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more photosPro golfer Tim Simpson, right, hits a practice putt, while his caddy Butch Wilhelm watches his shot at Crosswater Club in Sunriver Monday afternoon.
Andy Tullis / The Bulletin
Chartin’ the course
Caddies work hard on Monday to get ready for this weekend’s tourney
By Zack Hall / The Bulletin
Published: August 18. 2009 4:00AM PSTSUNRIVER — Longtime tour pro Tim Simpson waved his caddie over Monday to Crosswater Club’s practice putting green near the driving range.
Simpson’s order was simple: “Check me out.” And Butch Wilhelm, Simpson’s caddie for more than a year, eagerly obliged, watching intently his professional’s putting stroke and offering assurances.
Wilhelm, like many of the caddies at the Jeld-Wen Tradition, is spending the days before Thursday’s first round of the Champions Tour major championship checking a lot of things out.
While Crosswater was generally quiet Monday, many of the caddies were hard at work precisely charting the course for their players or, in some cases, helping with their pro’s swing.
“We’ll show up usually the day or so before the player,” said Wilhelm, who arrived in Sunriver on Sunday. “They usually have a pre-made yardage book for us. But we’ll go around and check a lot of the yardages that are on the book, plus add a lot to that book that we need specific to our player.”
The work of a caddie can mean seemingly endless hours on a golf course, combing over the details of each hole from tee box to cup.
While The Tradition issues a detailed yardage book on each hole, caddies often walk the course and find subtle details not necessarily in that book — details that could be useful to a player during the four rounds of high-stakes competition.
Each caddie will learn the course, the yardage from certain points on the course, how it will play with certain pin placements, and the undulations of each putting green.
And that information is tailored specifically to the caddie’s player.
“You are going out to check (the yardage) where you think the ball is going to end up,” said Siggy Bowens, Gene Jones’ caddie, who was on the bag at Crosswater when Jones finished in a tie for seventh place at the 2008 Tradition. “A lot of guys can’t reach par 5s, so you look at where they lay up, stuff like that.”
Of course, there is more to the job than just charting yardages.
“You have to be a friend, cheerleader, sports psychologist and a caddie,” said Troy Martin, a caddie for than more seven years.
Martin, who has played on the PGA Tour’s developmental Nationwide Tour, is on the bag this week for Jerry Pate, the 1976 U.S. Open champion. Martin’s usual loop is D.A. Weibring, who withdrew from The Tradition because of injury.
Martin knows Crosswater well, having caddied for Weibring at The Tradition here in both 2007 and 2008. Still, on Monday he carried the bag for Pate in a morning practice round with five-time British Open winner Tom Watson.
“That’s a good way to start your week,” Martin said of his practice round with Pate and a golf legend.
And on Monday afternoon, Martin walked the course alone, trying to detail even more information, he said.
“I’ve been here every year, and D.A. I think has finished seventh and third here,” said Martin, who estimated he walks a course three times or more before a tournament begins. “I’ve been around the golf course many times and I am going to go back out this afternoon and walk it. Because you can never know the property TOO well. And if Jerry asks something, I better have the answer.”
Crosswater can make things tough for a player and his caddie.
Its undulating greens and more than 4,000 feet of elevation make it different from most golf courses on the over-50 circuit, Bowens said.
“The greens are tough here,” Bowens said. “They are tough to read. And you are also playing at elevation (about 4,200 feet). So you have to be careful with your yardages and stuff, because it’s about anywhere from 5 to 7 percent (difference in yardage from at sea level) depending on how your player hits the ball — if he goes high or low (with his ball flight).”
Other caddies take a more laid-back approach to early preparation.
Jeff Dolf has caddied for Craig Stadler, the 1982 Masters champion, for more than 20 years. He rarely walks a course without Stadler, saving most of the course mapping for Tuesday pro-ams.
It comes down to what the boss wants, Dolf said. For Stadler, a 13-time PGA Tour winner, it means less preparation than many of the other Champions Tour players, though Stadler was at Crosswater Monday to prepare for The Tradition.
“Usually we know the golf course and have been there a few times,” Dolf said. “He (Stadler) plays in the pro-am and maybe nine holes of practice if it is a major tournament. But not necessarily (at Crosswater), because we have played here so many times.
“(Stadler) doesn’t over-prepare, and he doesn’t burn himself out — which I think works in his favor some. And some guys like to be out here all the time. It all depends.”
For other caddies, the work is often tireless and unheralded. So why do they do it?
The answer might simply be the old cliché: For love of the game.
Wilhelm became a caddie three years ago when his friend and fellow La Grange, Ga., resident Allen Doyle, who is in the field this week, asked for his service. In just Wilhelm’s eighth tournament on the bag, Doyle won the U.S. Senior Open.
Wilhelm was hooked, and he enjoys checking the yardages and analyzing the wind on every shot each week.
“I enjoy being around the greatest players in the game every day,” Wilhelm said. “That’s why I do it. I would love to be able to play on a tour like this. But you know what? I get to do everything about a shot, everything about the whole game. But I don’t have to pull the trigger.
“I have somebody else to do that for me.”
Zack Hall can be reached at 541-617-7868 or at zhall@bendbulletin.com.
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