Fear and loathing in the caddie lounge as rangefinders threaten to transform major golf
Terrifying laser-guided machines are advancing on to the fairways this week and the mortals are desperately mobilising. Who will prevail in this fight to the death and which side will golfing cyborg Bryson DeChambeau be on?
It is easy to dive deep into hyperbole as the 103rd US PGA Championship at the Ocean Course becomes the first big-time professional tournament to permit distance-measuring devices, but there is no mistaking the sense of unease in the caddies' lounge as Thursday’s first round approaches.
That much has been obvious since the PGA of America announced in February that it would allow rangefinders - during actual rounds, as well as on practice days when they are now standard - so becoming the first major body in the sport to do so. The reason? To speed up play.
Though the Rules of Golf have given the lasers the green light to be utilised since 2006, a local rule was also invoked which gave organisers the right to ban the gadgets. And everyone has - the main Tours, all the majors, the Olympics and the Ryder Cup. Until now. One small step for man. One 185.25-yard step for mankind.
The caddies are not seeing the funny side. When contacted by Telegraph Sport, Billy Foster, the much-loved looper for Severiano Ballesteros, Darren Clarke, Lee Westwood, and now Matt Fitzpatrick, waved away the subject. “Waste of time, not interested,” he replied.
Mark Fulcher, Francesco Molinari’s caddie, sounded similarly indifferent. “Let’s see if it does speed up play, eh?” he said. The theory is that with more information at their disposal, the pros this week will be slower, not quicker, to decide on their shots. And the hope is that when it is realised that rounds are taking even longer, the rangefinders will be exterminated almost as soon as they emerged.
Yet the alarm on the official websites tell a different story. The Caddie Network, which represents the PGA Tour Caddie Association, pointed Telegraph Sport to an article it has posted with a range of views from its members, the majority of which are negative.
“It’s going to do the exact opposite [to speeding up play],” Kenny Harms, Kevin Na's long-time caddie, said. “Lasers aren’t as accurate as you think they are. If you shoot it three times you might get three different numbers.”
Shay Knight, who works for Viktor Hovland, foresees another problem. “If you laser what you think is the pin and it’s picked up something else and you’re actually hitting the grandstands behind, you’re going to send your player over the green,” he said. “And we'll get chastised for that too.”
In response to the piece, Paul Stephens, the veteran Englishman who counts Sir Nick Faldo and Tom Watson among his former employers, said: “Absolutely disgusted! The true art of caddying has been dying for years and this is the final death knell for it. Watched them being used in an event in Sydney and they took over five minutes to hit shots on a par three!”
Meanwhile, over at The Tour Caddies website, an offshoot of the European Tour Caddie Association, an editorial leads its home page entitled “Lasers are not the future”.
“Just doesn’t feel true to the game,” it says, before using an example to present its cause. “Take the 17th at Kiawah next Sunday. Over 200 yards to a pin cut tight on the left side, grandstands wrapping round the green … Now you try lasering the flag blowing away from you in a two-club wind with all that lot going on.
“Assuming you can even do that, it’s way too risky that it’s picked something that isn’t the flag. So what do you do? You use the yardage book instead."
It is clearly an emotive subject and one that has risen its ugly sense at an emotive time. Last month, one well-known bagman told me he believed his profession was “a dwindling industry”. Not because of the threat of these devices, but more so at all the friends and family turning up in bibs.
“A dozen of the world's top 50 have best mates or their partners or their sons working for them,” he said. “And the more success they have, the more this will happen."
Lee Westwood has fiancée Helen Storey as caddie here, but would strongly advise any young player to "hire a professional caddie ... They bring experience and give you far more advice than distances,” he said.
Westwood does his own yardages and says he "probably will chuck a rangefinder" into his bag.
“But I won't be using one from the middle of the fairway,” he added.
His Ryder Cup team-mate Ian Poulter concurs, pointing out the one aspect which everyone concedes can be the rangefinder's big positive. “It will help when you are miles offline,” he said. “Like Jordan [Spieth] I suppose at the Open.”
At Birkdale in 2017, Spieth's caddie, Michael Grellar was entrusted with coming up a distance after his player’s drive had “gone off the grid” in the dunes, more than 50 yards wide of its target. However, he managed it and Spieth won and that is why Justin Thomas, the world No2, wants to preserve the status quo.
“I don't really like them,” Thomas said. “I think they take away an advantage of having a good caddie that goes out there and does the work beforehand. I'm not sure why they are introducing them, to be honest.”
In truth, the bafflement flanks the foreboding, but there are whispers of “super machines” emerging which, with the technology significantly enhanced, can relay unimagined data. At the moment the rules state that only distance and direction is allowed, with devices giving elevation changes and wind speed still outlawed.
But for how long, if the money men get their way? One caddie, who wishes to remain unnamed, claims that this is at the root of the issue.
“There has been no clamour for these things to be made legal by anyone on Tour,” he says. “Even Bryson has said it could be a bad idea and him turning down even more information is like John Daly turning down Diet Pepsis.
"But if you think the PGA represents roughly 30,000 club pros here in the States, most of whom earn a big portion of their living from selling equipment, then you might start to understand. Seeing the superstars employing them could lead to fairways being clogged up with hackers who can’t control their distances, using them. So golf will become even slower. But it’ll make more dollars.”
