Chapter 1
“I’M TELLING YOU, boyo. You’d cost your player the hole if you did that in match play,” Bushmills was saying when I walked into the shack.
His fabled Irish heritage notwithstanding, Bushmills wasn’t in the habit of calling people “boyo,” so my eyes searched the room to find his target. They settled on Rocks, who stood against the wall staring down at his Nikes. Two things struck me as unusual right away. One, Rocks had gotten to the caddie shack before I did. And two, he was chagrined.
“You never, EVER, go into the bunker until your player’s out.” Bushmills gave his audience one of his avuncular chuckles and most charming smiles. Rocks missed the whole thing, but there was a small crowd of Rocks-loathers taking it all in.
“I can tell you, PGA marshals kind of frown on caddies tramping around in the sand before their player has taken his shot. It’s called ‘testing the surface of the hazard.’ Rule 13-4a, if I’m not mistaken.”
“I wasn’t testing nothing,” Rocks protested. “It’s just that I was a lot closer than Johnny. Doesn’t it make sense that I rake? It wasn’t like I was trying to cheat. I didn’t say a word to my guy.”
Bushmills replied, “Rocks, of course your honesty and integrity aren’t in question here, but the officials might not know you like we do.”
I giggled without shame, which started the ball rolling for the rest of the guys. They were laughing out loud as I passed by, Rocks only glancing up for a second before focusing on his shoes again.
“What’d I miss?” I asked Tucson Johnny as I plopped myself onto the couch next to him.
“Loads, Lainey,” he said. “Catch this. Yesterday, Rocks and I were out together on the Bluffs. Funny thing happened on 12. We each had one player go into the beach on the right side. I was double-bagging, so I hadn’t got up to my guy in the bunker yet. You know how that goes.”
“Uh-huh,” I answered, but I really didn’t. I’d vowed to myself, when I first committed to this profession almost a year ago, that I would not get so greedy that I’d risk my health. I do not carry two bags. I will, on a good day, bag for two loops. But only one bag per loop. That’s just me.
“Anyway,” Johnny continued, “my guy is away, and he blasts out of it before I can catch up. Our hero, Rocks here, says, ‘Oh, no problem. I got this.’ And he goes ahead and rakes it. Meanwhile, his player is standing there with a WTF look on his face. Now, Bushmills is explaining, in his best Feherty imitation, just how stupid that was.”
I nodded. I’d watched that broguish announcer on the Golf Channel. He’s funny sometimes, but a little goes a long way. I think Bushmills would take the comparison as an insult.
“You know what, Lainey? I’m startin’ to feel sorry for poor ol’ Rocksy the Rake. Ever since that ass-chewing Bushmills gave him for sloppy raking last fall, he can’t seem to do anything right.”
I examined Johnny’s face closely. Several scary seconds passed before he cracked a smile and fake-punched my arm.
“Nah. I’m just messin’ with you. He’s still a dick.”
That’s what I liked best about Tucson Johnny. He kept me guessing.
The camaraderie with most of the wintering caddies had been tight. I’d call it a brotherhood if it weren’t for the fact that they let me in. Except for a couple of weeks during the holidays when the community college was on break, I’d been the only female since the high season ended. Now that we were in the false spring sunshine of February, the tee times had been filling up again and the caddie business had started to look good to enterprising folks, including girls. I ought to know – just a year ago I was one. So a fresh batch of rookies should be stirring things up soon.
What I was really looking forward to was Tiny Sue’s arrival. The message I got said she’d left Arizona and had a few stops to make in California before she drove up the coast. I was supposed to be looking for a rental for her. I thought it shouldn’t be hard to find a place. Eden Beach always loses people this time of year when the tourist business has dried up and the resident snowbirds are gone. But my connections, bartender/best friend Jessica and landscaper/current squeeze Travis, were no help.
The other caddies might know something, but I couldn’t ask them because Sue told me not to tell anyone that she was coming back to work here. I thought that was being overly paranoid, which is rich coming from me, and it was hell keeping the secret. I hadn’t heard any trash-talking when Sue left in the middle of summer. At least the serious caddies like Tucson Johnny, Jake, Bushmills, and other good guys knew why she quit the resort to find work as a tour caddie. It’s common knowledge that if the female caddies flirt with the male guests, it makes management happy. Tiny Sue was one of the best caddies here, and she didn’t need to use her female wiles to give a player a good round of golf. Refusing to do so put her on the bottom of the so-called rotation.
I’ve followed in her footsteps and, so far, I’ve gotten by okay. The college girls who bagged in December were flirty, but they’re young and that’s just their normal behavior. Me being older and wiser at twenty-five, I have more self-respect. And an inability to keep my mouth shut around creeps.
Larson’s radio crackle got my attention and I hoped it meant action.
“I need three for a foursome at Hemlock Hollows, pronto.” He looked at his clipboard as fifteen caddies salivated like Pavlov's dogs.
“Jake, Cheech, and, uh, Lainey. Hop to it.”
Yep. I still got it.
