By Henry Parnell – @henryparnell
It’s an unassuming drive up to one of the highest ranked courses in the world. 11th, 26th, 35th or something else in the top 100 depending on who your source of truth is and what year you choose to listen.
A few hundred metres or so brings you past some cows to a car park and a humble looking clubhouse. It’s welcoming, not pretentious or intimidating like so many other top courses.
Barnbougle isn’t hidden behind grandiose gates, gruff security, or extortionate membership fees that you only have the privilege to pay after being stuck on a waiting list for decades, recommended by 10 other members, and vetted by the committee. In fact, there are no members at all — we’re all blow-ins, just like the wind that famously batters this stretch of Northern Tasmania, sucking even the most well-executed shots into the Bass Strait, or rejecting them from greens or fairways alike.
Not today though. 24 degrees, only a knot or two of wind, and looking even better for my 8am tee tomorrow. Hopefully, the golf gods have smiled on me already.
Being amongst other blow-ins makes me feel comfortable. I’ve still got a mild case of intruder-outsider-complex having only taken up golf in lockdown (I’m one of those, sorry). I shook off my chronic case of the shanks a long time ago, but being objectively bad at golf still lives fresh in my memory — enough that I often don’t feel like the 13 handicap that I supposedly am.
Being a once in a lifetime opportunity, I’d requested a caddy. Having initially been told none were available, I was pleasantly surprised on the morning of my round to be told that they’d had a cancellation and their very best, ‘Bullet’, would be on the bag for me.
To my dad, a non-golfer, it’s hard to explain the value of a caddy — even in the context of professional golf, let alone to an above-par hacker like me.
“So, it just means the golfer gets less tired by not carrying their bag?”
“Well, yes, but it’s so much more than that.”
They’re a strategist, therapist, friend, colleague and more, all in one, I would tell him. They know the course inside out, they read the greens like they built them, they know how the wind affects shots, where to place the ball for the optimum line in, how to build confidence and how to reign it in. When to attack, when to defend.
Golf is a simple game to my dad: ball in hole, few strokes good, many strokes bad. As such, the idea of playing ‘aggressive’ or ‘defensive’ golf really is a foreign concept at best, and a downright silly one at worst.
“So, a caddy would tell them to hit it over there, or use that club, or putt it that way to save shots?”
Now we’re getting somewhere.
The lingering question that I’ve discussed over many a post round pint of the golden stuff with my friend Toby is: “What effect would a good caddy have on our game, as mid handicappers?”
Surely, the prerequisite is to be able to actually hit the shots you’re being directed to. Which, in turn, has its own premise — being good at golf. It sounds like Catch 22 to me.
Back to The Dunes. Back to Bullet. It’s 6:45am and I meet him at the surprisingly small pro shop carved out of the side of the clubhouse bar. He’s a stocky, tanned, thoroughbred Tassie wearing a wide-brimmed, Panama-style hat to protect his bald head from the unforgiving sun that the land down under is infamous for.
Larrikin, charming, approachable, non-judgemental — the characteristics I’ve come to love in a lot of Aussies. The sort of, ‘I don’t care where you’re from, or who you are, just be a good bloke and we’ll get along’ sort of attitude.
By the time we get acquainted — and more importantly my bacon sarnie and coffee have arrived — it’s 7:15am and we hit the small grass range. Bullet does his best to suss out my game from what I choose to pull out of my bag and how I hit them. He notes the 4-iron stays put for the duration. Over the course of about 25 balls, we get to know each other. I tell him he’s been sold to me as ‘the best they have’.
“Ahh I dunno about that mate… I do what I can!”
We move to the putting green and Bullet tells me he used to manage a sawmill, then a dive boat in the Whitsundays, then a local vineyard. But a love for the game was a constant through it all.
“They’re slower than they look,” he says, authoritatively imparting his first bit of wisdom via his low, reassuring Aussie tones. “Yes sir,” I respond.
“I use my 56 for everything inside 100 — bar anything fiddly and into the grain around the green — other than that, I’ll do anything you tell me.”
He nods approvingly and we walk to the first tee. I hand him my ‘Boobyalla’ scorecard for 5-17 handicappers — we’re off the mid-length terracotta tees today. Astoundingly, no one has booked onto my tee, so it’s just me and Bullet for 18 glorious holes. “The conditions don’t get any better than this here mate.” He says, gazing around at the open blue sky as I push my tee into the firm, sandy turf. “You can score today.”
