Caddie's role: Western Australia has got a land mass greater than that of southern Europe and a population that would make it sound like a provincial town in most European countries. With fewer than two million inhabitants, and 1.4 million of them living in the capital, Perth, you don't have to wander far to get a feeling of vastness and isolation.

The trip from the city to the Vines Golf Course where the Johnnie Walker Classic was held last week was just far enough from the metropolis to give a sense of being in the outback.

Perth provided a particularly nice drive in the crisp, dry light of Western Australia. Easing along the Swan Valley wine route, if you let your mind drift over the miles of vines and their ripe grapes ready to be plucked, you could easily fool yourself that you really were on holidays.

After all, most people at home think that this golf tour is just one big holiday anyway.

So the Swan drive at six in the morning, despite the ungodly alarm time, was almost this make-believe, serene scene. The imposing gum trees, with their soft, pink bark that looks like it has been smoothed with fine sandpaper and painted, along-side the well groomed mature palm trees, provide a well guarded avenue, until you reached the open country of the vineyards.

There is a casual nature that pervades in Australia, you meet it at the airport: the immigration officials are actually welcoming. Of course you become an instant "mate".

Once you get to the Vines, if you know where to look you can see kangaroos munching away at the verdant fairways. They seem to have developed a taste for fertilised grass.

There was a mob of them on the range and they were very reluctant to stop their grazing, even with a barrage of Titleist raining down upon them.

The only thing to shift that lot was the heat of the day, when they retreated farther into the bush.

Once in the clubhouse, the traditional pie (pronounced poiye) greets you at the snack bar. Despite the efforts of globalisation to eradicate national traits, there is no mistaking where you are when you come to Australia.

As if we had not had enough indication of where we were, Retief was drawn to play with Robert DiPierdomenico, or the Big Dipper, in the pro-am.

The Dipper is, of course, an icon in Australia after his years as a legendary Australian Rules footballer, who has extended his popularity well into his retirement. He's also well known in Ireland due to his involvement with the International Rules series in the 1980s.

He looks like a vast version of Gerrard Depardieu. His square jaw looks like it was carved out of rock and his torso is of such a thickness that when you ran into the Big Dipper out on the oval you didn't get up until you woke up in the dressing-room.

Retief was amused by playing with the affable Dipper. Robert, in turn, was calling Retief "The Goose" by the third tee. By the fifth he wanted to come to Augusta to watch him win the Masters. It's no wonder he travels the country on a motivational speech trail.

Most golfer's careers, like those of footballers, don't last long, unless you are the tenacious Bernhard Langer. Some top golfers, like Tom Watson and Jay Haas, have managed to step straight from the main tour to the seniors tour without any delay. Others don't quite make such a smooth transition.

The Johnnie Walker in Perth was one such early retirement home for former professionals. I came across a commentary box full of ex-bosses of mine, who have retired from professional playing but, like us all, are institutionalised to a large degree in the only game they know.

The Australian commentary teams included three of my former employers from the old days, and many others who played in Europe through the 1990s or earlier. Ossie Moore, Wayne Riley, Wayne Smyth, Mike Clayton and Greg Turner were all giving their well-informed opinions.

The credits read like a list of "Where are they now", the antipodeans of the European Tour.

Of course, there is not such a vibrant golf scene Down Under anymore. It seems impossible to compete with the might of the US Tour and, to a lesser degree, the European Tour.

So there is not enough commentating to sustain such a large team of announcers. So what do ex-pros do to put a loaf of bread on the table? Wayne Riley owns a nine-hole course and driving range in Sydney.

Ossie Moore is a full-time commentator. Greg Turner has a course design business and writes for a New Zealand golf magazine. Mike Clayton also designs and writes, based in Melbourne. Wayne Smyth has a management company in Perth.

There is life after playing, but it is a hard game to leave when it is in your blood and you feel like you have a lot still to offer.

The Goosen team backed out of the outback prematurely - golfers are not machines after all.

But the semi-retired golfers in their part-time positions looked comfortable in their new day jobs. With the precarious and stressful nature of the professional game behind them, the trip back to Perth was easier for them to enjoy. The memories of another missed cut and another unpaid week could drift over the vines of the tranquil Swan Valley and out into the vastness that is Western Australia on their trip back to the hotel, from which, as announcers, they were definitely not going to have to check out till Sunday.