MY FIVE-FOOT NOTHIN’ frame is burdened with more womanly attributes on top than is reasonable, which has been a nuisance since I turned thirteen. My mom told me, “Just be yourself,” and, “If you’ve got it, flaunt it.” She’s the best mom in the world, but that conflicting advice has given me more anxiety than solace. I really would rather not be noticed at all. It’s just that being myself, a foul-mouthed scrapper with a low threshold for tolerating jerks, seems to raise a lot of eyebrows. Who knows where I would’ve ended up had I finished college and kept my thoughts to myself. I might’ve slipped quietly into the conventional world as a degreed jobseeker in debt up to my C-cups.
Instead, I left my hometown in Northern California, headed north, and found adventure on the high seas. Well, after a few less adventurous months waiting tables. And the seas weren’t as high as the stupid fisherman I crewed for. But the good part was discovering Eden Beach, the comfy little town on the Southern Oregon coast where I settled. The town doesn’t have much going for it in the way of employment, or nightlife, or culture, or social interaction for anyone under fifty. But the scenery is great.
Then there’s Singing Bluffs Resort, the thirty-six-hole, walking-only, Scottish links mecca for golfers rich enough to fly here for the best golf experience ever. That’s what I hear, anyway. Playing golf doesn’t really excite me. The caddie profession, however, does.
Since the invention of the golf bag, there’s been the opportunity to pack one for a fee. But it isn’t just a matter of hiring on to carry someone’s clubs. To me, being a caddie is providing a much bigger service. I’m the best club in the golfer’s bag. I’m course technician, statistician, rules referee, tour guide, meteorologist, comrade-in-arms, spiritual guide, and psycho-therapist. I love the game.
Everything except actually playing, that is. I make the claim that you don’t have to be a golfer to be a good caddie, though I may be alone in that belief. All the other caddies at the Bluffs play every chance they get. They get out during the empty hours before dark in the worst weather, if management allows. When there’s no work they play the muni course, and they’ll drive an hour or two to decent nine-hole courses in outlying areas. New guys invite me to join them before they get the staggering news that I don’t play. I tried it once and I’m hopeless. Even with Travis’s loving encouragement, the thrill did not outweigh the anguish.
For me, guiding the players is the challenge, and spending afternoons in beautiful surroundings with interesting strangers is the reward. Singing Bluffs is a remote resort on the edge of Nowhere, Oregon, so golfers have to be serious enthusiasts to buy into the trip. There is such a buzz, though, about playing these courses so similar to Scotland’s in turf, weather, and layout that the hearty keep coming. When I see the expressions on faces of golfers coming off the 18th green, I know I’ve got the coolest job.
“I’M TELLING YOU, boyo. You’d cost your player the hole if you did that in match play,” Bushmills was saying when I walked into the shack.
His fabled Irish heritage notwithstanding, Bushmills wasn’t in the habit of calling people “boyo,” so my eyes searched the room to find his target. They settled on Rocks, who stood against the wall staring down at his Nikes. Two things struck me as unusual right away. One, Rocks had gotten to the caddie shack before I did. And two, he was chagrined.
“You never, EVER, go into the bunker until your player’s out.” Bushmills gave his audience one of his avuncular chuckles and most charming smiles. Rocks missed the whole thing, but there was a small crowd of Rocks-loathers taking it all in.
“I can tell you, PGA marshals kind of frown on caddies tramping around in the sand before their player has taken his shot. It’s called ‘testing the surface of the hazard.’ Rule 13-4a, if I’m not mistaken.”
“I wasn’t testing nothing,” Rocks protested. “It’s just that I was a lot closer than Johnny. Doesn’t it make sense that I rake? It wasn’t like I was trying to cheat. I didn’t say a word to my guy.”
Bushmills replied, “Rocks, of course your honesty and integrity aren’t in question here, but the officials might not know you like we do.”
I giggled without shame, which started the ball rolling for the rest of the guys. They were laughing out loud as I passed by, Rocks only glancing up for a second before focusing on his shoes again.
“What’d I miss?” I asked Tucson Johnny as I plopped myself onto the couch next to him.
“Loads, Lainey,” he said. “Catch this. Yesterday, Rocks and I were out together on the Bluffs. Funny thing happened on 12. We each had one player go into the beach on the right side. I was double-bagging, so I hadn’t got up to my guy in the bunker yet. You know how that goes.”
“Uh-huh,” I answered, but I really didn’t. I’d vowed to myself, when I first committed to this profession almost a year ago, that I would not get so greedy that I’d risk my health. I do not carry two bags. I will, on a good day, bag for two loops. But only one bag per loop. That’s just me.
“Anyway,” Johnny continued, “my guy is away, and he blasts out of it before I can catch up. Our hero, Rocks here, says, ‘Oh, no problem. I got this.’ And he goes ahead and rakes it. Meanwhile, his player is standing there with a WTF look on his face. Now, Bushmills is explaining, in his best Feherty imitation, just how stupid that was.”
I nodded. I’d watched that broguish announcer on the Golf Channel. He’s funny sometimes, but a little goes a long way. I think Bushmills would take the comparison as an insult.
