FAQ: How many hours do you put in during a normal tournament week walking the course and double checking yardages?
By The Caddie Network Staff · January 12, 2021
Through our readers and social media followers here at The Caddie Network, we often receive questions related to the caddie profession. We’ve collected the most frequently asked questions from our readers and followers and tasked actual PGA Tour caddies to serve up the answers based on their experiences. Here are the answers — from PGA Tour caddies — to the questions we most often receive from you.
A lot of times, a caddie’s work in preparation begins before the player even arrives at the course. Performing — and succeeding — at the highest level means a lot of homework for both players and caddies. That work starts early each week with caddies mapping out the course, sometimes referring back to old yardage books to take notes in the new one and tracking down any and all information they know their player will need.
With that in mind, one of our readers had a great question that we threw out to one of our caddies to answer.
How many hours do you put in during a normal tournament week walking the course and double checking yardages?
Caddies prepare for the tournament by walking the course, which — in essence — means double checking yardages (marked sprinkler heads), double checking elevation changes on especially hilly courses and also looking for potential trouble spots on the course. You have to be certain on some holes where not to put your player (unless you want an earful).
The amount of time can vary with the golfers practice habits, but I would say approximately 50 hours per tournament is a rough guess.
Do you have more caddie questions? We have more caddie answers. From “Where should golfers stand when a player is swinging?” to “How often should you change your golf ball?,” our pros have you covered with loads of answers to these FAQs – just click here.
