A thankless job
Janee Kaske's tee shot on the eighth hole yesterday escaped the sight of the ball boys who were supposed to indicate where the ball had landed. A rumour, that Kaske's caddie might have violated regulations while trying to locate it, followed. The caddie had a few nervous moments convincing the officials before the confusion was cleared and he was given a clean-chit.
But had it been otherwise, Kaske would have been penalised two strokes for a fault which was none of his making. And we can assume what might have happened to the caddie. That is how punishing is the job of a caddie despite the fact that they barely get paid enough to live a decent life, let alone having the peace of mind to concentrate fully on the game or develop understanding of the finer details of it.
Al Amin, who is working at the Bashundhara Bangladesh Open as the caddie of Indian golfer Sanjay Kumar, says he wakes up at 4:00am in the morning and rushes to the Kurmitola Golf Club within half-an-hour as Kumar gets here by 5:30am to prepare warm-up for day's action.
Al Amin takes his breakfast -- most of the times bread, banana and an egg at the local caddie canteen -- before he starts his work by polishing the irons that Kumar would be using.
But polishing the clubs or carrying the club kit throughout the day or even keeping the card are the easiest and most routine parts of his job. The more demanding parts, though, are the expertise he can offer to the golfer. A caddie is expected to know the golf course like the back of his hand, better than the golfer who might be playing on that course for the first time, so that he can offer insight to the golfer on the wind, the slope or curvature of the course and the green-regulations, in case the golfer needs a second opinion. And then there is the obvious chance of making mistakes due to human callousness or lack of complete understanding of the rules or the course.
Al Amin says he tries his best to communicate with Kumar – and he has the advantage of knowing Hindi which is Kumar's first language -- but never tries to communicate more than necessary which might irritate the golfer. While Al Amin is lucky to work for a Hindi-speaking golfer here, there are many who have to work with only English speaking ones, or worse yet, those who speak Malay or Thai.
Major (retd) Mahmudur Rahman Chowdhury, a level-3 certificate holding referee working as an official, admits the standard of Bangladeshi caddies is not satisfactory at all.
“The main problem for our caddies is that they don't know all the regulations of the game or expertise regarding the course properly. So they might not offer much help to golfers on crucial decisions during the game. The inability to communicate in English properly is another big disadvantage for them to grow,” he says.
These caddies, though, are not supposed to be of a very high standard actually because the 30 dollars that each is getting for a day's work during this Asian Tour event is a far cry from the 10,000 taka they earn a month on an average; that too if he/she is lucky enough to be hired by a member in the first place.
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