“You know what, Lainey? I’m startin’ to feel sorry for poor ol’ Rocksy the Rake. Ever since that ass-chewing Bushmills gave him for sloppy raking last fall, he can’t seem to do anything right.”
I examined Johnny’s face closely. Several scary seconds passed before he cracked a smile and fake-punched my arm.
“Nah. I’m just messin’ with you. He’s still a dick.”
That’s what I liked best about Tucson Johnny. He kept me guessing.
The camaraderie with most of the wintering caddies had been tight. I’d call it a brotherhood if it weren’t for the fact that they let me in. Except for a couple of weeks during the holidays when the community college was on break, I’d been the only female since the high season ended. Now that we were in the false spring sunshine of February, the tee times had been filling up again and the caddie business had started to look good to enterprising folks, including girls. I ought to know – just a year ago I was one. So a fresh batch of rookies should be stirring things up soon.
What I was really looking forward to was Tiny Sue’s arrival. The message I got said she’d left Arizona and had a few stops to make in California before she drove up the coast. I was supposed to be looking for a rental for her. I thought it shouldn’t be hard to find a place. Eden Beach always loses people this time of year when the tourist business has dried up and the resident snowbirds are gone. But my connections, bartender/best friend Jessica and landscaper/current squeeze Travis, were no help.
The other caddies might know something, but I couldn’t ask them because Sue told me not to tell anyone that she was coming back to work here. I thought that was being overly paranoid, which is rich coming from me, and it was hell keeping the secret. I hadn’t heard any trash-talking when Sue left in the middle of summer. At least the serious caddies like Tucson Johnny, Jake, Bushmills, and other good guys knew why she quit the resort to find work as a tour caddie. It’s common knowledge that if the female caddies flirt with the male guests, it makes management happy. Tiny Sue was one of the best caddies here, and she didn’t need to use her female wiles to give a player a good round of golf. Refusing to do so put her on the bottom of the so-called rotation.
I’ve followed in her footsteps and, so far, I’ve gotten by okay. The college girls who bagged in December were flirty, but they’re young and that’s just their normal behavior. Me being older and wiser at twenty-five, I have more self-respect. And an inability to keep my mouth shut around creeps.
Larson’s radio crackle got my attention and I hoped it meant action.
“I need three for a foursome at Hemlock Hollows, pronto.” He looked at his clipboard as fifteen caddies salivated like Pavlov's dogs.
“Jake, Cheech, and, uh, Lainey. Hop to it.”
Yep. I still got it.
MY FIVE-FOOT NOTHIN’ frame is burdened with more womanly attributes on top than is reasonable, which has been a nuisance since I turned thirteen. My mom told me, “Just be yourself,” and, “If you’ve got it, flaunt it.” She’s the best mom in the world, but that conflicting advice has given me more anxiety than solace. I really would rather not be noticed at all. It’s just that being myself, a foul-mouthed scrapper with a low threshold for tolerating jerks, seems to raise a lot of eyebrows. Who knows where I would’ve ended up had I finished college and kept my thoughts to myself. I might’ve slipped quietly into the conventional world as a degreed jobseeker in debt up to my C-cups.
Instead, I left my hometown in Northern California, headed north, and found adventure on the high seas. Well, after a few less adventurous months waiting tables. And the seas weren’t as high as the stupid fisherman I crewed for. But the good part was discovering Eden Beach, the comfy little town on the Southern Oregon coast where I settled. The town doesn’t have much going for it in the way of employment, or nightlife, or culture, or social interaction for anyone under fifty. But the scenery is great.
Then there’s Singing Bluffs Resort, the thirty-six-hole, walking-only, Scottish links mecca for golfers rich enough to fly here for the best golf experience ever. That’s what I hear, anyway. Playing golf doesn’t really excite me. The caddie profession, however, does.
Since the invention of the golf bag, there’s been the opportunity to pack one for a fee. But it isn’t just a matter of hiring on to carry someone’s clubs. To me, being a caddie is providing a much bigger service. I’m the best club in the golfer’s bag. I’m course technician, statistician, rules referee, tour guide, meteorologist, comrade-in-arms, spiritual guide, and psycho-therapist. I love the game.
Everything except actually playing, that is. I make the claim that you don’t have to be a golfer to be a good caddie, though I may be alone in that belief. All the other caddies at the Bluffs play every chance they get. They get out during the empty hours before dark in the worst weather, if management allows. When there’s no work they play the muni course, and they’ll drive an hour or two to decent nine-hole courses in outlying areas. New guys invite me to join them before they get the staggering news that I don’t play. I tried it once and I’m hopeless. Even with Travis’s loving encouragement, the thrill did not outweigh the anguish.
For me, guiding the players is the challenge, and spending afternoons in beautiful surroundings with interesting strangers is the reward. Singing Bluffs is a remote resort on the edge of Nowhere, Oregon, so golfers have to be serious enthusiasts to buy into the trip. There is such a buzz, though, about playing these courses so similar to Scotland’s in turf, weather, and layout that the hearty keep coming. When I see the expressions on faces of golfers coming off the 18th green, I know I’ve got the coolest job.