The fact is that no player is great in the eyes of his caddie, for on
one occasion when two gentlemen who were very fair hands at the game
were doing a round and being closely pressed by a couple behind, who
seemed to be driving inordinately long balls, one of them observed that
perhaps they had better let them go through as they seemed to be playing
both well and quickly. "Na, na, naething o' the kind," interposed one of
the caddies. "They're just twa duffers like yersels!" And great eminence
in other fields counts for nothing with the caddie if his man cannot
golf in good style. There is the story told by Mr. Balfour of the
distinguished general, hero of many battles, who, having duly found his
way into his twentieth bunker, was startled by a cry of irritation from
his caddie, "Come, come, old gentleman, this will never do!" This great
statesman-golfer relates another anecdote showing that caddies are much
the same the whole world over. An English golfer was playing at Pau and
had a French caddie attending upon him. He made one particularly fine
approach shot, and, as golfers will at such times, he turned round to
the boy with excusable vanity for applause. But the boy's English
vocabulary so far comprised only two words which he had heard uttered
on several occasions, but the sense of which he did not understand.
Feeling sure, however, that they must be appropriate to this occasion,
and desiring to be appreciative, he smiled pleasantly into the golfer's
face and murmured, "Beastly fluke!" Mr. Balfour, by the way, has a
particular and decided taste in caddies, for he has written that he can
gladly endure severe or even contemptuous criticism from them; can bear
to have it pointed out to him that all his misfortunes are the direct
and inevitable result of his own folly; can listen with equanimity when
failure is prophesied of some stroke he is attempting, and can note
unmoved the self-satisfied smile with which the fulfilment of the
prophecy is accentuated; but ignorant and stupid indifference is
intolerable to him. The caddie, in the statesman's opinion, is not, and
ought not, to be regarded as a machine for carrying clubs at a shilling
a round, but rather occupies, or ought to occupy, the position of
competent adviser or interested spectator. The caddie ought to be as
anxious for the success of his side as if he were one of the players,
and should watch each move in the game with benevolent if critical
interest, bei