For many countries, golfers used to play without caddie but in Vietnam it is compulsory in the package price, how do you think about the advantages and disadvantages if you have a caddie with you. Good things are that you will not have to carry or push your own bag and take out the club you want, read the greens, mark your ball, and can blame on someone else if you miss a putt or shank one into the trees, sand dunes…However, without a caddie you have to do all your own and just put the blame yourself for wrong short
Here is 7 ways which you can have the most enjoyable experience on the golf course and play your best golf…with a caddie?
1. Make acquaintance with your caddie
First and most importantly, make acquaintance with your caddie quickly, create friendly environment such as ask your caddie name, smile and tell her you’re going to have great day with her
2. Test Caddy on the greens
Put your caddy to the test on the greens at start. Figure out early on if your caddie is any good at reading greens. Take her to the putting green if you have time and ask her to read a couple of practice puts for you. Accept her early reads and see how she does. If she is not so accurate, take it easy and laugh about it and make a mental note to rely more on your own judgment for the rest of the round.
3. Never blame your caddie
Don’t play the blame game! Never blame your caddie for a poor shot, bad read or incorrect club selection. At the end of the day, they always do their best and remember, if you were that good then I am sure you wouldn’t need to rely on her anyway. We have all seen high handicappers on the course who seem to enjoy taking out their bad shots on their caddies for what they considered to be bad information, so let’s do our best to not become one of them as it doesn’t do anyone any good and let’s be honest, they always end up looking like the fool anyway.
4. Don’t drive a golf cart here
You shouldn’t insist to drive a golf cart in Vietnam, this will cause trouble for caddie, golf courses insure the carts with the good condition that only the caddies drive them. I’m sure they are right at some aspects, they’ve seen too many of those golf fail videos in real life.
5. Learn your caddie’s language
Learn your caddie’s language and comprehend what your caddy means. To put this into perspective from my personal experience, a common misunderstanding is where they say a putt is “left”, it does not mean it will go right, what they really mean it is “left to right”. Often, the caddie will signal this with a hand gesture, so it’s important to work this out if you want to have any chance of holing a putt!