The life of a (retired) looper

By Gary Larrabee

I never wanted to let go. Never. Once a caddy, always a caddy, was my credo. I wanted to remain a bag-toter until I took my last breath. Something to do with male ego, a psychiatrist might observe, considering the issue involved a 58-year-old man.

Gary Larrabee

The fact is I loved everything about “looping” since I got my very first bag, the considerate and gentlemanly Dave Hicks, assigned by then-Salem Country Club assistant pro/caddymaster Bill Flynn in 1962. It was a Sunday afternoon. The late Wally Cullen, a chum of my dad’s, had encouraged me to try it, and I loved it. I wasn’t playing, but I was still right in the middle of the action.

Thus began, in reality, my lifelong association with the most baffling, challenging, hypnotic, endearing and occasionally rewarding game I ever tried. A game, I must add, that has been gratifying in every conceivable regard thanks to my sports writing career.

But as of May 24, 2007, at 3 p.m., as I successfully staggered up the hill to the famous 18th green at Salem CC, carrying the bag of my brother Mark, the head professional at Eastman Golf Links in New Hampshire, my caddy life had officially expired.

It was the local qualifying round for the Massachusetts Open and since I’d been living my golf-playing life vicariously all these years through the career of my kid brother, I thought I’d get in the middle of the action one more time. Mark accepted my offer (a freebie, of course) and played superbly for 12 holes. He was two over par and in great shape to make the eventual qualifying cut score of 77, five over. I was more excited than a polar bear at a penguin convention. But Mark stumbled in with five bogeys in the last six holes and shot 79. Not good.

At the same time, I realized I just ain’t got the physical strength to handle the 18-hole trek any more, no matter how light the bag. I barely made it up the 18th fairway as it was. I had the same problem carrying for Kernwood CC’s Frank Dully at the 2005 U.S. Open local qualifier at Pinehills. I’m facing it. I’m no spring chicken. I’m not 30 or 40 any more. I’m nearly 60.

I looked so weak dragging along behind Mark the last five holes at Salem CC that the Massachusetts Golf Association sent out two observers in a golf cart to follow my every step the rest of the way, just in case I fell flat on my face

I’ll never forget where my caddy experience took me. I served a couple summers at Thomson CC, where Flynn became the new club’s first head professional, and I carried regularly for two of the nicest and funniest guys I ever met: Murray Rosenthal and “Marvelous” Marvin Silverstein. I’ll always remember the time Marvin got a bad kick into a greenside bunker on his tee shot on the par-3 17th and in frustration threw his club into the trees and it never came down. His partners that day and I still laugh about it.

As a teenager and college student, I reveled carrying two summers for Happy Valley GC (now, of course, known as Gannon GC) assistant pro and future PGA Tourist Paul Barkhouse. The laughs and the low scores (including a victory at the New Hampshire Open) came hand in hand as we chugged around New England in his Volkswagen Beetle.

My greatest thrill as a caddy came in 1968 when Flynn got me into the caddy draw for the PGA Tour’s Kemper Open at Pleasant Valley and I was assigned aging veteran Art Wall. Out of nowhere Art found his “A” game, tied for the 36-hole lead and eventually finished in a tie for second with Bruce Crampton, four strokes behind some guy named Palmer. The galleries were huge, but Arthur and I handled the pressure well. I realized that week that, as a caddy, there is nothing like being in the middle of the action, surrounded by a wall-to-wall gallery.

My swan song in the winner’s circle occurred in 2003. With an unexpected break in my July work schedule, I offered my club-carrying services to old friend Kirk Hanefeld, the former Salem CC golf director and then-golf director at The International, for the upcoming NEPGA Championship at Abenaqui CC in Rye, N.H. He took a chance with an old, old timer, put up with my wheezing and limping and won the title going away. Kirk’s son, Ryan, walked all 54 holes with us and was ready to take over, thankfully, if I collapsed, but it never happened.

It’s all over now, though. The memories are priceless. But when the body and brain tell you it’s time, take heed. Hang up your caddy togs and move on. I’m trying to.

Gary Larrabee, the author of The Green and Gold Coast: The History of Golf on Boston's North Shore, 1893-2001, has been covering the North Shore/Greater Boston golf scene for 35 years. He has written centennial histories for Salem, Winchester and Wenham Country Clubs. His most recent volume is The Best Care Possible: From Beverly Hospital to Northeast Health System, 1888-2005. His latest book project, the 100-year history of St. John's Prep, will be published in August.