The Palisadian-Post presents an homage to Will Rogers’ column, “Will Rogers Says,” with a column by Palisadian Jimmy Dunne—on life in the “greatest town in America.”
Caddy Days
I just got back from playing golf. Snappy club, snappy caddies, snappy everything.
On the 18th green, I handed my caddy $140.
As I forked over a wad of 20s, I flashed back to my caddy days.
$4.75 and a “caddy special” hot dog. At La Grange Country Club. A lovely club in my hometown.
Let’s back up a second.
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I own a record in my hometown that I’m very proud of. The “Worst All-Time Caddy at La Grange Country Club.”
In my rookie caddy season in sixth grade, I started like every kid in my town—as a “shagger.”
Our driving range was only about 150 yards, and in those days, golfers had their own bag of “shag balls.”
As a “shagger,” you’d stand out in the driving range with a catcher’s face mask and baseball glove—catching the member’s iron shots he was aiming at you.
I was shagging for Sandy Austin. A nice, dapper, short guy. Crazy rich. Owned a bank downtown. Even his shag balls were brand-new Titleists.
Since I was making only $1.65 as a runt-of-the-litter shagger, I decided to make up a rule standing out there, like a big dope, in that itchy catcher’s face mask.
The first ball I’d catch would go in his shag bag. The next ball—right into my shorts’ pockets.
I figured it was kind of like a mandatory “tip.” One ball for him, one for me, until my pants were stuffed. The problem was, I got a little greedy that day. I ran out of room in my pockets. Started shoving ’em up in my underpants.
After an hour of shagging, you’d carry the guy’s clubs to the cement floor “bag room.” As he was standing next to me, signing the chit for my whopping $1.65, I bent over to set down his bag.
About five golf balls with his name on ’em snuck out of my underwear and started bouncing up and down on the cement.
Whoops.
I got a couple of months of “hiatus” after that lovely stunt.
Who cares. It was rookie year. On to the big leagues of being a real caddy in seventh grade.
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I had a number of legendary stories to earn the title of “Worst All-Time Caddy,” but here’s one of my personal favorites.
Scorching hot, I mean a scorching hot, muggy August day. Mosquitoes enjoying full-course meals on my neck, arms and legs.
Caddying for J. C. Kenter. A big ole, tightwad grump. Spongy gut hung over his embroidered country club-logoed belt.
He thought my name was “Caddy.”
That morning, the club just got brand-new golf carts.
The fancy kind that didn’t steer like go-carts—they steered like a car. You had to turn the wheel a lot more to head in a direction.
It was totally against the rules to let a caddy ever get in the carts. You just ran after the thing like a big goof, raked the traps and then handed ’em their clubs.
Cut to the 15th hole’s green. Dizzy-long par four. Sun sizzling everyone—with sweat soaking everyone’s shirts and patience.
With the foursome getting ready to putt, I reached into Kenter’s bag on the back of the cart to get his putter—and realized I committed a mortal sin.
I left his putter back on the green of the last hole. About a Sahara Desert away.
Let’s just say those four dripping, liquored-up golfers weren’t real happy campers.
Kenter screamed a whole long laundry list of very colorful adjectives that he decided described me—and then half threw up half his roast beef sandwich as he pointed for me to get in the cart, get the putter and bring it back.
I hopped on that horse and gunned it straight down the fairway. Pulled right up to the side of the mini-lake next to the previous green—with a lovely pitched, brick embankment around the water’s edge.
Ran over, grabbed the putter off the green and threw it in the cart.
Here’s where things kind of started falling apart.
I forgot the cart didn’t steer like a go-cart anymore.
Turned the wheel, gunned it and the next thing I knew, it was down the embankment—and most of me and most of the cart were underwater.
I put it in reverse with the wheels spinning and splashing—and got in the water, trying to shove the thing back up the embankment.
Good luck with that one.
All the cart did was puke buckets of mud and God-only-knows what on my soaked face.
Hopped out of the cart, grabbed his putter and sprinted as fast as I could down the fairway like a sopping wet goose.
Completely out of breath and slopped in mud, I said to Kenter, “Good news, bad news. The good news is—here’s your putter. The bad news is your cart and your clubs are in the drink.”
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Here’s my takeaway.
The club’s cost for the tow truck to yank the cart and clubs out of the water? $274.
Caddy fees I made that day? Goose egg.
The look on that ol‘ sweaty, hammered geezer’s face when I handed him his putter?
Priceless.
Jimmy Dunne is a modern-day Renaissance Man; a hit songwriter (28 million hit records), screenwriter/producer of hit television series, award-winning author, an entrepreneur—and a Palisadian “Citizen of the Year.” You can reach him at j@jimmydunne.com or jimmydunne.substack.com.
