Are Caddies Really Part Of The Team?

Pete Coleman, from the old school of caddies, is a minefield of home truths. You ask if he thinks that the modern player’s way of including his caddie in his so-called “team” helps to make a caddie feel more secure and he comes back to you with what sounds suspiciously like a hollow laugh.

“It’s nonsense as far as I’m concerned,” he elaborated. “It’s probably OK when someone like Dustin Johnson has a brother on the bag, or when players like Tommy Fleetwood and Rory McIlroy have close friends on the job. But for the most part I have my doubts. From what I can see, caddies are getting sacked with the same regularity as they ever were.”

Hardly surprisingly, members of the latest generation of caddies did not want to get involved in the team debate. Yet one among them, speaking on a “don’t quote me” basis, suggested that even if it is neither here nor there for the caddies, “it keeps the psychologists happy.”

Coleman, now 80, doubts that Seve Ballesteros would have had much time for the team philosophy: “He was...