Golf Central

It's getting close to April and that means that caddies - regular or otherwise - are starting to feel the heat from underachieving bosses with itchy trigger fingers on the greens. SG Matthews has a look behind the European Tour curtain at a couple of the latest ... ermm ... personnel decisions players are making in this week's Stingers ...

It hasn't been a good couple of weeks for caddies, and of course Tony Carolan didn't have to look far for a built-in excuse. His caddie was standing right next to him on the first tee, which must have been handy for an Australian golfer so obscure that you'd have never heard of him if it weren't for three words: "Jiggling my clubs".

And another bizarre scene in the long-running, sometimes funny, mostly strange, sometimes sad film Caddysack was born.

Here's how it went down: Invited into the media tent at the European Tour's Ballantine's Championship in Jeju Island, Korea, after a rare first-round 67, big Tony Carolan was having a field day. The topic was Carolan's bumbling locally hired caddie, who had long before skulked off, fired by Carolan after four holes for ... (in case you haven't heard the story), "jiggling" his clubs while he was putting.

Carolan sauntered in after signing his 67 and he was full of quotes. The sniggering press loved it. No sooner had the beefy journeyman from Down Under uttered the "jiggling clubs" line, Reuters had plastered the quote worldwide like so many sticky notes. A funny story! 'Jiggling' caddie sacked by furious Aussie!, said the headlines. After four holes! And he shot a 67! Perfect copy.

Carolan had picked up an inept local caddie all right, and he was well in his rights to fire him as well. Even on the fourth hole.

But Carolan's quotes weren't half as funny as he thought they were:

• "I'm paying him $160 a day and he couldn't walk on the greens."
• "After I went par, birdie, birdie, birdie, I sacked him. He was just terrible."
• "I can't remember his name and I don't think he wants to remember mine because I was yelling at him for four holes."
• "He dropped the umbrella on the first hole and then I found out he had spikes on so I had to kick him off the greens. So I had to ask for another caddie. It was just too much."
• "He was jiggling my clubs while I was putting!"

But once all the scoring and ranting and laughing was done and Carolan had a caddie he liked, big Tony finished T50, along with fellow luminaries Juvic Pagunsan of the Philippines and the legend of Singapore, Mardan Mamat. Sigh. I was tempted to say that Carolan, the world No. 553, got the firing wrong by gloating about it, but really, maybe he should have stuck with the bungling "par-birdie-birdie-birdie" guy.

The Caddysack film plot is as old as the hills. Much of the best gossip that goes on in professional golf involves the caddies that are headed for the highways, and the ones that might be headed for the end of the rainbow.

Most tour golfers have fired a caddie or two. Sergio Garcia whacked caddie Jerry Higginbotham at age 19, only to beaten to the youngest trigger finger by 16-year-old Michelle Wie, when she whacked bagman Craig Johnston a few years back.

Sometimes, delightfully, the caddie gets his two cents in. Looper Matthew Tritton had enough at the BMW Championship last year, storming off the course on the 16th hole and chucking his yardage book at a stunned Robert Allenby as he went. But most times, the boss gets the last word ... and hopefully does the firing with a modicum of good grace.