By Michael Craw and Brad Strand
(May 4, 2022)
Over the past 30 years, professional golf has enjoyed burgeoning prize money, increased golf ball distances, aggressive improvements to golf equipment, and improved course conditions. During that time the demands of caddies to influence things like strategic positive influence, tactical advice on judgments, and the outputs advice for judgment accuracy and its well-being effect have increased (Wayne & Ferris, 1990; Yaniv, 2004; Hong et al., 2021). Identification of the ‘right’ caddie’s capacity to help scaffold the performance of professional golfer’s “in-the-moment” decisions during competition heightens the need to consider the ‘right’ caddie’s fit-for-purpose way of being to develop player expertise.
Collectively, every week in tour golf is an astonishing opportunity for riches and fame. Consequently, these occasions magnify the golfers’ want and need to be “dialed-in” for every tournament, which is helped in part by the caddie. The caddie can make or break a professional golfer’s round of competition. Caddying is more than carrying a bag (Carey, Stone, & Lavallee, 2021; Donald & Winter, 2021). Caddying is a people thing, and confidence instilled by a caddie is a two-way street, which may give some insight into what is meant by being “dialed in”. Given the postulations, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the right caddie contributes to optimal performance and increases the chances of winning golf tournaments.
This article investigates the ‘right‘ caddie as one that is dialed into the player and as such seeks to identify professional golfers’ insights into a successful partnership with caddies. Considering that the player-caddie relationship is characterized by hours of dyadic voice-to-voice organizational level golf strategy, the following were used to aid in revealing data. They were:
- Closeness (trust, appreciation, and respect),
- Commitment (long-term orientations context),
- Complementarity (responsiveness, openness, and acceptance of roles), and
- Co-Orientation (shared knowledge, to comprehension through impactful communication (Jowett & Zhong, 2016).
Utilizing semi-structured interviews with PGA Tour players, respondents reflected on what they believe the right caddie “looks like.” Multi-perspective discussions around a theme of the golfer being helped to make good decisions under pressure helped to assemble compelling insights. Respondents collectively represented over 80 years of PGA Tour experience. Part of their responses are below:
- r1. The right caddie pays attention and communicates their alertness because they must a) function as a cerebral screening instrument for player decision making, and b) have capacity to remediate potential performance liability as high-performance situations necessitate.
- r2. The right caddie is prepared for all conditions and is committed to revealing the very best version of their golfer’s skill so that they (player and caddie) can operate as a well-oiled team for weeks at a time. “In 2022, success on the PGA Tour requires a full throttle golf approach (to play to win). Every tournament week is an amazing opportunity, and the caddie cannot lose sight of the friction of the day’s focus that the tour-life brings! If they do (lose sight) they’re out!”
- r3. The right caddie is always poised and subtly behaves as a belief system coach for every facet of the golfer’s game (from the moment the golfer arrives on the golf course until their final shot ends the day’s play).
The right caddies’ fundamental role is to serve as a player proxy; someone there to cultivate a mindfulness relationship with the golfer on the grounds of optimal performance. Operating almost chameleon-like, the right caddie is a success-driven interventionist who effectively offers insightful information for the golfer to process information sensitively in the full-throttle professional golf environment. In short, the right caddie dials-in timing and consistency of a player’s thinking over competition days. Getting the player into the right state of mind with “as little thought as possible” for competing (i.e., reduced dependence on their own decisions) is critical. Finding the right rhythm helps players cope with the challenges linked to success.
The right caddie has a circadian rhythm-like awareness of the intellectual literacy of the golfer to predict typical cognitive responses. This allows them to incrementally and coherently oscillate golfer thought patterns that release the best approach to every facet of their game. The caddie is an energy schedule that astutely peaks and relaxes for the sake of clarity and insight in rapidly changing moments. Respondents identified five themes describing what they believe the right caddy does all the time. A summary of these is discussed next.
Routines and Rituals
Routines and rituals are calming actions to maintain normal behavior in stressful moments. Routines create a pathway to connect mind and body which builds a sense of calmness. Essentially, the rituals serve to regulate emotions. They help players to savor and connect with what is being experienced, which helps regulate breathing to bring a sense of calm and control. Ultimately, routines leave players feeling in charge of their emotions before and during play. As one golfer put it “my routines and rituals are ceremonial like because they are meaningful in that they keep me calm, composed: it makes me feel I’m unbeatable. They are ignition!” Rituals and routines help to engage the parasympathetic nervous system (Hobson, Bonk & Inzlicht, 2017; Lang, Krátký & Xygalatas, 2020), which is good for golfers.
Rhythm of Mental Performance
A rhythm of mental performance over a sustained period should be a synchronized mathematical model for optimizing performance. A professional golf tournament consists of four back-to-back rounds of 18 holes over the course of a week. This also includes periods of practice (holes of golf, putting, chipping, bunkers, warm up on the range), and the pro-am day (18 holes). The goal is to string together 72 holes of threaded routines, rituals, logic, and motor outputs. One golfer said “it’s important to not approach any tournament in four stipulated formative rounds mindset (i.e., Thursday round 1, Friday round 2, Saturday round 3, Sunday round 4. A summative approach of hole 1, hole 19, hole 37, and hole 55 brings the right emphasis of purpose.” This form of summative math helps to place a focus of control on human activity at work due to complex physical, social, emotional, and intellectual tasks over prolonged periods (such as three consecutive tournament weeks 7 days, 14 days, 21 days, which is not uncommon for most golf professionals).
