Review of Who’s Your Caddy

Review of Who’s Your Caddy by Rick Reilly
Rating *****

This isn’t the type of book I normally mention on this blog. When it comes to nonfiction books, I primarily stick with narrative nonfiction. But I’ve been reading a lot of fiction recently and this book happened to be an in between read.

The premise of the book is that sports writer Rick Reilly spent a year caddying for different pros. He had no prior experience as a caddy. He wanted to get an inside the ropes look at golf’s elite players. The end result of his experiment is an entertaining and very funny look at golf.

Rick caddies for current and former golf pros: John Daly, Casey Martin, David Duval, Jack Nicklaus. He also works the bag for people better known for their accomplishments outside of golf such as Deepak Chopra and Donald Trump. Each round brings a different set of challenges. His writing is sharp, witty, and very funny. Sometimes the humor comes from the mistakes he makes as a new caddy. Like the time LPGA tour pro Jill McGill asked him how much a flagstick weighs? When he said he didn’t know, she told him maybe he should go and pull the flagstick from the whole and see if he could find out. Most of the time the humor comes from his insight into the players he is caddying for. Here is his description of caddying for blind golfer Bob Andrews. We did not do well at first. In fact, we did not even do crappy at first. We wouldn’t have made the cut at the Suck Invitational.

Few books can make me laugh out loud, but I found myself laughing out loud a lot with this book. If you are a golfer or are looking for a gift to buy a golfer, put this book on your list.