Golf: Montgomerie Shells Out £41 a Round for His New Caddie

There are trickier jobs in the world than caddying for Colin Montgomerie but most of them involve handling dangerous material without gloves or jumping off ledges before the safety net has been unpacked. Suffice to say, applicants require patience, a thick skin and, as the Scot's manager said when he called Oakmont Country Club last Friday to ask if it could find someone to carry Monty's bag in this week's US Open, the ability to keep their mouths shut.

Step forward Billy Goddard, aged 63, Oakmont regular and a man who makes Clint Eastwood look excitable. When he opens his mouth, which is seldom, he makes Peter Kay seem droll.

"Things are going smoothly," he said yesterday when asked how he was getting along with his new employer. "But then we only met 15 minutes ago."

And had they discussed his wages yet? "I get paid $80 (£41) for 18 holes every day of the week. As long as we don't go down from that, things should be OK."

Boom boom, Billy. Let's hope Monty is still laughing when the real business of the week starts tomorrow morning.

The Scot, who has not won a tournament for 18 months, called in Goddard as a temporary caddie after splitting last week from his long-time sidekick Alastair McLean, citing staleness in his game and the need to shake things up a little. "I am a great believer in the fact that if you keep doing the same things you tend to get the same results. Something had to change," he said yesterday.

Goddard, a former steelworker, has caddied at Oakmont for 49 years and is widely acknowledged as the best bagman at the club, not least because of his encyclopedic knowledge of the course's notoriously tricky greens. "They're very difficult to read," he said yesterday.

The same could be said of the combustible Monty, although Goddard, displaying the diplomatic skills he will need as the week progresses, was in no mood to hear anyone speak ill of his man. "This guy is known around the world. He's a player. It's an honour to work for him."