this, then shoot back, “Okay,” and start walking back down the pier. But I’m not feeling any better. I have no idea how this film is going to play out. And that terrifies me.

  • • •

  I’m outside the shack, hovering near Jimmy Reid. It’s almost time for my caddie round, but I’ve got a question to ask him. After what happened in the shack, it’s clear that I need to film caddies individually, to avoid mob violence. And Jimmy Reid would be great.

  “Hey, Jimmy, I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but I’m making a caddie documentary this summer, for my film class. I was wondering if I could interview you for it?”

  Jimmy looks at me.

  “No.”

  • • •

  It’s later in the afternoon, and I’m caddying on the New Course. I arrive at the seventh tee box to dump my golf bag. Another group is already there, waiting. In the group, I spot Loppy.

  “Hey, Loppy, I’m shooting a documentary about the shack this summer, and I was wondering if perhaps you’d like to—”

  “No.”

  • • •

  I’m back in the shack after my round. I see Neil Gibson.

  “Hey, Neil, I—”

  “Fook off!”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  I’m out on the Old, caddying for a rather large man with a 14-handicap. He’s from Hershey, Pennsylvania—where he works for, not surprisingly, Hershey. There is no mistaking where his loyalties lie. As we walk down the tenth fairway, he tells me, with deadly seriousness, “You know, Oliver, nothing can really take on the milk chocolate and almond bar from Hershey. Nothing.”

  We’re on the twelfth tee when I see another caddie coming down the seventh fairway. He’s striding alongside his golfer, taking short, busy steps, his eyes fixed dead ahead on their ball. He looks as if he’s in the British Open and seriously in the hunt. It’s Jimmy Bowman. I forget about my own group for a second and just stare out, across Admiral’s Bunker, observing the old caddie in his office. As he walks, Jimmy pulls out his pin sheet to check the flag position. Then he glances over in our direction and waves. Suddenly it clicks.

  I want to film Jimmy Bowman.

  It’s not just
that he’s the longest-serving full-time caddie in the shack. Jimmy is the real deal. The wrinkles, the hand-rolled cigarette constantly dangling from his lips, the faded caddie jacket. You look at him, and you see the golfing history behind his eyes. I’ve also been out with Jimmy on a bunch of caddie rounds now, so I think he respects me as a hardworking caddie—a (reasonably) nice kid who tries his best. Or maybe he just doesn’t know what to make of me. Last time we were out together, Jimmy came up to my golfer on 14, after I’d told him to aim down the fifth fairway, and said to the guy with a smile, “Every sentence outta Horovitz’s mouth ends in ‘cool!’”

  All these thoughts are sprinting through my head as I catch Jimmy on the eighteenth green this evening, at the end of his caddie round.

  “Oh, I’d heard you were doing a film,” Jimmy says when I breathlessly mention my documentary. There’s not much time for elaboration—Jimmy’s golfer has just bladed his pitch shot over the eighteenth green and is now waiting there . . . needing Jimmy, a pitching wedge, and a prayer. I have to act fast. Hurriedly, I ask the question I’ve been waiting all afternoon to ask. I ask it point-blank . . . ish.

  “Jimmy, can you . . . uh . . . would you . . . um . . .” Then I just blurt out, “Can-I-film-you-for-my-documentary?”

  Jimmy considers this question as he keeps trudging up the Valley of Sin with his golf bag. I watch him go. I realize suddenly that I am desperate. I need this guy. I need someone who caddies to support me with this film, to get into my corner of the ring, to make me feel like I’m not just single-handedly pissing off the entire shack. But I’m sure Jimmy’s going to say no. Everyone else has. And Jimmy certainly doesn’t need to do anything like this. He’s got nothing to prove. And it’s not his manner to be showy. He’d never brag to anyone that he’s caddied for presidents, even though hanging in the Links Clubhouse locker room is a picture of him standing beside President Clinton. And he’s done much bigger things—interviews for ABC, British Open TV specials . . . actually, I wish I hadn’t bothered Jimmy with this question at all. But now I’ve asked, and it’s too late, and having reached the top of the green, the old caddie turns back to me, finally, and delivers his answer.

  “Aye,” he says softly, “that’d be okay with me.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  I’m out on the Old with two cousins from New Hampshire. The men are best friends, raised in the same house from the age of three. They have matching New England accents, and matching red and blue plus-fours in a reverse color scheme that is slightly embarrassing to be walking alongside of. Clearly neither man has taken a caddie before. My guy, Jim, a forty-year-old redhead, keeps thinking I’m giving him a high five whenever I reach to take his golf club (resulting, each time, in five to seven awkward seconds of hand-fumbling). On the first tee, when I ask his handicap, his face falls, and he says, “Fourteen,” with such a look of guilt that I have to counter with “No no, don’t worry, that’s fine!” Jim has been wanting to play here for fifteen years and has finally made it as part of his cousin Robert’s fortieth-birthday present from his wife. Being on a golf trip is clearly a big deal for Jim and Robert—neither makes a lot of money, neither has left the country before. Jim informs me, on the second hole, that he’s been checking the St. Andrews weather every morning for the last four months.

  The weather today, as usual, changes every five minutes. Lashings of cold rain are followed by heavenly patches of bright sun and warmth . . . which quickly slip back into downpours (an older, unhappy caddie whom I pass in the fifth fairway mutters to me, “On an’ off, like a hoo-er’s drawers!”). Despite the conditions, the cousins begin well. Jim shoots a 39 on the front. Robert shoots a 40. On the tenth hole, Robert tees off first and hits a booming drive down the middle. I’m about to give Jim a line when Robert speaks up. “Just so you know, I’m going to replace my ball when I get up there. That ball was just for a friend. I hope that’s okay.” He delivers this message with near-ridiculous formality, as if he’s clearing up a ruling with an official in the British Open, or as if I might disqualify him for this infraction.

