Riverbank Tweed and Roadmap Jenkins: Tales from the Caddie Yard

For nearly as long as there have been golfers, there have been men walking alongside them, carrying their clubs, holding the flagstick, offering advice, smelling not so faintly of old sweat and very new wine. We knew them by their nicknames and little else; we called them Pinehurst Bill, Shorty, Rags, Preacher, Front Lip, Big Red, Fog City, Cemetery, Shotgun, Stovepipe. They described their profession in their own distinctive way: they shipped the trunk; pulled the strap; hauled the load. They were with us every step of the way -- although, to be honest, they usually quick-hopped a few paces ahead or lagged a couple behind. But they were always there when we asked for help. We called them caddies. Today the Caddie is disappearing from the emerald ocean that is the golfer's territory. He has been replaced by machines that carry us and our bags down concrete ribbons or onto the greensward itself, by radar scopes that give us precise distances to any object, by meters that gauge wind, and bypolarized lenses that filter out the sun and detect the slightest hump or ridge. But no machine can read a sidehill putt or sense the fear in aLinks, Bo is the author of 'Riverbank Tweed and Roadmap Jenkins: Tales from the Caddie Yard' with ISBN 9780684873626 and ISBN 0684873621.