Working as a Caddie

Working as a golf caddie taught me to become a close study of emotions and to adapt the advice I gave with them in mind. On meeting someone you'd bluntly assess: are they talkative, somber, open to reaching decisions collectively? Everything after would be a priori, incrementing after a shrug off or smile given a suggestion. It's a pure service job, and I became a chameleon, adapting to hundreds of players.

In that way, the role taught me to be exceptionally perceptive. It was my job to know and see the things that weren't immediately obvious and be trusted for that insight. In more advanced matches you'd see risk and defend against it towards the middle of a green or short of a hazard. Any advice was never purely based on external conditions, but also the emotions gleaned from the player beside me.

In the best matches I felt I was verbalizing the next shot. Instructions to draw a 4 iron off the chimney of the white house would be followed by the ball arching beautifully in that direction. This narrow gap between advice and results was extremely rewarding. That direct feedback is something I deeply miss.

I also noticed that the people I instructed best, and who often performed the best, seemed to share a language with me. We looked at risks and opportunities similarly; my idea of how aggressively they would hit a shot was in line with how aggressively they actually did. Skill was a precursor for this, but the players who were most successful at executing were usually the most perceptive as well.

If there is some hard earned insight to this it's reality is what you perceive. An abject fact could be prized by a championship golfer. What might seem useless, the grain of the grass, the idiosyncratic schedules of the grounds crew, and the height of a creek can be conquered, dictated, and determine the fortunes of competition.