  “Oh, okay . . . who’s the friend?” I ask, a little confused.

  “Ernie.”

  “He couldn’t make the trip?”

  “Actually he passed away last year. He always wanted to play St. Andrews, so our friend wanted me to hit one drive here for Ernie.” I’m stopped cold by this statement. When we arrive at the ball (271 yards away, Robert’s best drive of the day), Robert picks it up and casually replaces the ball with his normal Pinnacle gold. I ask if I can see the Ernie ball. It says “Ernie 2005” on it and has a picture of the friend’s bearded, smiling face. It’s official: Ernie has now driven one on the Old Course.

  At the end of the round, we shake hands in the fading light, and the two men do a little huddle. Robert walks up to me. “Uh, Oliver?”

  “Yeah?”

  “We were just talking, and um, we’d like you to have Ernie’s ball.”

  I pause for a second. I thought they were just going to ask me which restaurant to eat at. “Really? Are you guys sure?”

  Robert nods. “Yeah. Definitely. If you don’t mind. It would mean a lot to us if you’d take it.” I look at the men, so ridiculous in their cartoonish clothes, but also totally sincere. They seem almost fragile in their surroundings. I’m reminded of the runner in shorts and a singlet last year who ran up to the Old Course starter as we were teeing off and handed over a putter, saying, “My dad passed away sixteen years ago yesterday, and he always said when I finally made it to St. Andrews, to give his putter to the Old Course starter.” I’m reminded of the summer when I saw what looked to be, from a distance, cigar ashes on the first tee, and learned they were actually the ashes of a son’s father. I think about what the Old Course means to golfers, how important St. Andrews is for so many people. I look at Robert and Jim, and the golf ball Robert’s holding, decorated with Ernie’s face. “Of course,” I say. “I’d be happy to.” We shake hands again, and I pocket the Ernie ball in my waterproofs. Then I turn away and start walking—just quickly enough so they won’t see my face starting to crinkle up.

  • • •

  “Thas quite a camera setup.”

  It’s the next day. I’m behind the shack, in front of the putting green. Beside Jimmy Bowman. As I hold my camera, Jimmy sits against the shack wall, sipping his coffee. He’s wearing a gray plaid golf shirt. His white wavy hair is wild and unbrushed. He’s just come off the course from a round. Jimmy looks tired but pleased. Another round in the books.

  I press the record button and think of an opening question that won’t make me sound moronic. “So, Jimmy, how many caddie rounds do you do a week?” I ask.

  “Well, this year only, uh, six. I used to do ten, twelve. Up to last year.” Jimmy speaks slowly, thoughtfully.

  “And what year is this for you?”

  “This’ll be thirty-three this year,” Jimmy says. “Long time,” he adds with a smile.

  “How old are you now, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  Jimmy nods. “Seventy.” I note that he looks older. “Gettin’ on. Just about time for retiring, let the young guys take over for a change.”

  “Do you find it a lot harder caddying at seventy?”

  “Oh aye, oh definitely. Well, your legs go, your knees go. Back goes a little bit. You get older. The bones . . .” Jimmy trails off. “You know, the spirit’s willing, but . . .” He laughs. “But the bones are not.”

  Jimmy Bowman came to St. Andrews originally as a milkman. He transitioned to caddying, and has been looping on the Old for over fifty years. He’s now part of the nine-man “senior list,” a kind of semiretirement group for the old guys, with reserved daily times (and featuring men like Wee Eck, who tends a farm during the winter, and gentle Jimmy Castorphin, who’s looped for Bob Hope and Rita Hayworth and has been caddying here since the 1960s). Jimmy Bowman has caddied on the Ladies European Tour and in four British Opens. He’s caddied for Ryder Cuppers and top amateurs. He ca
n call yardages with laserlike accuracy, know if a forty-foot putt breaks an inch or an inch and a half.

  All this, and Jimmy Bowman has never once hit a golf ball in his life.

  We continue for twenty minutes, Jimmy sitting by his pink bicycle, me sitting cross-legged on the ground, filming. I almost don’t believe it’s happening. Being on camera isn’t a nuisance for Jimmy; he seems actually to enjoy talking about the old days. And listening to him, preserving what he’s saying, feels important. A story that deserves to be told. Three caddies pass us now, as I’m filming, on their way to the New Course. I see one of them glance at Jimmy, then nod in approval.

  “Have the type of golfers who come over here changed?” I ask, wrapping up our first interview. It’s almost time for my 3:10 booking.

  “Oh, they have improved. Yeah, a lot. Definitely changed a lot. A lot for the better.” Jimmy grins, then adds a final thought. “They tip better too.”

  • • •

  Filming Jimmy works.

  Somehow the mood changes in the shack. Knowing that Jimmy has gotten involved seems to have made other caddies more comfortable with the idea of this film. Guys are asking me about it now. People seem interested in what I’m going to film, what shots I’ve gotten so far. Gradually, I can feel the tide turning.

  • • •

  A week passes. I’m back in the shack, filming.

  This time, the shack isn’t silent.

  Three caddies are sitting on the benches in front of me, earnestly discussing a fellow caddie, nicknamed “Coach.”

  “We’re on six once, and his guy’s just made, like, two birds in a row, and I hear him whisper real creepily to his guy, ‘Oooooh, Jim, yeh playin’ so good, it’s got me buzzin!’”