John Dunn - Loopers: A Caddies Twenty-Year Golf Odyssey

Copyright 2013 by John Dunn

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Publishers,
an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dunn, John.
Loopers : a caddies twenty-year golf odyssey / John Dunn.
p. cm.
1. Dunn, John. 2. CaddiesBiography. I. Title.
GV964.D85A3 2013
796.352092dc23
[B]

2012044014

eISBN: 978-0-7704-3719-0

Jacket design by Oliver Munday
Jacket photography Glyn Kirk/AFP/Getty Images

v3.1

Dad, I know my footloose lifestyle led you to believe I never listened when you tried to instill in me the importance of hard work and perseverance. But I was listening more closely than it seemed. I wish you were here to enjoy this with meit is your accomplishment too.

Carl Spackler: So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas.

Angie DAnnunzio: A looper?

Carl Spackler: A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them Im a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald striking. So, Im on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks onebig hitter, the Lamalong, into a ten-thousand-foot crevice, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga! Gunga Gunga-lagunga! So we finish the eighteenth and hes gonna stiff me. And I say, Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know. And he says, Oh, uh, there wont be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness. So I got that goin for me, which is nice.

From Caddyshack

I first heard the term looper when I saw Caddyshack years before my caddie career began, and I wouldnt be surprised if Bill Murray just made it up on the spot, because he ad-libbed many of the funniest lines in the movie. I mean, seriously, do you think the words gunga galunga, gunga gunga-lagunga were in the script? I know some older guys who claim they heard the term before the movie, and thats believable too because eighteen holes of golf is called a round, and its not much of a leap to get from round to loop. But even if the word did exist, Bill Murray is definitely the reason it caught on, because knowing a half dozen quotes from Caddyshack is basically a caddie job requirement.

Regardless of its origins, looper has become a favorite vernacular title in yards across the country because it speaks more truly to our character and the nature of our job than caddiea word as obscure as the name of the game itself. But in my opinion, just because youve carried someones bag around a golf course, that doesnt make you a looper. The first few times you go around, you are just a bag toter. Once you learn the ins and outs of the jobwhere to stand, when to speak, how to read a green and calculate yardage adjusted for wind and elevation, etc.then you can call yourself a caddie. But you arent a bona fide looper until youve carried someone elses clubs around a golf course so many times youve lost count, until youve worn holes through a dozen pairs of shoes and collected enough war stories to hold your own in the yard. A looper isnt a caddie whos seen it all; a looper is a caddie whos seen enough to know he never will.

Just like life, the game of golf is constantly full of surprisesif it wasnt, teaching pros and sports psychologists would be out of business. And as loopers, were a little bit of both. We are masters of the quick fix, wellsprings of optimism, and levelers of hard truth (With all due respect, sir, you dont hit your eight iron a hundred fifty yards). But for all the wisdom and experience caddying imparts, having looped ones entire life, it can sometimes be difficult to see the straight linethe measurable gains and personal growth. For every Steve Williams and Fluff Cowan out there making millions on the Tour carrying bags for Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk, there are thousands of regular Joes in resort and country club yards all across the golfing world earning their keep a hundred bucks a strap. There arent any promotions or milestones or major victories for these local loopers. The caddie fees may vary from course to course and group to group, but theres no such thing as a raise and nobody gets rich.

That doesnt make club caddying lower than Tour caddying, any less valuable or interesting, just very different. For one thing, despite all the miles a club caddie may travel commuting from course to course with the changing seasonsfrom a summer job up north to a winter gig down south or across the country or overseas in search of greener fairwaysa club caddie is like a nesting goose compared to the fly-by-night Tour caddie, who lands in a different town every week and lives out of his suitcase and the trunk of his car. And this is one of the things I love most about club caddyingthe ability to move to different places around the world, yet stay there long enough to really get to know them all.

In twenty years of looping, Ive lived and worked in quiet, leafy New England and sandy, windswept Long Island, in the marshy South Carolina Low Country and pine-scented Georgia hills, in the snow-capped Rockies and foggy San Francisco, in sunny, star-studded Los Angeles and the red-rocked California desert, on the dramatic, cliff-lined Oregon coast and blustery North Sea coast. All those places feel like second homes to me now, and I forged many lasting relationships in each of them with the members and guests of the clubs, local residents, and fellow caddies.

Unlike the Tour caddie, who gives his focus and dedication to a single player day in, day out, year after year, the club caddie works for different people all the time. Some become our regular clientslike favorite members of a club or returning guests at a resortothers spend a few days with us during a golf trip or long weekend and others just one round. But even a single roundfour hours or more walking side by side, talking and working together to navigate the fairways and greenscan be a very intimate experience, akin to a bartender and patron spending several hours together on a quiet night at the pub. And you never know whose bag will end up on your shoulder, whose ear tuned to your advice. It might be your new best friend or, should he impart some wisdom and advice and share some stories of his own, he might be a great inspiration or someone who offers a unique perspective on life. Ive caddied for people from all walks of life, including politicians, businessmen, scientists, doctors, athletes, actors, musicians, firemen, fishermen, plumbers, preachers, and teachers. Golf has exposed me to an incredible variety of life experience.