Caddies more than earn their crust
Over the last decade we have seen the salaries of caddies rise to the point where a handful or two finish up each year with earnings of more than a million dollars. At The Open last week we surely saw why. Would rory McIlroy really have finished fourth if his caddie JP Fitzgerald hadn’t taken him to one side on the sixth tee on Thursday and told him, in no uncertain terms: ‘You’re rory McIlroy, what the f*** are you doing?’ Better still was the input of Jordan Spieth’s bagman Michael Greller, who got into his man’s ear at the point where he was in grave danger of throwing it all away on Sunday. recalling the time Spieth had spent with Michael Phelps and Michael Jordan at a vacation hideaway recently, he came up with a masterful observation: ‘I need you to believe right now that you’re the same calibre of athlete as those two.’ There used to be a time when players changed caddies like they change their clothes but not any more. It takes time to build up a relationship of friendship and trust for top caddies like Fitzgerald and Greller to feel both confident and capable enough to make comments filled with tough love that can make a difference. The bond is now so strong among many you’ll often hear players like Spieth describe a shot in terms of ‘we’ rather than ‘I’. If the top players are earning $10million on the course each year, it’s surely only right the man by his side, who fulfils so many more roles than simply carrying the bag, receives his 10 per cent.