It's another day of caddying, as much a part of summer in the suburbs for high school and college students as swim clubs and complaints about there being nothing to do. With caddies earning from $45 to $65 a bag, these are coveted jobs in this tight market.
There are seven private clubs within a three-mile radius of St. Davids, and each hires from 20 to 40 caddies each summer. For newly minted teens, it's a first job that can easily net a cool $100 a day, if they carry two bags or work a morning and afternoon round. Try making that much cutting lawns or babysitting your little brother.
This year, though, the rough economy has sliced into earnings.
Like pretty much every other industry, golf is suffering amid a recession that's rougher than a sandtrap at the U.S. Open, with television viewership and equipment sales down, and the number of rounds played at private courses barely holding on to last year's levels.
Rounds at St. Davids are down by less than 10 percent, better than anticipated, said head golf pro Stephen Wright. But with May and June as soggy as that guy's socks, the club's caddies have been spending more time on the bench than the fairway.
"It's not too bad," said St. Davids' caddy master, Tim Mallowe, 27, who started caddying at 14 at the Overbrook Golf Club. "The weather hurt us more than the economy."
Between rounds caddies wait . . . and wait. Some sit quietly on benches, reading a newspaper - the Wall Street Journal, natch - or a book. Members of another group razz each other the way boys do when girls, or their own mothers, aren't around.
Mallowe's job is to wrangle the 20 to 30 caddies who show up every day and assign them to golfers. Sounds easy, but he has to know which golfers want someone more experienced, which caddy is due for a turn, and how to keep the rest from getting too loopy while they wait.
