The Caddy

Wise caddy -
 modest and unassuming

For Fantasy Bob the only purpose of a caddy is to hold tea leaves, preferably Darjeeling.  The caddy should be stationed close to the kettle, and have an appropriate caddy spoon in it at all times.  It should not be allowed to indulge in anything that could be described as celebrations of the year after each successful pot of tea has been brewed.  A caddy should know its place.  A caddy should not be creating a storm in a teacup.

For Fantasy Bob has never quite understood why golfers are allowed to take a personal servant onto the course with them.   This personal servant carries the golfer's equipment, tells him (or her) exactly where the hole is and wipes his balls, or her balls as it were.  These are all aspects of the game of golf that FB has mastered, so he is unsure why top level payers are so hopeless that they require someone else to perform them.  Would they drop the bag - leaving behind them a trail of clubs, balls, tees and half eaten sandwiches?  Would they get confused in which general direction the hole lay, even though, in FB's experience, a flag in the middle distance was a pretty good cue?

No other sport allows personal assistants of this sort.  Cricket would be a different game if a batsman could deem his bat too heavy to carry between shots and choose from a selection prior to his shot.  Or if the bowler considered that a servant should carry the ball to the crease and pass it to him before he bowled - having first advised him that it is 22 yards to the other end of the wicket with a slight crosswind left to right.   A different game - and a poorer game - fans would start utterring you're the man and such drivel.  FB has never been convinced that golf is any better a game because of the caddy and what the harm would be if the players had to carry their own equipment.  It would add a minimal athleticism to the game.

Stupid caddy - everything but

But the world being the world it is, caddies are here to stay and it was only a matter of time before one of these servants began to consider himslef greater than the game and present himself as a celebrity caddy.   That distinction falls to Steve Williams who has confirmed in the course of this year what a boor and cretin he is.  Now, FB holds no candle for Williams' former employer Tiger Woods whom he thinks has coarsened the game of golf and is a man transparently without honour.  But at least at his peak Woods could hit a golf ball several miles exactly where he wanted it to go.  Williams meanwhile could pick a bag up with a level of skill similar to that of FB and was adept at throwing cameras into lakes when he thought they had interrrupted his master's serenity.

But Williams is a man without a sense of proportion and forgets that he earned vast amounts of moolah when he worked for Woods.  He cannot resist publicly badmothing him.  He may feel rough about being sacked, but he has another post and his new master is not unsuccessful.  So, he would be well advised to shut up and stick to wiping balls, not uttering them.

Meanwhile, tea anyone?