Bag for life Mundy has 25 years’ caddying experience. 68 ISSUE <strong>342</strong> TODAYSGOLFER.CO.UK
TERRY MUNDY The man behind the bag Terry Mundy has been Ian Poulter’s right-hand man for nearly a decade. He lifts the lid on what life is really like inside the ropes WORDS ROB Mc GARR PICTURES ANGUS MURRAY, GETTY IMAGES n the past, anyone with two I shoulders and the ability to grunt, “Aye, a seven’ll get there” could be a caddie. But things have changed. The role of caddie is now a highly technical, respected, and, in some cases, well remunerated one. In a world where one shot can cost you hundreds of thousands, the top professionals acknowledge that golf is a two-man game, and having the right man on the bag can be the difference between a missed cut and a tournament win. “The top-100 players have fairly high demands about what they want from their caddie,” says Poulter. “Terry is part of the new breed of caddie. He adopts the same attitude to professionalism that I do. We think the same way about the game. He follows the same thought processes as me and has the same work ethic. The more he knows about a course, the more he can step in and be confident enough to say if he thinks I might be about to do the wrong thing. He is absolutely not a ‘yes man’. He has a strong character and is not afraid to voice an opinion. We have become good mates. I almost spend more time with him than I do my wife!” Having chopped and changed caddies during his first few years on Tour, Poulter has found his man in Mundy and stuck with him. This season will be their 10th together, so it seems the perfect time to sit down with the 48-year-old and find out what life is like on the other side of the bag. Unlike occasionally tightlipped Tour Pros, Mundy was happy to talk about the preparation that goes into a tournament, how you can save shots with better strategy, and what happens when he makes a mistake… How did you get into caddying? I’ve been caddying since 1989. I used to work as a printer and I lived in Bletchley, down the road from Woburn. I used to drink in a pub in Brickhill and over the years I got to know a few players and caddies. Alicia Dibos turned up for The Ford Ladies Classic one year without a caddie, so I said I’d do it. I was a half-decent golfer, so I understood the game. I did that for a couple of years, just doing the odd week here and there, and then redundancies came up at the printing firm. My plan was to take redundancy, have a bit of fun travelling around Europe caddying for six months, and then get back into printing. What changed? I got a little bit of success quite early. In my third or fourth tournament, we finished second and I picked up a nice cheque. I thought, ‘Hang on, if I get a good player and do that regularly, I could earn more at this than I do printing’. I got a couple of decent results early on, and then got offered a job with Alison Nicholas, who was one of the top players on the Ladies’ Tour at the time. The results were even better with her, and so were the cheques. I worked for Trish Johnson, Laura Davies and a few other female golfers, did a bit of work on the European Tour with Jonathan Lomas and Ignacio Garrido, and then hooked up with Ian. How good a golfer were you? Do you still play the game? I played off three. I was never good enough to consider playing the game for a living, but I played in club scratch teams and stuff like that. I play to about six or seven now, but most ➔ TODAYSGOLFER.CO.UK ISSUE <strong>342</strong> 69
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