The Secret Tour Caddy is a book that came across my desk at Cover2Cover recently and I thought I’d share my thoughts on it with you.
An edited extract has appeared in Compleat Golfer but I think an overall view helps to understand it, too.
The author operates on the DP World Tour and is anonymous because he doesn’t want to compromise his chances of future employment. He does offer a few clues to his identity, though, admitting that he is English, has been on the Tour for 20-plus years and handles the bag of a middle-ability player, ie one who doesn’t have too much trouble keeping his Tour card but also doesn’t feature in the winner’s enclosure very often.
The DP World Tour visits South Africa every year and the Secret Tour Caddy is not shy to rate our country as a destination. There is much more in the plus column than the minus column; things like steaks the size of a doormat and cheap red wine to wash them down. The annual trip to Leopard Creek is regarded with awe, with the quality of the golf course matched by the quality of the Kruger Park that runs around it.
On the minus side there are two things that stand out. Firstly, if you are driving through Mpumalanga in a rental car you are almost certain to be stopped by the local police and asked for a bribe. R200 seems to be the going rate but inexperienced golfers have been known to part with much more.
Secondly, it is not safe to walk home after a meal in a swanky restaurant. The streets of Johannesburg are singled out for the biggest criticism and while it is easy to be wary of foreign visitors throwing stones from the safety of a five-star hotel in Sandton, sometimes the truth hurts.
The first question any caddie is asked is, what do you earn? The Secret Tour Caddy begins by ignoring the question but carries on to thumb-suck the figure of about €1,000 a week. Let’s say that’s about R20,000, and if you’re lucky, you work four weeks a month, so R80,000. Sounds alright doesn’t it? But here’s the rub: out of that pot you have to pay for travel, accommodation, food and tax.
Not surprisingly then, all caddies yearn for that moment when their player walks up the 18th on Sunday acknowledging the applause of the crowd, because it means they are going to get a substantial bonus added to their weekly stipend. Throughout the book, ‘anonymous’ is at pains to tell us that we couldn’t do his job and even if we could, we wouldn’t like the pay.
So why do they do it? Partly, it’s due to the camaraderie engendered among the oddballs who are attracted to the profession. It leads to heart-warming moments such as this story of Finnish pro Sami Valimaki, who ended runner-up at the Joburg Open in November 2022. Valimaki had arrived in SA without his regular caddie and linked up with a local recommended by the Secret Tour Caddy and others.
This caddie had cheated death three years previously by accidentally missing a flight to Nairobi that crashed seven minutes after takeoff, killing all on board. At Houghton, says the book, ‘the healthy bonus he picked up from Valimaki paid for his wedding a few weeks later … On the back of him not being on the ill-fated flight … when he was supposed to be makes him still the most appropriately named human on Earth: Lucky’.
– This column first appeared in the June 2024 issue of Compleat Golfer magazine.
Photo: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images
