Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 115, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1920 — BRITAIN HAS 80,000 CADDIES [ARTICLE]

BRITAIN HAS 80,000 CADDIES

Future of These Indispensable Golf Advisers Is Worrying Club Officials of the Country. Almost 80,000 caddies trudge the golf courses in the United Kingdom, mostly youths between fourteen and eighteen. The question of their future is seriously exercising the minds of the golf club secretaries, who have the welfare of the race at heart. Carrying golf clubs leads to nowhere as regards a man’s career. St. George’s Hill Golf club at Weybridge, the most fashionable club in England, has tackled the problem manfully, and its example is to be followed by other clubs throughout Great Britain. During their Idle hours when not carrying clubs the boys and disabled soldiers, of whom a number are employed, are to be trained to trades that will ultimately enable them to obtain employment of a regular and progressive nature. After three years’ service with the club the caddie will receive a bonus of SSO, provided he wishes to* leave in order to follow a trade he has learned. A first-class bootmaker has been engaged to instruct caddies in boot making ; in order to make the plan profitable members of the club send their repairs to the school. Under the head green keeper the cafldies are learning the art of market gardening in the club vegetable gardens. They are being initiated into the Intricacies of green keeping also.