The golf season as a caddie on the links courses of St. Andrews generally starts on the 1st weekend of April and this year I began on the 30th March with the now traditional event of playing the Old Course at St. Andrews as they would have played it during the 17th/18th & 19th Centuries.

The course is played in a clockwise direction with the 17th Road Hole green becoming the 1st. Then the 16th green being the 2nd, the 15th green will then play as the 3rd and on it goes......it is truly odd for the golfer and the caddie because this is not how they would have viewed the golf course on TV and have worked out their yardages from tee to hazard and then green!

For me, as a caddie on the Old Course, it is one fantastic challenge to be allowed once a year to recognise the course as it was originally played during previous Centuries.

The approach shot too some of the greens does seem impossible with so much 'dead' ground to carry. But due to the golf course being played in the now standard 'anticlockwise' direction for the last 90 years or more the origional approaches to the green are obsolete, therefore the lay up area is now regarded, or left, as rough.

This year I caddied for an American golfer, 6/7 handicap, who shot a really good 79 on the 'reverse' and then an excellent 75 on the recognised standard Old Course. A couple of days spent in good golf company with a golfer that enjoyed the challenge presented on both those days and the delight of the idiocincracies of links golf in Scotland.....bad bounces, good bounces, happy & sad the emotions of golf can only truly be experienced on the Links. Robert experienced them!

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