Burke: Work as a young caddy allowed a swing at life skills

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, January 14, 2026

By Tom Burke / Herald Columnist

When I was in high school back East I was a golf caddie. A good one.

I knew every blade of grass at the Seawane Club where I worked; didn’t need notes for distances to the pin; could “club” golfers as they played; read greens rather well; and could help folks with their swing. I made decent money for the time and had a bunch of “regulars” including the club champ, the assistant pro, and the parents of some schoolmates, as the club wasn’t far from where I lived.

Oh, and membership was modestly affluent with scads of doctors, lawyers and a large contingent of those who ran schmatta (Yiddish for clothes, especially women’s dresses) businesses in New York City’s garment district.

I liked caddying as the money was good, the work wasn’t too hard, and it was outdoors. The other caddies were either kids like me; professional loopers (who decamped to Florida for winter-work); or rather colorful, odd fellas, sorta down on their luck, often with a flask in their back pocket, but usually with interesting stories to tell.

And I learned some life skills, especially how to play blackjack, as there was a continuous game ongoing in the caddy shack.

Now one Saturday afternoon the club champ, Mr. L, asked if I would carry for him on Sunday. “Of course,” I said.

Then he added it was for a special round. He, the membership chairman, and another fella were playing with a prospective new member as part of the will-we-let-you-join process and he wanted me to tote his bag.

No big deal I thought.

Then he mentioned “Prospect’s” name.

And in 1964 it was a big deal, as Prospect was a well-known real estate developer who built his empire on apartment houses in Queen’s, N.Y. and probably could have bought the entire club with his pocket change.

Apparently, however, he was not very popular and many members didn’t want him in.

Anyway, I figured this was just another round of golf until Mr. L suggested Prospect wasn’t going to have a very good round, “Was he?”

And I got the message; Prospect was gonna have a lot of balls mysteriously in the rough, a lot of plugged lies, would consistently shoot either too short or too long, and wouldn’t be able to sink a putt for all the tea in China.

My assignment was to help tank this guy’s round.

Making an 18-hole story short, Prospect muttered and shook his head in disgust the whole way around while the club champ took every opportunity to tell me, so the whole course could hear, what a good job I was doing for his play. Prospect shot something over 120 if my memory holds. (Par was 72.)

And as a matter of full disclosure it wasn’t the Queens real estate developer you we’re thinking of. THAT (orange-toned) real estate developer was the same age as me in the ‘60s — and still is today, go figure — and, based on a lot of comments attributed to him, would never have considered joining a club that was 95 percent Jewish, as the Seawane Club was. (Another life skill I picked up caddying: a decent smattering of Yiddish, something every New Yorker should have.)

Now Prospect wasn’t the only celebrity I looped for. I got some of the better member’s guests as well.

Sammy Davis Jr. was one. Not much of a golfer but I ached from laughter by the end of the round and, on the 18th hole, in view of everyone on the clubhouse veranda, he had me surreptitiously substitute my other golfer’s ball for one of his; which he confided had a generous shot of mercury injected into it causing it to screw crazily across the green making a successful putt impossible, much to the embarrassment of his host and the enjoyment of the “gallery.”

And I used to get “The Champ,” Rocky Graziano, whenever he played.

He was retired from the ring by then and was doing some acting and I think running a pizza joint in Manhattan. “Da Champ” was a “dees, dems, and dose” kinda guy; never broke his Lower East Side, N.Y., character; and could hit the ball a mile. Unfortunately for me it was never in a straight line and I visited some areas of course I’d never been to before.

In retrospect, that 196os caddie shack was a important source of some significant, but dubious, life skills, teaching me new combinations of four- and eight-letter words, money-making blackjack tactics, my first cigarette (a Marlboro), and about beer as there was an ”understanding” saloon nearby still offering 5-cent brews and, as the drinking age in N.Y. back then was 18, we began faking our age at 16.

I understand there are, today, still opportunities for kids to caddie what with programs to teach course etiquette, the rules of golf, and “life skills,” which I am sure ain’t the kind I learned.

And I’m not sure what triggered this memory. Maybe it was the bag of my pop’s golf balls I found in the garage or a need for respite from all going on last week.

For the record, I gave up golf when I married. I wanted a hobby I could share with my (then-new) wife and our planned family and not be gone weekends with “the boys”; so I chose sailing.

A bunch of sea-miles and a bunch of boats later, it was a good decision.

And I never did find out what club Mr. Big Deal landed in. It certainly wasn’t Seawane.

Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.