“Where would you hit if I wasn’t here?” Bullet asks. I look out and see a smaller sliver of fairway on the right, just visible behind the various, confusing dunes separating the tee box and the rest of the hole. “There” I point.
“Nah,” he chuckles, “other side.” He gestures directly over a dune slightly to the left. All I can see is golfing hell. More dunes, wispy tall grass growing off them and sandy waste, the combination of which is so thick, so punishing, that these areas — which line the entire course — are treated as water hazards via a local rule.
Staying true to my earlier promise to obey Bullet’s every command, I rip my trusty Ping driver surprisingly straight. It has my signature baby fade, but before I can ask if it’s moving too far right, Bullet reads my mind: “That’ll do just fine.”
As we approach my ball, sat comfortably in the middle of the enormous fairway, I see that the right-hand side, as visible from the tee, is a sadistic, optical joke. Tom Doak’s ultimate use of the land here relies on allowing the existing nature to be the main hazard — a true links course.
The patch of fairway spills nicely down into a big fairway bunker, not the worst you’ve ever seen, but one that would none-the-less force most players to play out sideways. My first shot saved. A greenside bunker halts both my approach shot and dreams of an opening par — I content myself with a bogey 6 to ease my nerves.
“What makes a good caddy?” I ask.
“Knowing the course, more than anything. I had a bloke fly me down to the New South Wales GC in Sydney once, I fucked his round up so badly that I paid him back for the airfare and refused any payment. But I walk this place 15 to 20 times a week.”
“He’s not a good caddy,” Bullet says, gesturing to the guy rummaging through the thick grass for his clients’ ball on the next fairway. “Can’t read a putt to save his life — he could see a pride parade on the green and still call it straight!”
No-nonsense golf on 2 and 3, following Bullet’s directions, keeps my score healthy enough so far. Onto the famous fourth — a driveable, 270-yard par 4. Guarding the green is one of the largest bunkers I’ve ever seen, easily 3-4 metres from bottom to lip and twice as wide. You’d take literally anywhere except here. The expanse of fairway before it is so large, inviting and comfortable that even my dad could probably hit it. The green, however, tempts the heroic — if slightly logically-challenged — gambler buried in all golfers.
“I caddied for Doak here a few times.” Bullet says, referring to the legendary architect that the then non-golfing owner gave full creative reign to. “He told me: ‘If anyone takes their driver out of the bag here, I’ve already won.’”
“It might sound boring, but 8-iron then 56 is your play and we might just get your birdie train up and running.” After an easy swing, I’ve sent one down into the fairway, 20 yards or so short of Lucifer’s play-pit.
“Okay, let’s send one up there now, just for fun.” Bullet says, forsaking Doak’s wisdom.
Remarkably, I absolutely smoke it, it’s stuck to the flag, moving barely an inch from the line it left my club face on. It’s one of those shots we all hit from time to time, then kid ourselves we can do every time.
“Ohhh yeah mate, we’re fucken taking that one!”
He scoops up my first ball without even asking and we head up to the green to find my second on the back fringe. Now, I feel the need to justify this decision. I’m not normally the sort of golfer who’d blur the lines like this — but I’m also not the sort of golfer who smokes drives at Barnbougle regularly — so for this one hole, I agree with Bullet to make an exception. I’m here for fun after all. After this, it is back to my high-handicapper-caddy-experiment for real. Honest.
A narrow miss for eagle leaves me 5 feet for my fist ‘birdie’ of the day. The read, predictably, is perfect from Bullet. “Always read from downhill.” He says, advice that has served me well ever since. Another shot saved.
Enjoying the spectacular view over the serene, glassy sea, Bullet reveals another reason he doesn’t like the caddy ahead. “He’s a cheat.” I chuckle that we’ve just conspired to give me an unnecessary mulligan and therefore a birdie.
“Yeah nah, I mean he’s a real cheat. I once saw the bastard teeing it up in the rough.”
“Do you see a lot of that sorta thing?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe. The thing with cheats is, they always think they’re smart, and that no one else is noticing. I caddied for this one group, and this bloke smoked his second shot into the green.
“But for the life of us we couldn’t find it — until he shouted to say he’d found it. After he putted out for a bogey, I found his first ball, company logo, signature and all, in the cup. A hole-out eagle. His mates never let him off the hook for that one.”
