Note to readers: I owe the idea for this story entirely to The Charlotte Observer’s fine deputy sports editor, Harry Pickett. Harry, who’s African-American, learned about the caddies at Charlotte Country Club and thought they might represent the end of an era in Charlotte. He shopped the story around to a few people in our sports department, asking if anyone had time to do it. I don’t write nearly as much about golf as some of our folks, but since everyone else seemed to be very busy or on vacation that summer, I raised my hand. The story ended up winning third place nationally in the 2001 APSE contest for sports feature writing. Thanks, Harry. Copyright 2001 The Charlotte Observer All Rights Reserved Charlotte Observer (North Carolina) June 10, 2001 LAST OF A GENERATION CARRIES ON CADDIES FADING AWAY, VICTIMS OF CARTS AND CHANGING ATTITUDES By SCOTT FOWLER, Staff Writer They gather here every morning, at one of the most exclusive country clubs in Charlotte, waiting their turn. They are black men in their 50s and 60s, sitting on green benches, smoking and talking and quietly keeping a tradition alive that has disappeared almost everywhere else in Charlotte. Shoes is usually here. So are Pig, Cooter, Nathan, Pepper, Snake, Apple, Frog, Rat, Clarence, Alonzo and whomever else has decided to ride the No.4 city bus over in search of work. They are the caddies of Charlotte Country Club. They are the last of a generation. "We're a dying breed," says Freddie "Shoes" Gray, who is 53 and has caddied off and on at Charlotte Country Club since the age of 10. "Young people ain't going to tote no bag now. My son is 20, and he doesn't have any interest in it." Even kids who are intrigued by caddying don't have much opportunity. Golf carts have spread like kudzu over Southern golf courses, strangling caddie programs at hundreds of clubs over the past 30 years. Golf carts can't rake a trap or read a green. They're more likely to run over a club than to select the right one. But they'll carry you around the course, they're often less than half the cost of a caddie and they make gobs of money for the people who run the country clubs. Caddies, on the other hand, are independent contractors. The money they make at Charlotte Country Club leaves with them on the bus every afternoon. Still, the caddies have held on here, just as they have at Pinehurst and Augusta. The caddies are mostly poor. The men and women who hire them are mostly rich. The caddies are almost all black. The people who hire them are almost all white. Charlotte Country Club has 1,137 members - surnames such as "McColl" and "Belk" dot the roster - and only one black member. Like many Southern clubs, it stayed all-white for years after schools were integrated. Club officials say they added their first and only black member in 1994 and remain open to applicants of any race. The caddies carry themselves and the clubs with quiet dignity. The members listen to them, for no one knows the undulations of a green like a man who has studied that patch of grass almost every day for 20 or 30 years. Every day, the millionaires and the caddies have conversations while leaning over a golf bag. It is not an equal relationship, but it isn't strained, either. No one is forced to work as a caddie, and the men who try it out and find it demeaning don't come back a second time. The role of caddie has been played by millions of men and women since golf was invented in Scotland more than 500 years ago. Golfers such as Arnold Palmer, Ben Hogan, Lee Trevino and Byron Nelson caddied. President Bill Clinton caddied while growing up in Arkansas. "The Legend of Bagger Vance," a recent movie, romanticized the role of a magical caddie in the title role, played by Will Smith. "You've lost your swing - we have to go find it," Smith's character told a troubled golfer played by Matt Damon. Smith not only found Damon's swing - mostly by spouting psychobabble like "don't think it, feel it" - but also cured the golfer from a bad case of post-war horror. Then he set the golfer straight on the road to happily ever after, as Damon ended up with a beautiful blonde and his "authentic" swing. In the caddie shack It doesn't work out quite like that, even at Charlotte's caddie nirvana. The caddies can't fix every member's swing. And there are days at the club when some caddies sit all day without being hired. They call that getting "skunked." To pass the time, the caddies tell tales of big tippers and bad shots. They share a single sports section. They talk about their own golf games, for the caddies can play on Monday afternoons for free at the club. They occasionally try to sleep on a hard green bench - especially Lonnie "Pig" Springs, who often comes straight from his third-shift