Even before the players were out practicing for this week’s Dubai World Championship Presented by DP World a small army of caddies were out surveying the course, checking-out the greens for those gems of advice that might be needed to keep their players on the straight and narrow over the coming four days.
Or at least some useful suggestions should their players have to bail of bad lies in un-chartered places.
Like any business it can also offer some glamour and fortune - if luck prevails for players and caddies. But it can also do the exact opposite with golf as tough off the course with relationships between player and caddies changing regularly – depending on the on course fortunes.
Craig Connelly is one who will freely admit these days that his life currently is beyond belief having lost his job with Paul Casey last November and now paired with Martin Kaymer and delighted to be back in work.
It should not be forgotten that the Glaswegian spent the early months of the year with no bag and was somewhat stunned after receiving the dreaded call from his employer ending their four year partnership. Now to his own disbelief he is involved up close once again as his boss chases the Race to Dubai title - with a major and Ryder Cup already on his CV this year.
Ken Comboy, caddie of US Open winner Graeme McDowell, is also in the mix and another caddy who lost his job to Casey the night before his departure for the 2004 Ryder Cup in Oakland Hills. With seventeen season in the game the Englishman has worked in the past for Ireland's Eoghan O'Connell, Andrew Coltart of Scotland and Thomas Bjorn. Given his eye for detail he is a good partner for his Portrush boss, who seeks the same high standards.
Having felt maybe that his best days were gone the opposite is now the case as McDowell goes from strength to strength and a few weeks in China Ken Comboy was awarded HSBC's Caddie of the Year honours at the annual caddies' dinner at Sheshan.
This season McDowell has won two regular tournaments along with the US Open at Pebble Beach and offers high praise for his caddy:
"Ken's a very worthy winner and someone who's been huge for my career," said McDowell.
"He's a great friend, a mediator, a psychologist and a coach - everything you can think of. To win Caddie of the Year in front of his fellow caddies will mean a lot to him because we all like to be recognised by our peers."
From this you can see the role of the caddie has changed across the years.
Where, 20 years ago, he would do little more than carry the bag and know the yardages, the modern version is a font of knowledge on any number of different fronts. He will know his man's game inside out and he will probably be able to reel off all the statistics pertinent to his game. In the opinion of one ex-player, Stuart Cage, the caddie's input has gone up from, say, 3% to 7 or 8%.
McDowell and Comboy paired up four-and-a-half years ago but not without a hiccup when after a month Comboy returned to his old boss, Thomas Bjorn. Then three weeks later McDowell had a phone call from Comboy saying that he had made a big mistake and asked could he come back. With that the the pair were reunited the first win came in the Ballantine's championship on Jeju Island after Graeme won a three-hole play-off.
On the other hand players must wonder about their timing too as did Ian Woosnam when he sat down some years ago with Philip 'Wobbly' Morbey to explain that he was scaling down and suggesting that there would be better money on some other bag - such as Jose Maria Olazabal.
Ironically Woosnam went on making money on the Senior Tour with Olazabal having to retire from the game after being plagued by illness and injury.
For Woosie there has also been the on course drama finding himself some years ago at half six in the morning trying to open his locker when his caddie, Miles Byrne, had slept in. The same caddie failed to spot a 15th club in Woosie's bag at the 2001 Open Championship, some weeks earlier, where the Welshman finished 3rd – even after a two stroke penalty - thus ending the working relationship.
These days “Wobbly” is with Ross Fisher, winner of the 3 Irish Open this year in Killarney, which was the third time for Morbey as he had caddied for Ian Woosnam in his successive victories at Portmarnock in 1988 and 1989.
For the caddies there was a time when the balance of power was wholly with the players but in these days of “professional” caddies they are considered a vital element and eminently necessary. So the there is a greater balance to the relationship - at least the ones on the main Tours.
It is also a lucrative business in the top rankings with the increased prize money everywhere and the best example being 'Kiwi' Steve Williams - who works for Tiger Woods – whoa ranks as one of New Zealand's highest earning sportsmen. For Jim Furyk's caddie Fluff Cowan the business of the percentage of ten million dollars his boss won at the FedEx Cup was not a bad pay day either.
But is also shows that luck to plays its part given that when Williams replaced Mike "Fluff" Cowan in 1999 - after he was in indiscreet about life with Tiger Woods – it gave rise to the view that his earning days were over having lost the biggest bag in the world.
There are obviously other caddy options such as your brother, as Luke Donald did for a while, or brother-in-law, something that has worked for Padraig Harrington with Ronan Flood on his bag - winning three majors.
Timing is the other element and the move by Colin Byrne to Edoardo Molinari this summer is a case in point as he helped the Italian win at Gleneagles and qualify for the European Ryder Cup. Having been with Retief Goosen for five years - during the player' peak - the Irish man h had seen the South African win the US Open in 2004 and so any move after that was viewed as a step down.
However after stints with Soren Hansen, Camillo Villegas and Alexander Noren, Byrne is now back in the big time carrying Edoardo's clubs in Dubai.
Darren Reynolds from Bray spent six and a half years with Paul McGinley and was there for Ryder Cup putt at the Belfry in 2002 before making a change to join Graeme Storm. Shortly before the start of this season though he then teamed up with Sam Hutsby - a young Englishman rated as one of Europe's brightest young prospects.
'When you are working with a player like Paul McGinley, who has been round the block and successful for many years, you don't have to make a big contribution out on the course,' explained Reynolds. 'But with Sam it's very different.
"He is still learning about life out on tour and he is playing most of the courses for the first time -- and that's where my knowledge picked up over the years can really help him.'
Hutsby so far has not gone on to achieve Major glory yet and finished 117th in the Race to Dubai so Reynolds has joined another talent, Gareth Maybin, as Hutsby goes back to regain his card at Q School. The pair have done well over recent weeks with Maybin chasing the Andalucia Valderrama Masters on the last day - losing out in the end to McDowell. This week both are in action on the Earth Course and the trial partnership is looking promising
But in the topsy-turvy sport of golf what makes a good partnership or caddy is a question that rarely draws consensus. However Colin Byrne probably sums it up the best.
"Realistically, a very good player makes a very good caddie."
In short caddies are that rare species that do everything possible to give the player whose bag they carry the best chance of winning - and in turn can take the bullets should things go wrong on any given day on the course.
Regardless of the previous day’s battle though they are always to be found on bright and early morning pacing-out the yardages on the designated course, aiming laser distance measures at greens and looking at the undulations and borrows where most of us less rare folk would bother looking.
The derivation of the term ‘caddie’ is thought to date back to the very early days of golf over 200-years-ago when military officers would play the game and their ‘cadet’ would carry their clubs for them.
In golf these days the role of the caddy has evolved dramatically from the narrow definition from which it was initiated.
So has the pay.
