Caddy for Life

This is the 33rd anniversary of “Caddyshack,” a movie described as “riotous” in most current online reviews. In 1980 it was beyond funny for me because I had caddied for four years, long enough to appreciate the universal nature of the caddyshack, from the cunning caddymaster to the characters whose only skill was to stay sober while carrying golf bags for rich people.

I was barely thirteen when I started earning $20 for five hours of what was called “a loop,” or once around a prestigious 18-hole golf course. At 15 I was a double-looper, earning $40 for two trips around the course. This was serious movie money. But for the old guys with deep cracks in their faces, the cash appeared to go for booze and gambling. I remember “Skash” with knife scars on his neck and Bozo who once passed out in the caddyshack—a wood structure with a picnic table—before any golfer had teed off.

Then the caddymaster was replaced and some of the old guard disappeared, my acne cleared up and life moved on.

But what I remember best is waiting, pacing and hoping for a break: the hours spent scraping gravel with my sneakers in the caddy yard where I tried to make eye contact with the caddymaster whenever golfers appeared. “Send me out, send me out,” I prayed, hoping my psychic powers would produce positive results if not the willpower to resist spending money I hadn’t earned yet on overpriced sodas.

Funny, whenever I am in a waiting situation, I think of the caddyard, the shack and the characters who now only live in my mind.