maintenance job at Wal-Mart. The caddies who show up every morning exhibit a joy for their work that is missing in many of us. They recognize that their job no longer has the status it once enjoyed in the black community, but they still talk about it in reverential terms. Take Shoes, for instance. He has lung cancer. Sometimes, he feels so badly in the morning that he must use a pull cart to carry the bags rather than bear them on his slim shoulders. But he keeps coming. "This is what keeps me going," Shoes says. "I can feel sick and then I get out here on the course and suddenly I don't feel sick anymore." The caddies say they are happiest twice a day: on the first hole, when they have just been hired, and on the last, when they are about to be paid. An experienced caddie will clear $80 during a four-hour round at CCC. That's for slinging two 35-40 pound golf bags over his shoulders ($30 per bag per round) and for receiving the average tip of $10 per bag. It's hardly what the PGA Tour caddies make - the best of those can easily clear six figures a year. But to these men, it's good money. They must find health insurance elsewhere and there's no 401(k). But they love the freedom. "I have a 15-year-old son who won't come out here to caddie and he asks me, 'Why do you still do it?'" says Nathan Davis, who once caddied on the PGA Tour and now does a daily loop at CCC. "I like the people. I like the fresh air. And I like the money. I don't discriminate when it comes to money. To me, money has no color." The whisper of money Charlotte Country Club ranks as the oldest and quite possibly most prestigious golf club in town. Chartered in 1910, the club is tucked into the Plaza-Midwood area and sits almost in the shadow of the uptown bank towers. Its single 18-hole course was designed in the 1920s by renowned golf architect Donald Ross. Golfing greats Gene Sarazen and Davis Love Jr. both worked as pros at the club. Several of the old-time caddies remember Davis Jr. carrying his infant son - future PGA Tour pro Davis Love III -- around in the pro shop. The country club whispers "old money" everywhere, with its Georgian architecture, stately columns and interlocking CCC logo. The course hosted the 1972 U.S. Amateur Championship and the U.S. Senior Amateur Championship in 2000. To become a member takes thousands of dollars, a dedicated sponsor and plenty of patience. There is a substantial waiting list, and an application can percolate for two years or more before being approved. For the caddies, there is no waiting list. You just show up, prove you're serious to Mack Ferguson and get the standard-issue caddie apron. - Ferguson, 64, has worked at the golf course for most of the past 50 years and now serves as "caddie master." He assigns caddies to the golfers each morning, taking into account the members' preferences and the caddies' skill levels and personalities. Ferguson, who is black, has caddied many rounds over the years and feels that today's wage of $30 per bag is a fine one. "That's a lot better than it used to be," says Ferguson. "I used to get $1.10 per bag when I started in 1951 (the equivalent of $7.45 in today's dollars), not including tip. And you had to give 10 cents back to the club." A vanishing art When Ferguson began in 1951, many of the caddies in America were teen-agers and black members were nearly unheard of at almost every Southern country club. Blacks were welcome only as waiters or caddies or on the maintenance crew. That elitist posture is one reason some blacks would never think of caddying today, or of letting their own children caddie. Frank Emory, a local attorney, joined Charlotte Country Club in 1994 as its first and only black member. Emory says he would be glad to sponsor other blacks as potential members, but doesn't know any who wish to apply, in large part due to the club's expense. The club won't disclose its membership dues. Emory generally takes a caddie when he plays golf at the club. "A caddie can help you from doing really dumb stuff on the golf course," Emory says. "The best ones give you good advice. And I enjoy talking with them. To me, it's a privilege to have one." All but two of the regular caddies at CCC are over 50. Southern clubs usually don't have many kids who caddie, but a substantial number of teen-agers do hold the job nationwide. It's a popular summer job in the North and Midwest, where the weather is more conducive to walking the course. Junior caddie programs that offer college scholarships are fairly common in those areas, and the racial mix in the caddie shack is more even. In Charlotte, though, the caddie is almost as obsolete as an 8-track tape. You can still hire a caddie from time to time at other private Charlotte country