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Caddie Cam The Tour will have to pay for dissing us for decades

It looks as if the inhabitants of the ivory dungeon will have to
open the castle gates to the serfs. I'm talking about the Tour
and the caddies' role in ShotLink, the new but still inoperative
statistical system that was supposed to have been unveiled at
Doral. We've been resisting ShotLink and delaying it's start-up
because--for once--the Tour needs us, and we're determined to use
whatever leverage we have. This is really payback for years of
being dissed, for having to park nine miles away and for being
forced to pay for sickening tie-dyed hot dogs. I've often thought
that if it weren't for unsightly tire tracks, the Tour would have
the players use pull carts instead of caddies. If there was any
way the Tour could have made ShotLink work without us, it would
have already done it. Now the Tour has to show us a little
respect because without our help ShotLink won't work. As for the
mechanics of ShotLink, I don't see a problem. A caddie signals
his player's club selection to a volunteer and moves on. I'd like
to be around, though, the first time somebody asks Dolph, Craig
Stadler's caddie, "Excuse me, what club did he just bury past the
hosel?"

Linn Strickler has caddied on the PGA Tour since 1973.

COLOR PHOTO: DAVID WALBERG