[Overkill]

That one came as a surprise. R&A for a long time had an abominable reputation among caddies in Europe. Obviously they all loved to be at the Open Championship, but their facilities were restricted to a few porta-potties.

One reason might be that the original St. Andrews caddies usually thought of themselves as the "brain" in the team, the player had it easy, all he had to do was hit the damn shot. They were the ones figuring out what club to use, what kind of shot to hit and were to aim. Sometimes that lead to conflicts with their employers, no at all uncommon that they dropped the clubs and walked into the Auld Grey Toon for a wee nip instead of watching a player botch a game.

But I understand that in the US - unlike on ET - sometimes caddies are restricted to enter locker rooms and may have difficulties in preparing their player's bag.

K

On PGA Tour, caddies are still rarely ever allowed to enter the locker room; in Europe, I have allways been allowed to go where I needed to go.

Golf has become big business (thanks to Tiger). Players, trainers, coachs and caddies form part of a professional team; however, caddies for the most part, are still on the outside, looking in.

For example, on Thursday morning of a tournament last year, it was decided that there was not enough VIP parking, so the caddies, without warning, were sent to another lot, 3 miles away, with no shuttle service back to the course. Several caddies were in trouble, some just abandoned their cars; I was lucky because I came to the Course over 2 hours early.

The Tourn Chair apologized, which was an upstanding move on his part, but the damage was already done///