The Caddie is a Chameleon
The caddie is a chameleon in that they must become a player personality surrogate. Their being is an affirmation of what the golfer is trying to do and become. For example, golf’s most successful caddie is Steve Williams, who caddied for Tiger Woods for 12 years. Together they won 13 majors and 62 PGA tour events. That’s a lot of fists pumps and energy exchanges with each other. Williams off the course personality was not like his “Woods” on-course persona. It wasn’t! It isn’t! He morphed because that’s what his player (Woods) needed to help achieve goals. Williams has caddied for other professional golfers for various periods of time. With each player, Williams adopted his player’s personality because he recognized that he was a servant mechanism that supports a shared experience relationship.
Keep Thoughts to a Minimum
The golfer has as few thoughts as possible. To effectively influence the wiring of the player’s thinking to execute each shot, the right caddie will stretch the player’s mental elastic band just enough to where the player will welcome the information he needs and reach a point where he (the player) knows they are responsible to process the information received and then execute. Reading putts and giving yardage advice are good examples of where stretching the elastic band occurs. In that context, the player should be macro managed by the caddie, but Zen-like, tuning into the player for the purpose of the caddie picking up on the subtle things (Hullinger & DiGirolamo, 2020), which keeps the player in the right focus (they can’t know it all). When knowledge sharing meets innate ability, trusting and decisive systems are built. These types of macro constructs are optimal because they empower the golfer mentally, which may deepen their own fluency and capacity to perform well.
Leave it All Out There
Leave it all out there and go home as immediately as possible. Taking leave from play, albeit temporarily, means lots of things but to some golfers, it means resisting post-round practice sessions. “The idea of post-round practice doesn’t sit well with me,” said one golfer. “I don’t grade myself at any time in an event no matter the influence.” Another golfer shared his sentiment by suggesting that “very few athletes practice after the contest, but golfers are an exception. The only time I want to hang around after golf is to fulfill post-round media commitments.” The caddie understands the need for practice, but the right caddie might know when to let their requests bleed into the player’s philosophy to detach. The detaching from the hierarchical relationship on the course emotionally distance themselves from the nature of the task, which can be useful for the player and caddie’s mental health and overall well-being.
In the context of this study, the golfer and caddie engage in a series of anxiety-laden tasks which, when well-calibrated, serves to mitigate cognitive disconnection and mental discord to maintain the highest level of performance over an extended time period. The capacity to translate mindfulness, paying attention on purpose, and communicating in a prepared and nonjudgmental way, is a good mix for the caddie to pattern the player toward being dialed in. Thus, it’s suggested that the contemporary professional golf caddie is an organizational behavior coach & consultant, whose role is to best serve the needs of the golf professional.
So how does a potential golf caddy train to be that person who helps to effectively scaffold the performance of a professional golfer? Things such as a) be socially, emotionally, physically, and intellectually golf capable, b) exercise good dietary habits, c) know how to endure 25 to 35 weeks of hotel stays, flying, and being away from family and friends, d) because you exist on the golf course you can’t be a clock watcher, e) be passionate about golf because it will drive your player to win, f) adore outdoor work, and g) accept that you can be sacked (or quit) instantaneously, are all optimal in a caddy’s training regimen. However, and given those things, perhaps the most valuable training advice is an insight, which is, to know that you won’t lead a normal life as a caddie so train in a manner that best serves the professional golfer. If you can serve well and follow the suggested training regimen, chances are you’ll be the right caddie.
References
Carey, L., Stone, J., & Lavallee, D. (2021). Teamwork Done to a Tee: A Golf Caddie’s Perspective on Their Perceived Role and Associated Skills. International Journal of Golf Science, 9, 1.
Donald, W., & Winter, S. (2021). More than carrying a bag? The role of the caddie in facilitating a golfer’s psychological performance. Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology. ISSN 2157-3905 (In Press). DOI: doi.org/10.1037/spy0000271.
Hobson, N. M., Bonk, D., & Inzlicht, M. (2017). Rituals decrease the neural response to performance failure. PeerJ, 5, e3363. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3363
Hong, J., Lachman, M., Chen, C., Wilson, C., Nakamura, J., VanderWeele, T., & Kim, E. (2021). The positive influence of sense of control on physical, behavioral, and psychosocial health in older adults: An outcome-wide approach. Preventive Medicine, 149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2021.106612.
Hullinger, A. &, DiGirolamo, J. (2020). A professional development study: The lifelong journeys of coaches. International Coaching Psychology Review, 15 (1).
Jowett, S., & Zhong, X. (2016). Promoting Performance and Satisfaction Through Quality Golfer-Caddie Relationships. International Journal of Golf Science, 5, 98-115.
Lang, M., Krátký, J., & Xygalatas, D. (2020). The role of ritual behaviour in anxiety reduction: an investigation of Marathi religious practices in Mauritius. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 375(1805), 20190431. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0431
Wayne, S., & Ferris, G. (1990). Influence tactics, affect, and exchange quality in supervisor-subordinate interactions: A laboratory experiment and field study. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75(5), 487–499. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.75.5.487
Yaniv, I. (2004). Receiving other people’s advice: influence and benefit. Organizational behavior and human decision processes, 93, (1), 1-13.