As we move towards the last few holes of the front nine, I come to appreciate just how deep Bullet’s knowledge of the course went — perhaps unsurprising for someone who lives on a hill overlooking the course.
More surprising, however, is how quickly he has come to know my incredibly average game. I would have thought the sheer inconsistency of my shots would fox him and make it impossible to make any meaningful recommendations. As my friend Toby likes to joke about his game: “My 7-iron goes anywhere from 10 yards to 200.”
My only caddy experience before this was in Vietnam with my father-in-law, on a generic resort course. Our female caddies were lovely, but they rather played the role of cheer-leader when we hit good shots, and were the most enthusiastic shouters of ‘FOREEEEEE!’ when we didn’t.
Of course, for every three or four shots I can execute more or less as Bullet recommends, there’s a stinker. A chunk, a thin, one that fades just too much, an over or under-hit putt — the things that set us mere mortals apart from the singles and plus handicappers.
“Not to worry.” Bullet says, “I know you’ve got that shot in you.”
I think there-in lies the key to saving shots with a caddy, no matter your handicap — a good caddy that is. Bullet would only give me a line off the tee that I could execute, he’d tell me to lay up when he knew my 3-wood was too much of a gamble, show me a placement that was a percentage play for my ability, and so on. And when it didn’t work out, which it often didn’t, that was on me — never because he had asked too much of me.
“Some guys, usually the rich yanks, come in and don’t listen to a word I say. I’ll watch their game and recommend laying up… they get so offended.”
“They’ll ignore me, pull their driver, slice it or top it or whatever. But I can’t say I told you so.” He chuckles, “If that’s fun for them, then so be it.”
Trying to keep my ego in check, and maintain my promise to listen to the all-knowing, mighty Bullet, I ask him what the play is.
“I like how you’ve been hitting your 5-iron.” he says, handing it to me for my second shot on the par 5 14th. My driver has been on a rare heater today — I was 280 in the fairway with 220 to the green. “I say we go for it.”
His reasoning is as follows: I haven’t hit a bad shot with my 5-iron all day, there is no danger short, if I chunk it, I still have another shot in the bag to get on the dance floor in regulation, and finally, even a big push or pull would be easily recoverable with a generous spill-off area around the green. And long? A 5-iron over 220? Forget about it. Anything bar a shank, and we are golden.
Confidence high, I strengthen my grip, put the ball a bit forward in my stance and give it a crack. It is easily the best shot of my day. With the help of the small breeze being straight on my back, I fly the pin and find myself on the back fringe. It’s as if Bullet’s confidence-building magic has possessed my club and given me a shot I have never hit before.
“Eagle that way, birdie this way.” I opt for my third little bird of the day.
As we walk the last four holes, I see why one of Bullet’s richer clients had him flown down to the New South Wales Golf Club — even if it didn’t work out as they’d hoped. I understand why returning golfers request him months in advance, why he’d been tipped so handsomely with a case of Glenfiddich reserve scotch (all things we’d discussed on our walk.)
For the pro, the ever-pored-over caddy-player relationship is clearly more important than I’d expected. But even as a mid-handicapper, it still rang true. Not all caddies are made equal.
A blow-up triple bogey on the 18th in front of my mum and girlfriend watching on wasn’t the ideal finish, but a fair representation of my ability and a fitting way to bring me back down to earth after my magic 5-iron a few holes before.
But, when all was told, a solid 86 — +15 with three birdies — was a scorecard I could be proud of. All in all, his green reads, lines off the tee, and club selections probably saved me 10 shots. Playing a course like The Dunes for the first time, I would have been genuinely screwed without him — it would probably have taken three or four rounds to replicate that score on my own.
Bullet signs my card. “You came highly recommended from the guy in the pro shop, said I should definitely take you today.” Bullet says, catching me off guard with a lovely, out-of-the blue compliment, as we shake hands.
“Ask for me if you’re ever down here again, we’ll beat that 86.”
Henry Parnell is a UK-based copywriter with a degree in philosophy. He cut his teeth writing fundraising and ads for global development charities like UNHCR and Greenpeace at agencies in both London and Sydney, but a lifelong love of sports has drawn him to write about his passions.
As a 12 handicap, he’s the first to admit his golf leaves a lot to be desired — but a tongue-in-cheek, give-it-a-go attitude and a long bucket list of courses means he doesn’t lose sight of the fun of the game (usually).
