Yesterday, shortly before 5pm, it all ended with a lovely drive off the 18th tee that rocketed into the stratosphere, burned through the troposphere, dropped just metres from the hole and was putted in for a birdie.
That, sadly, and despite lots of spectators clapping and hooting, which was nice, was not enough for us to make the cut.
Of the two days of golf, the statistics speak for themselves.
In an often zig-zag sort of direction, there was more than 12.8km of caddying done, that being the combined length of The Hills and Millbrook put together.
When you add the little bits between each hole and the wanderings about to find lost balls, that would easily top 14km.
That distance was completed carrying a 15kg bag containing 14 golf clubs and assorted paraphernalia distributed throughout various pockets.
If you work from an average of about 4 shots per hole for 36 holes, that bag was put down and picked up about 144 times, and the strap doubled over on itself and cut into our shoulder perhaps 37 times.
We cleaned grass and mud off perhaps 72 irons.
We took the little red leather pouch off the number one driver maybe 30 times, and put it back on exactly the same number of times.It’s still there, keeping that driver safe to this day.
We never lost it.
Hundreds of thousands of raindrops fell on the poor caddies on Thursday, and five hours of searing sunshine burned us to blistered crisps the very next day.
The conditions were tough.
I guess if I was asked, I’d say we struggled with the conditions, but caddied to the best of our ability.
Things didn’t always go our way on the fairways, but we put our heart and soul into the game, not just for ourselves, but all the fans who turned out both to The Hills, and to Millbrook, to watch us caddy.
I’d just like to give a bit of a shout-out to those fans.
We wouldn’t have had the privilege of a two-day caddying career if it wasn’t for you.
So yes, it’s over.
And what did we learn?
We learned professionals who spend all their time playing golf slice and hook the ball off the tee.
Yes, they also pull off some fantastic drives that go unbelievable distances.
And yes, at one hole at The Hills on Thursday my pro hit a ball from a fairway bunker using, I think, a hybrid, shot it round a corner and landed it on a green you could not see from where we were.
Round a corner.
It was spectacular.
But it’s great to know that the some of the best golfers hit bunkers and lose their balls in long grass and hit their club on the ground in rage and use proscribed expletives to express their rage.
That’s great to know, because the rest of us can now do the same with a slightly lessened feeling of impotent fury, because we know nobody can hit a perfect shot every time, or even most of the time.
And that is a good feeling.
It shows us golf is probably just too hard, and nobody in their right mind should play it.
And that’s how it probably is, and has always been.
You have to be crazy to do it.That’s why they call it golf.
