‘Star’ caddie still carrying a bag full of memories
The 80-something Scot who called the shots for some of golf’s biggest names
HE auld yins are the best. “My grandfather used to say, ‘they’re putting a three-piece suite into Cliftonhill so they must be expecting a big crowd’,” recalled Sonny McMullen, the former Ryder Cup caddie and long-suffering Albion Rovers supporter.
You’ll need quite a sizeable couch to accommodate the thousands who will trample into Hazeltine this week for the 41st staging of golf’s greatest team contest.
At a sprightly 81-years-old, McMullen’s Ryder Cup recollections are from a bygone era but they remain as clear as the engravings on that cherished gold chalice.
From 1969 to 1979, Glasgow man McMullen heaved the bags in five Ryder Cups and, as readers of a certain vintage may recall, he performed the task for both sides in this transatlantic tussle.
His bosses in the biennial batter about included Tony Jacklin, Peter Townsend and Peter Oosterhuis but McMullen has always harboured a soft spot for the Puerto Rican-born American, Chi-Chi Rodriguez. In 1973 at Muirfield, McMullen swapped the Union flag and Irish tricolour for the stars and stripes. “Chi-Chi was the best to work for,” he said. “In 1973, the GB&I players were only getting £1000. I don’t know what the Americans were getting, but Chi-Chi said he’d pay me more than the whole GB&I team was getting. And he did. I was doing a professional job and basically I was there, like everyone else, for wages. A lot of caddies later on didn’t want to caddie against GB&I.”
McMullen’s first Ryder Cup in 1969 featured the famous “concession”, when Jack Nicklaus generously conceded a knee-knocker of a putt to Tony Jacklin to ensure the match finished in a tie, but there are plenty of occasions that stick in the mind.
“Nick Faldo’s first in 1977 at Lytham is one,” added McMullen of the Englishman’s debut in the event as a 20-year-old which led to him winning three points out of three. “He played with Oosterhuis and we played Jack Nicklaus and Ray Floyd in the fourballs. On the first tee, Faldo stood back and Oosterhuis said ‘on you go’. ‘What?’ said Faldo. He was a bag of nerves, but he hit a great shot, six feet behind the flag and they went on to win that match.”
Ten years before that, McMullen, who still enjoys a hit about at Easter Moffat near Airdrie, had made his first venture into the caddying scene. It was the start of a long, profitable and, in some ways, trailblazing career. “I started caddying with Peter Townsend in the 1967 Northern Open,” recalled McMullen. “He asked me if I would caddie for him on a regular basis. He gave me a deal and I was the first British caddie to have a weekly wage. A few weeks later, George Will approached me and said that Tony Jacklin had asked him to ask me. I said ‘no, I was with Peter’, but I told George I knew a good caddie who was looking for a job. His name was Willie Hilton and he went on to win the Open with Jacklin.
“Townsend took me to America in 1968 for a couple of seasons, then I caddied for Chi-Chi, Curtis Strange, Gary Player and Oosterhuis. I was in America in total for about 18 years. I had about eight years right through without a break. I was the first British caddie to caddie over there, and I brought the yardage books back. I remember Peter Thomson asking me at the Irish Open about what these yardage books were all about. He said ‘this is a new game for me’.”
The game of golf was changing but it would continue to serve McMullen well. “I stopped caddying for a spell when Oosterhuis got me a job at one of the richest clubs in America in New York, next to Flushing Meadow where they play the tennis US Open,” he added. “It was Fresh Meadow Country Club. Gene Sarazen used to be the pro. I got the job as caddiemaster and starter. It was a fantastic job. To be a member it was $2400 a year in the early 1990s.
“Then Jacklin was going on the Senior Tour in the States and asked me if I’d work for him. We won a tournament within the first two weeks. I was three years with Jacklin, and then I decided to come back home. I was offered another job in New York and I said I would go home and think about it, but I never went back. I wasn’t involved in golf after that and had a wee antiques business after that.”
You can’t put a dealer’s price on those Ryder Cup memories, though. “It is the best tournament by far and the buzz was fantastic,” said McMullen. “You can’t explain it.”