CADDIES ROLE:There is nothing like a bit of nostalgia to get you in the mood for a Major, writes COLIN BYRNE

ON MY way south from New York to Washington yesterday for the 111th US Open I had time to reflect on my last trip to New York before the US Open in Shinnecock Hills in 2004. There is nothing like a bit of nostalgia to get you in the mood for a Major. Staying with a good friend in Brooklyn we did much of the same things we did the week before Shinnecock seven years previously. Apart from one round of golf our activities were as far away from golf as is imaginable.

Of course retracing your pre-US Open preparation has no bearing on how this year’s event is going to pan out but tradition and routine is what makes golfers tick. Retief Goosen showed up on Long Island on the Monday at Shinnecock Hills and played a late practice round. He was trying to emulate the conditions of the course as it would play from Thursday on. With the gradual priming of the course by the USGA, and that year the almost parched policy of the authorities, the relevance of practice rounds becomes less important. He played two late practice rounds for this reason.

Assuming the temperature will rise, as is the norm for the DC area in mid-June the Congressional course will get faster. When the gun goes, players begin to find extra distance due to adrenalin. So suddenly by the weekend the clubs you hit in your practice rounds start to have little relevance to tournament conditions. If the temperature gets into the 80s then the golf ball compresses more which means a player’s traditional numbers become just a rough guide and hopefully both player and caddie recognise this before they go over the back of too many greens.

Edoardo Molinari wisely, but jokingly, suggested that we play our practice rounds off the ladies tees in order to emulate the tournament hot and dry conditions. He did have a point, but of course you would be laughed off the course if you adopted such a policy.

I caddie for a player who, with his engineers mind, is taken with statistics. In fact the PGA Tour is a place that seems increasingly obsessed with statistics. I have frequently stood opposite my player as he was over a 20-foot putt at a tournament when an electronic information screen behind him flashed his statistics (often with a picture of his brother) and the tour average statistic for that length of putt. The message was crystal clear, he has less than a 10 per cent chance of making the putt, the neon lights pulsed into my consciousness, I was glad that my player couldn’t see his chances in bright lights.

I do not dispute the accuracy of such statistics, but what I do doubt frequently is their relevance. Is it better for a professional golfer to stand over his 20-foot putt acutely aware of his chances of making the putt or is it better that he approaches each individual putt with fresh optimism? Great players make the unlikely happen.

So as I made my way to the US Open, I reflected on Retief Goosen’s four rounds culminating in his second US Open victory. For the first three days he was relatively under the radar. Given that he was leading going into the fourth round he was paid some media attention. Ironically enough he had played his dream golf of hitting fairways and greens during the first three rounds. He understood the course and the necessity to shape his approach shots into the terrace-like greens in order to control their landing.

What happened when he was under more scrutiny was that his impeccable statistics unravelled. This is when no stats will satisfy my sceptical caddie’s mind, the ones that suggest your player cannot keep holing them under pressure.

Winning golf is a complex mixture of boring repetition and esoteric flair. It is about fighting reality with uncompromising dreams. It is the ability to defy the statistics no matter how a logical mind may take them. When winners get the smell of victory statistics become forgotten files, dumped where they largely belong, in the research department of a faculty that takes these things seriously. Recall the denouement to most final round back nines and the winner is more than likely defying the odds of getting up and down for fun to win the event.

So as I reminisced about that unforgettable day with Retief Goosen on Long Island in preparation for this week’s challenge at Congressional I didn’t need to look at any records of fairways hit and greens in regulation. Most winning golfers play a mixture of clinical golf with a smattering of scrambling. Retief had 24 putts in the final round of the 2004 US Open. He continued to miss greens and get up and down all day long. If he heeded the stats he would have been lucky to finish in the top 10. How you account for such tenacity and resolve is hard to say. It is simply what separates the good from the great. Having the ability to defy the statisticians will not last forever, but those who can are winners.

I stuck to my pre-US Open routine in New York last week. I trust my man can stick to his Major task, mixing good golf with statistical defiance of getting up and down relentlessly and holing some slim chance putts in his challenge for the US Open.