Australian Open: Life as a caddie is tougher than you think

The Weekend Australian’s Will Swanton volunteered to caddie for a 17-year-old Chinese player. It’s tougher than you think.

The Weekend Australian’s Will Swanton dispenses clubs and advice for China’s Zihong Zhang, 17, at the Australian Open at Royal Sydney yesterday. Picture: Brett Costello

Ten immaculate hours are spent at Royal Sydney, carrying clubs, cleaning clubs, handing over three-woods when Leo wants a five-wood, giving him the five-wood when he wants the three, reading putts, misreading putts, finding his ball, cleaning his ball, forgetting to give him his ball, ­riding an exhilarating purple patch that lets the imagination soar before feeling the absolute despondency of a 200cm Chinese teenager who has failed to make the cut at the Australian Open.

Zihong Zhang prefers to be called Leo, and he’s shot an ­opening round of 75, three-over-par, finishing in the gloaming of Thursday evening when the only spectators were volunteers who dutifully held their Quiet Please signs sky-high when there literally wasn’t a single spectator in sight.

Post-round, walking past the giant scoreboard near the practice putting green, Leo sees he’s tied for 110th in what he says is the ­single biggest tournament of his life. He’s been wrestling with a swing that keeps going too fast for his liking, the result of nerves, clubbing balls into the strato­­­­sphere, but not necessarily always the stratosphere he’s aimed at, his thoughts all over the place.

He’s worried that people will not like him. He’s saying it’s not easy for a 17-year-old of his prodigious size to find a nice girl, and the more he talks about it the more concerned he becomes, jumping to the conclusion that he will cause his parents great offence if he never marries and does not give them grandchildren, a conversation that is the prelude to a double-bogey on the par-four 12th. “I will need someone tall,” he shrugs. “Maybe a model?”

Leo is an excitable character who is inspired by Thursday’s walk up the 18th fairway because the hospitality tent has a couple of hundred spectators and the clubhouse behind the green is well attended. He says crowds are what he craves, the Tiger Woods moments he sees on videos.

With a wedge in his hand after smoking a three-wood down the 18th, he’s jumping on the toes inside his size-17 shoes, pointing at his giant forearm and saying: “Look at my arm. I have goosebumps. I want to make a birdie. I want to see what they do.” He makes par and, that night, teen­agers being teenagers, he sends a request to be Facebook friends. His profile picture is of Taylor Swift. She’s tall.

Before the first round, when the starter has mangled the pronunciation of his name, he has stated matter-of-factly: “I am very nervous.” He’s asked a lot of questions. In the trees? Is that in a bunker? I am not very good at bunkers. How fast is this putt? Left-to-right? Right-to-left. I do not trust myself. What do you think? But he’s more at ease for his second round on a pristine morning at Royal Sydney, whipping the ­driver out of his bag for the short par-four while the caddies sift through the bananas, sunscreens, tees, pencils and Panadols on offer.

He watches his practice swings in the reflection of the clubhouse windows before ripping his drive pin-high in a breathlessly perfect moment, chipping and two-­putting for a par ahead of a marathon round that has him jumping out of his skin before he’s clobbered by the closing holes.

Caddying develops into a physically demanding stint of housekeeping. With a towel slung over your shoulder, you feel like you’re washing the dishes at home when you’re cleaning his sparkling irons, polishing them up before putting them back in the cupboard that is his bag.

The bag has four slots. You need to know exactly where each club is, grouping the woods and putter together, the short irons, the mid irons and the long irons, because you’re embarrassed early when he asks for a three-iron and you’re fumbling around his bag and thinking, where’s the bloody three-iron? You’re nearly too scared to breathe when a player is hitting as if the atmosphere is so fragile it will crack, with the player, unless everything and everyone is as still as a statue.

There’s a deeper sense of teamwork than expected. The psychology of it revolves around knowing when to talk and when to leave him alone, the old pearl of wisdom about keeping up and shutting up. After birdies, he’s ­ecstatic, pumping fists, high-­fiving, on one occasion delivering a hug. After bogeys, he’s likely to wander off and stare at the treetops as if he’s discovered the mean­ing of life and it’s not what he had hoped for. Sporadically he wants advice but mostly he seems to need encouragement and validation.

The mathematics before each shot is meticulous. He knows the yardage to the green, he knows the extra yards to the pin and he gives the wind a value in yards. Distance to the pin equals 150 yards, for instance. Another 15 yards to the flag. The wind is worth 10 yards, against us. When he’s done the computations, sometimes counting on his fingers, he’ll say something along the lines of, “One-fifty-five yards. Eight-iron. Firm. You agree?” Down the par-five 15th hole, he’s considered going for the green in two and asks: “You want me to go for it?” When the answer has been along the lines of well, I dunno, he’s said: “I’m going for the green.” Which was what he wanted all along.

Work around the greens is more reciprocal. A lengthy discussion on the line and length of a putt on the 10th green leads to the ball dropping exactly as you have both predicted it would — for birdie.

When Leo is mostly hitting fairways and greens, speckless and without a hair out of place, hitting the exact lengths and lines he has nominated, the noises from outside the ropes being all warm applause, you feel as though you’re in the bosom of the most soothing game in the world. And there are times when it cackles at Leo like a witch. He hits a purple patch of two-under-par through six holes to move to one-under for the tournament. He’s walking briskly, he’s talkative, he’s thanking the 50-strong crowd for their encouragement, he’s gone birdie-birdie to start the back nine, he’s talking about making the cut.

Walking up the 13th fairway, however, he’s reminiscing about negative events and reawakening his weaknesses. Right when his game is flying, he speaks about how he hated golf when he started but his father forced him to persist. How his game was so bad six months ago that it made a 200cm teenager cry. How he wanted to quit golf and concentrate on school before he decided on an alternative route, quitting school to concentrate on golf.

It seems a wrong and unusual time him to be talking about his darkest days, marching along the fairway and up to the leaderboard. You tell him today is gonna be a good day. “We will see,” he replies, surprisingly and suddenly downcast. Before the subsequent birdie putt that can take him to even par for the tournament and inside the projected cut, he says: “This is the most important putt of my life.” He misses it to the right. He ­winces, slumps his shoulders, starts recalling all his near-misses.

There’s an unravelling. Now he’s talking about his love of football and basketball and being too lazy to practise golf and his belief that he’s too fat, which is absurd.

“My putting was so bad six months ago that I never wanted to play again,” he says. “I had the yips. I could not get the ball in the hole. Today is better but we will see how long it lasts.”

As if he’s brought it on himself, his putting strokes loses fluidity, the errors creep back in, he’s going quiet again, the cut is disappearing from view and he mumbles: “Who cares. Whatever.”

Leo finishes double-bogey, par, double-bogey, bogey. There’s so little time spent hitting the ball in a five-hour round of golf that only the most determined mind can resist going for a wander. His playing partner Nathan Green, 41, is an inferior ball-striker but he seems to treat every shot equally, none more important than the others, none the most significant putt of his life, all of them contributing equally to his final score.

Green calmly makes the cut with shots up his sleeve while Leo spends his last four holes chipping sideways from the trees, clunking chips, scrambling, rambling and proving he really was suspect from bunkers all along, needing two attempts from the trap at the front of the 17th green.

He’s gone from cock-a-hoop to absolutely crestfallen in a matter of holes. He’s on his haunches outside the scorer’s hut, two rounds of 75 being no good, personifying the wholly unglamorous side of golf, humiliated by the sudden fall from grace, sickened by the realisation his tournament was over and he was a long way from home. “I am so sorry,” he says.