Some still carry torch

NORTON -- What you see is the heavy golf bag that they whip over their shoulders and strap to their backs.

What you don't see is the passion that burns within them for this game of golf.

They are caddies, yes; but so, too, are many of them players who once dreamed of life in the big leagues. Some still do.

``There are a lot of really good players among the caddies, guys who have put their careers on hold," said Robert Ames, who caddies for his brother, Stephen.

He hasn't given up on his dream, not totally, so Robert Ames tries to find time to play whenever possible. Recently, he played in a Monday qualifier for a Nationwide Tour stop in the Cleveland area. But, as he said, ``to try and carry this thing around and try and play is very tough."

In coming weeks, however, he will try extra hard to put some polish on his game, for the annual World Cup will be played in Barbados in December, and for the fourth time, Robert will join Stephen as the entry from their homeland, Trinidad and Tobago.

Robert Ames is not the only caddie with a competitive playing schedule on tap. The caddie for Ryan Palmer, James Edmondson, is with his man for this week's Deutsche Bank Championship at TPC Boston but will compete in a few weeks in the US Mid-Amateur Championship. Then there's Scott Tway, who said he'll look for a minitour event or two.

``I still love to compete," said Tway, who caddies for Scott Verplank after working for years with his brother, Bob. In fact, it was at his brother's insistence that Scott Tway would enter minitour tournaments between PGA Tour stops. ``He wanted me to remember how hard it was, just to keep good perspective," said Scott.

Walk up and down the range, or stroll past the caddie shack at any weekly PGA Tour stop and you'll see them assembled, usually within arm's length of their man's golf bag. Much of their time is spent standing and waiting, the most important rule being to be ready that split-second their man wants to move. So often the caddies blend into the landscape, bit players on a stage dominated by the guys who swing the clubs and make the shots. But in their own right, so many of them can point to a time when it was they who did the playing.

Lance Ten Broeck, who loops for Jesper Parnevik, played in 349 PGA Tour events over a career that stretched from 1975-98. He made the cut 159 times, recorded 10 top-10 finishes and was once good enough to finish second in the 1991 Chattanooga Classic. (As a true indicator of how you never know in this game, the guy who finished third that year is a PGA Tour legend, John Daly; the runner-up is a caddie; and the champion, Dillard Pruitt, is a PGA Tour rules official.)

Paul Tesori, the caddie for Vijay Singh, was a standout at the University of Florida who had two unsuccessful seasons as a player on the PGA Tour (1997, 1999).

D.J. Nelson, Heath Slocum's caddie, is a proven player but even more renowned as a long-drive competitor; among those he has beaten is Daly.

Mike Weir met his caddie, Brennan Little, through years of playing tournaments in Canada. Brett Waldman, Ben Crane's caddie, gets high marks from his colleagues. So, too, does Corby Segal, who carries for Brandt Jobe. Chad Campbell said he and his caddie, Judd Burkett, ``have been friends since we were 12," both of them quality junior golfers.

Then there's Damon Green, who is perhaps the best player among the caddies. A big man with a quiet demeanor, Green works for Zach Johnson, but in another lifetime he was his own boss, a minitour legend of sorts, with 64 wins to his credit. In 1995-96, Green was fully exempt on the Nationwide Tours, but after 51 tournaments and only a little more than $30,000 in prize money, he faced that moment of truth that so many competitive golfers do.

``I felt like it was the end of the road as a player," said Green. ``But I didn't really know what else to do. I didn't really want to be a head pro. I didn't want to stand behind a desk and teach for those enormous amount of hours."

He was friends with Scott Hoch and Fulton Allem, then regular members of the PGA Tour, and with Jimmy Green, who had Nationwide Tour status, so after he dismissed the club pro angle, he accepted offers to caddie. When Hoch phoned him and offered the bag full time, Damon Green told him he'd have to think about it, ``even though at the same time I was on the phone jumping up and down."

Damon Green was back in the game. A player, no. But it was the next best thing.

If there's a common denominator about caddies, that is it: They love the game.

``If you don't, you're in trouble," said one of the game's best, Andy Martinez. He's been looping for too many years to remember, and if there was a time in his younger life when he thought he may have been able to be a serious player, that idea was dispelled by his boss.

``Johnny Miller," said Martinez, ``took the fun out of the game for me."

Miller was clearly superior in every facet of the game. It was beautiful to watch, said Martinez, but so, too, was it humbling, and he has a clear memory of a day when it all came into focus. Martinez had hit as perfect a shot as he could hit, a low iron into a tough green, and what a rush of adrenaline Martinez got when he saw it on the green, maybe 20 feet from the hole.

Miller then pulled out a 3-iron and drilled a laser to 8 feet. Martinez considers that the defining moment in his career; he was a caddie, not a player.

The cold water in the face doesn't always come the way it did for Martinez. Some caddies will tell you the decision to give up playing is a personal struggle.

``Everybody's different," said Billy Heim, who caddies for former PGA Championship winner Rich Beem. ``For me, this job seemed a little more stable, more enjoyable -- and the guy I work for is fantastic. I had hit a roadblock. I felt like I wasn't getting any better; that's why I stopped playing."

Heim is like so many of his colleagues, a caddie with a résumé that makes you take note. In 1987, he advanced to the championship match of the US Junior Amateur, only to lose to a New Englander named Brett Quigley. Nineteen years later, they are together on the PGA Tour, Heim as a caddie, Quigley as a player, and from time to time the two will share stories of that match that forever ties them together.

For six years, Heim tried pro golf, but in 2000, after his fifth trip to the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament, he decided he had had enough. Since then he hasn't had the urge to stoke his competitive fires.

Adam Hayes doesn't have the urge, either, at least of the pro flavor. He has considered asking for his amateur status back, but the pro stuff? He's done with that. ``To tell the truth," said the caddie for Vaughn Taylor, ``I got a little burned out."

Hayes had played the game almost on a daily basis growing up in Florida, then he took his skills from Brevard Community College to Central Florida University to the Hooters Tour. It was too much golf, too little money, so he accepted offers to caddie on the LPGA Tour, and seven years later he's still at it, happy to be in golf, and long since resigned to just what it is that separates players who don't make it from players who do.

``I think there's something inside the good players that allows them to get it in the hole," said Hayes. ``I don't feel like I ever quit, but I wonder sometimes if things might have been different. I don't regret not doing it. I knew after a year that it was something that I wanted to do, but I wasn't willing to dedicate myself to it."

Does Green ever get the urge to get back into the competitive battles? He smiled and shook his head. ``On my good days, I was as good as the decent players out here," he said. ``But my bad days were very inconsistent. I'd shoot 75 or 76, and you just can't make any money at this level doing that. Your bad days out here need to be par or 1 under. It took me a long time to figure that out."

Mike ``Fluff" Cowan said he figured things out early enough in his career to spare him the long, grinding life that pro golf can be. Having grown up in Maine, he turned pro but had a short-lived career as a player. He was there long enough, however, to come away with a golden view of things.

``The only way to get better," said Cowan, ``is to compete."

Scott Tway still subscribes to that notion, which is why he takes note of Nationwide Monday qualifiers whenever he's in town. And it's why Robert Ames searches for tournaments in which to tune his game. It's why Edmondson will be going against the country's best mid-amateurs next month. It's why Ten Broeck, your onetime Vermont Open champion, has tried the Champions Tour Q School and Monday qualifiers on the European PGA Senior Tour.

They are caddies first, but still they have some player in them.

FAIRWAYS AND GREENS Jim McCabe blogs from the Deutsche Bank Classic, go to www.boston.com/sports/golf/golf_blog.