Peter Williams: Caddies at the Cape were a blast from my past

Like many of my generation, I was first exposed to golf as a caddie. I was an urchin lurking in the carpark soliciting for pocket money. The service was hardly what my namesake Steve has provided to the best players in the world for the last 30 years but I earned a few shillings (yes, it was that long ago) and learned about the game.

There was a whole new language to absorb. Tee, fairway, green; driver, irons, putter; calcutta, haggle, nineteenth.

It was about a boy getting a look at a man's world - and it made me want to play golf. But kids no longer chase caddie jobs from the carpark and the game is poorer for it. Youngsters don't learn from watching adults playing and behaving on a course and, if adults don't feel up to walking a course, they drive an electric cart which doesn't do their fitness any good.

So one of the real delights of my first game at Cape Kidnappers recently was finding there was a caddie service available. As you might expect from the country's best golf course, this was no group of skinny schoolkids offering to carry your bag. We had the services of a couple of strapping young locals well trained in the art of providing real service to golfers playing this exceptional layout.

Cape Kidnappers is a difficult course, although the fairways are generous. We were lucky that it was a relatively benign day but, when you play somewhere like this for the first time, advice on the right distance to the hole, the right line to hit and the amount of borrow on the greens is a huge bonus.

The best thing these caddies did, though, was simply to carry our bags. Cape Kidnappers, as befitting a course ranked 27th best in the world by Golf magazine, has a sensational setting. But it's not flat.

Before we started we were offered carts or caddies. Taking caddies was the best call we made all day. You take longer to get around but you absorb far more of the course and its environs and spend more time in the company of your playing partners.

The strength and stamina of these guys was something to behold. We had two caddies for four players - they took a bag over each shoulder and performed like mules but made sure they could offer advice and a (clean) club for each of their players for his shot.

So is it possible that Kidnappers is at the forefront of a caddie revival? How many resort courses are brave enough to offer a caddie service as an alternative option to electric carts? Sadly, I suspect not many. The carts provide extra income and golfers are a lazier breed than in the past.

But the benefits of a caddie service are obvious. There'll be more help for the player and he may shoot a lower score. He'll get more exercise, too. The course will be less damaged by tyre marks and if the caddie is a youngster, he'll be improving his golfing education and his bank balance.

It's not just resort courses that should think about having caddies available again. Why can't clubs introduce youngsters to golf by having them pull a trundler around on a Saturday afternoon?

The concept of a caddie service appears to belong to a bygone era. But with a game of such tradition and history, why shouldn't caddies once again be part of the landscape? It can be a fun job. After all, Caddyshack is still the most successful golf movie ever.