This is a story about a good man who is a good caddie. It is not another story about the high life of a man carrying a world-famous golfer’s clubs at tournaments in exotic places around the world. While it is relevant that he has been a caddie for 30 years, worked at four Ryder Cups and won tournaments on both sides of the Atlantic, this is not that story.
This is a story about the other side of caddying – the one that requires countless plane journeys to and from different continents. One demanding weeks and months spent on the road, away from home missing the activities of their children, being unable to help them with their homework or attend parents’ evenings at their school. This is the story of a happily married man with two children whose home is in the United Kingdom and whose work is mostly in the United States, a man who faces the same life problems as many of us and who has decided that he has had enough, at least for now. He wants a rest.
John McLaren is known to many as “Johnny Long Socks” because of his habit of wearing shorts and brightly coloured socks belonging to a local sports team in whatever US city in which he happens to be. This is smart thinking and good marketing and there should be no surprise in that. John McLaren is smart, a man who got A levels in maths, geology and science and could have gone to university except he wanted to play professional golf for a living. At least he did until he was in his mid-20s and competing in an event in South Africa when he realised that good as he was, he wasn’t good enough.
“I was feeling I needed a break. This two-year period of COVID(-19) has taken its toll. My situation is the same as anybody else’s, which is that this has been bloody hard work.”
Johnny "Long Socks" McLaren
So caddying beckoned, with Roger Wessels, a prominent South African golfer, the American Scotty Dunlap, and Duffy Waldorf, who played the PGA Tour for many years. “Duffy is a psychology major, a free thinker, a lovely man,” McLaren said. “His intelligence is not the sort you get from reading Google but real intelligence. He is a good friend, one of the most brilliant and beautiful people I have ever met. He taught me so much about golf. I love him.”
McLaren won the PGA Championship at Wentworth twice during a six-year stint with Luke Donald, during which Donald got to world No 1, and once more when he was working for Anders Hansen. He has just ended a run with Paul Casey. McLaren is, at 55, at the top of his game, clear that his forte in a player-caddie relationship was as a caddie.
“My role as a support staff gave me a greater sense of myself than playing,” he explained. “I don’t know whether I got lost in playing but I found that the way my head or my brain works I felt better at doing the planning side of how to be good at golf than the doing. I like the analytics. I was into shapes and maths and geometry at school. There is a certain amount of emotion in being the player and the emotion part I found was hard on me. I didn’t deal with it as well as I did logic and pure facts. That is why a support role is a better place for me. It fits my head better.”
But, but and but. There is more to caddying than just caddying and McLaren has two small children, a boy aged 8 and a daughter aged 9. “I saw my kids for seven days of their summer holidays (this past summer) because we had the Olympics and then Ryder Cup,” McLaren said. “James broke his arm on the Tuesday of the Ryder Cup and I was nowhere to be seen. Family means a lot to me. This is a bit tongue-in-cheek but I can say that some people become caddies to get away from their wives. I am the opposite. I very much love my wife and want to be with her.
“The pandemic has made everyone’s life different,” he continued. “My living in the UK but working predominantly in America has made my life harder because the travel has become more complex. Less places to fly to, less cars to hire, more tests to be taken. There is a lot of mental anguish and pressure every Sunday night you are away. If you pull a positive test you are going to be away from your family for an additional two weeks and you have already been on a trip. Every trip I took I had to take all these tests in the States and then come home and take tests here to know whether I was going to get back to work. That takes up a lot of mental energy. I was feeling I needed a break. This two-year period of COVID(-19) has taken its toll. My situation is the same as anybody else’s, which is that this has been bloody hard work.”
There is a sense of calm in McLaren’s voice now. He has made his decision and is comfortable with it. It is why he is relishing being at home when he normally wouldn’t be. He has made peace with his most recent employer, Casey, for whom he had worked for six years. He will caddie when Casey defends his Dubai Desert Classic title in January.
“Paul has been fabulous,” McLaren said. “I have a great relationship with him. I realise I could carry on and so does he. He would like me to do job sharing or take three months off but I said to him, ‘If you take someone for three months how can you expect them to jump in with both feet as I would and give you their best? If I step away for at least six months I’ll get rested how I want to be. I’ll be able to find out if I actually want to come back or not and you might have found a caddie that does better for you than I did.’ ”
There was a pause in the conversation. Unlike some, McLaren thinks before he speaks. “How shall I describe it?” he said from his home in Surrey last week.
“A hiatus?” someone said helpfully.
“Yes, a hiatus,” he said.
So let’s be clear. This is a reassessment, a break. It is not retirement. Sometime soon, though nobody knows precisely when, we will probably see one of the world’s best caddies back on the golf course – colourful socks and all.
Top: John McLaren caddied through the DP World Tour Championship and will take an indefinite hiatus after Paul Casey defends his Dubai Desert Classic title in January.
E-Mail John