clubs such as Myers Park, Quail Hollow and Carmel, but carts dominate there and nearly everywhere else in the South. Nationally, 7.3 percent of the 16,398 golf clubs in the United States with at least 18 holes offer caddie services, according to Sportometrics, a golf-research firm in Six Mile, S.C. In North Carolina, it's 3.9 percent. In South Carolina, 5.8 percent. Caddies can join the Professional Caddies Association out of Palm Coast, Fla., which offers the caddies some insurance and has instituted a Caddie Hall of Fame. PCA, with 2,800 members, is still very much a grassroots organization. Until recently, the hall of fame was located in founder Dennis Cone's 1978 Winnebago. The caddie royalty works on the PGA Tour. The caddies there usually take home 5-10 percent of their players' winnings each week. Most of the Tour caddies are white and well-connected. One of them is Mike Hicks of Hillsborough, among the finest and friendliest caddies on tour. Hicks caddied for Payne Stewart when Stewart won the 1999 U.S. Open at Pinehurst, jumping into a Stewart bear hug on the 18th green, and now caddies for Justin Leonard. "I started out in fifth grade, caddying for my minister every Tuesday," say Hicks, who is white. "I really wish there were more programs where young people could caddie." 'Some good advice' The caddies have stayed employed at CCC primarily because the members have supported the idea. Of the 30,000 rounds played each year at the club, 15-20 percent are caddied. "I hate that caddies are fading away at so many places, because that has been a great way to introduce youth to the game," says Bill Hall, head pro at CCC. "And a cart can't do for you what a caddie can - not even close." Neill Wilkinson, a 30-year member, nearly always takes a caddie rather than a cart. "No.1, I want the exercise," Wilkinson says. "I like to look around. And I like to have a caddie. Certainly, some of them are better than others. Some are just bag-toters, but some can really read a green." The caddie shack at CCC is connected to the pro shop. It is rather spartan, with a couple of vending machines, some banged-up lockers and a large fan. A green awning shades the men. Some of the caddies are full-time, having retired from other jobs. They never miss a weekend day, when 25-30 caddies often are hired rather than the 7-12 who usually receive weekday assignments. Other caddies still work jobs full-time. Lonnie Springs works the third shift at Wal-Mart each night in maintenance, then comes over to the club to caddie. He is an endearing man who talks in such a rush that his co-workers long ago named him "Porky Pig," later shortened to just "Pig." "Young black kids think it's hard to do this, or a big stereotype of a job that keeps the black man down," Springs says. "But it's honest work." The caddies know that some people believe their trade is an inferior one. Some of their own relatives have told them they resent the way black caddies cater to white golfers and that they would never place themselves into such a subservient role with so many other job opportunities available. And some pieces of the very old South do remain on the golf course. The caddies mostly address the members as "Mister" or "Mrs." They usually abide by the practice that they won't speak until spoken to, especially after a bad shot. "My brother came out here one time, and only once," says one caddie, who didn't want his name used. "He got highly upset when the guy he was carrying for called him 'Caddie' instead of by his first name. He couldn't deal with that." London's bridge London Springs is a notable exception to the typical CCC caddie. London, Lonnie's 15-year-old son, is a 6-foot-2, 235-pound high school linebacker. It takes London 45 minutes and two buses to get to the club. The first time he came, at age 13, he was extremely nervous. "Sweat was running down my arms," he remembers. "My nose was running. I was shaking. I was trying so hard not to mess up, not to make somebody have a bad round because of something I did." Now he thinks caddying is cool. "Some of the young kids my age are out selling drugs on the streets," Springs says. "This is making money in a good, clean way. I'm staying around here. I'm not going to mess up. I'm going to college." Statements like that make the old men beam. Some of them graduated from the old Second Ward High in Charlotte, but few had a chance to go further. To have one of their own guys go to college? Now that would be something. They all see a little of themselves in London, you can tell. Having him around makes it easier to dream. And there's nothing wrong with dreaming. Not a thing. It makes the time go by quicker, especially when you're sitting on the green benches, hoping for a bag.