Caddie's Role: Having won in China a couple of weeks ago, flown back home to England for a night and then reassembled himself for another week of competitive golf in Cologne, last week's victory at the German Masters was a testament to Retief Goosen's stamina and diligence.

By his admission he has not hit the ball the way he would like to be hitting it for quite a while. There are two ways to tackle this problem as a professional golfer.

One is to take a step back and try to figure it out in the quiet of the range, away from tournament golf.

The other is to grind it out at the next event, play as well as you can under the circumstances and keep looking for the key on the range after the round. This last option is what Retief decided to do. I must be honest and admit that I was sceptical about this policy. I formerly believed that you must use what you brought to the tournament you are playing in. Swing tampering is difficult when you are pre-occupied with the task of bringing in a score. Retief's recent victories have certainly swayed my opinion on this matter.

Retief had the option of flying on Tuesday morning last with Michael Campbell. But Michael was leaving a little later than Retief would have liked. So he opted for the early rise and a 9am commercial flight from Heathrow instead.

A little over-enthusiastic some may think, given the long trip he had endured the previous day. Retief had played in China with a new set of irons that he had worked closely on with Brett Wahl, TaylorMade's chief iron designer, in creating. After quite a deliberate amount of refashioning, they finally arrived in their almost finished state a couple of weeks back. Retief was very happy about them and excited about playing an event with them. The only problem was that in Beijing there was only one loft and lie machine in the whole city, and it was on the other side of town (a three-hour trip in Beijing), so making the final adjustments was difficult. He battled on with the clubs not set up exactly as he would have liked, and still won by six shots.

He was anxious to adjust the clubs before he played last week. Thus the early rise on Tuesday last. I arrived in Gut Larchenhof golf club last Tuesday to find my man in the TaylorMade repair truck tinkering with his new irons. The club repair men in TaylorMade love it when Retief pays a visit, because he likes to do his own adjustments, so they can take a break and give him the run of the truck. After some grip changes, a few more layers of tape here and there and some detailed hosel bending to get the right loft and lies on the new irons, Retief was ready to go, looking for the elusive swing key on the range. The repair men took control of their truck again.

Retief could not get into a comfortable position over the ball. So Tuesday last was the start of the search for a comfortable address position. His lower half was misaligned with his upper half, and this was the quest for the week: to try to wiggle himself back into a comfortable and correct position at address. Top players are thoroughbreds, and the minutest of misalignment to them would probably feel to us like we are trying to play left-handed clubs when we are right-handed.

As a caddie on a world trip such as I am at the moment (last week was the sixth event in a row on three different continents), you may not get the time to do your course preparation as conscientiously as you would like. There is a group of my colleagues that have stayed in the same guest house very close to the course at Gut Larchenhof outside Cologne since the German Masters moved to this location. It is a really pleasant week, of barbecues and idle banter over beers on the balcony overlooking the surrounding fields. The house is called the Birds Nest.

One of my house-mates suggested on Wednesday evening that it might be worth getting a few extra yardages before the first round. Still a little disoriented after the China trip, I reluctantly got my laser, put my running shoes on and we took off in the soft September evening light around the course. Golf courses look beautiful late in the day. All undulations are clearly defined by the sinking sun, there is a peaceful air about golf terrain at the end of a nice day.

There was one extra number that my friend, Kevin, wanted to get from the 14th fairway which runs adjacent to the seventh. He figured if your player hit it right off the seventh tee he may have to hit it down the 14th fairway as an escape. I pooh poohed his idea as a waste of time, but went along with his suggestion.

Retief hit his tee-shot right off the seventh tee on Thursday, it came to rest behind a lone tree beside the fairway. He couldn't bend his shot around the tree nor hit it under it. The only option was to go down the 14th fairway. I assured him that I had a good number from down there. He raised an eyebrow as if to say what are you doing with a number from there for? It wasn't the time for explanations. Retief escaped down the 14th fairway and hit his third shot to the par five seventh pin-high for a simple two-putt par. I had to apologise profusely to my colleague later on the Birds Nest's balcony for questioning his logic in acquiring such a yardage.

The search for perfection continued on the Gut Larchenhof range, while the raw Goosen talent brought back yet another under-par card to the scorer's tent each day. He is now 42 under par for his last eight competitive rounds. Despite a punishing double bogey on the second hole in the final round due to an errant drive, Retief was in the mood to win and there is no better man to do so, he knows how to win even with a slightly compromised game.

You need to accept poor shots in order to win. You also have to have a clarity of thought to win. His decision to take a penalty drop from the hazard on the final hole in Cologne was an indication of his lucidity under the circumstances. The more dangerous option would have been to try to play the ball from the hazard. The shot that followed, from the rough, on the side of a slope to a pin cut eight yards from the water, is what separates winners from runners-up. He hit his 155-yard nine-iron to within five feet of the pin.

We frequently see the stunning end results of top sports people and are left dazed in admiration of their feats. It's what goes on in the design room, the repair truck and the hours of searching on the range, combined with dogged self-belief and an abundance of talent, that leads to shots such as we saw Retief hit last Sunday in Cologne.

Success often comes from unglamorous places.