Colin Byrne/Caddie's Role:It was only the chosen swing coaches who were allowed linger in the caddie lounge at Sawgrass, Ponte Vedra Beach in Northern Florida last week. It is one of the events on the US Tour that tries to make us bagmen feel somewhat special.
Our "caddie shack" was a modest room without a view in the 77,000 square foot new clubhouse at the Players Stadium Course, very much in the bowels of the vast building. Given that the winning coach, Butch Harmon, was availing of the facility it was obviously something not afforded to the increasing number of travelling trainers.
There is a hierarchy in the players' car-park. Defending champion and past champions have slots closest to the clubhouse entrance. Alongside these privileged positions there was a new addition this year - the defending caddie had a space assigned to him. This still was not quite as lavish as the Wachovia event the previous week where the defending caddie was given a Mercedes car and a pole position in which to park it. There is no doubt our status has gladly been elevated to relatively dizzy heights of late.
There is a traditional caddie shot to the signature 17th hole on Wednesday. It is a day when the fish in the surrounding lake get particularly spooked and the colourful flowers in the adjacent island to the peninsula-shaped green are garroted by frequent knee-jerked shanks from the professional porters but apparently very much amateur golfers. In defence of us all it is a hard enough task to get the ball on a tee peg, let alone get it airborne with a poker-stiff shafted club under the watchful eye of a large gathering of golf fans, bosses, coaches and playing partners.
Last Wednesday was a very wet and windy day and thankfully I was not put through the ordeal as my player decided to play the front nine only. In previous years there has been thousands of dollars deposited by players in the jar left beside the 17th tee as a bonus for the caddie who hits his shot closest to the pin. Given the low hit rate on the green it was looking like whoever kept their ball on dry land was going to scoop the loot.
Greg Owen's caddie hit his shot late in the day to just over five feet.
Whether the players have become more frugal or many of them did not actually play the back nine due to the foul weather, the "tip" jar was a little light this year. There was a watch for the winner and, of course, the chance of caddie immortality by having your name inscribed on the "closest to the hole" plaque which takes the bare look off the caddie shack wall.
New Yorkers got to experience a version of the infamous Sawgrass 17th surrounded by concrete in the Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan. UBS have constructed a downsized replica of the treacherous par three downtown.
We were all transformed into architectural critics given the extreme makeover of the clubhouse and the subtle alteration of the Pete Dye golf course. There was a bit of length added to the course, only about 120 yards. The 12th green was the only one that was totally reshaped. The rest were just subtly tweaked with softened slopes, new run-off areas and deepened bunkers. The changes were generally well received by the players. It is a course that fits your eye as a golfer or does not. The Stadium Course is a bit like a certain style of painting. We all have certain preferences which do not make it good or bad, just different.
So it is with the Players Stadium Course, it is a classic water-lined Florida course with a premium placed on hitting fairways. If you get out of position off the tee, scoring becomes very difficult. The Bermuda grass greens were impeccable. With the new "sub air" drainage system they were kept firm despite a lot of rainfall throughout the early part of last week. Perhaps the newness of the surfaces kept the speed a little slower than most good putters would have liked.
As a caddie we got to walk around the outside of the vast new clubhouse and observe its Italian-styled design. Officially it is constructed in the Mediterranean revival style but I would not feel fit to comment on the interior having only stepped in the back door of the building as caddies are still not allowed into the inner sanctum of tournament clubhouses in America.
For those interested in comparisons it is 40 per cent bigger than the White House. Much of modern Floridian architecture comprises "faux finish".
Nothing is as it seems on the surface. Give what looks like a solid stone facing a tap with your knuckle and there is a hollow sound from within. Given figures of $40 million suggested as the cost of the new building and up to $50 million spent on the course reconstruction it would be nice to think that both will last longer than the 30-year life span of their predecessors.
With baroque music softening the blandness of the service areas below the clubhouse, and morning and evening sessions from the lone bag-piper, it was a little confusing as to what the place was trying to represent. In a country that invented "surf and turf" I suppose eclectic is the way to go.
As a caddie who has lived through the rapid evolution of our place in the pecking order of the game I am not complaining about anything. It's quite flattering that the winning coach finds today's caddie quarters agreeable enough to want to spend time in.
