No Atlas Required: Lang, Caddie Find Their Way

By Stuart Hall

Sunriver, Ore. – Diane Lang has learned to trust Barry Smith’s word.

“When he says he will be there, he will be there,” said Lang, the reigning two-time USGA Senior Women’s Amateur champion, of her caddie.

Theirs is a relationship that had plenty of missed calls, lost numbers and wrong turns, but when Lang began her title defense on Saturday at Sunriver Resort’s Meadows Course, Smith was right there by her side.

“He just has this way of keeping me calm and at peace while I’m on the course, plus he makes me laugh,” said Lang, 52, a native of Jamaica.

This is the third consecutive Senior Women's Amateur for Diane Lang (right), of Weston, Fla., and her caddie, Barry Smith. Geography doesn't separate the duo, who have won two straight titles together. (Robert Walker/USGA)

Their story began in September 2005 at The Apawamis Club in Rye, N.Y. At the time, Smith, a caddie at nearby Westchester Country Club, was in the midst of a slow week, so offered his services for the Senior Women’s Am.

The Apawamis caddiemaster, having given his caddies priority to the better players in the field, told Smith there was a player everyone was running from.

“I asked why and he said ‘She’s like a dark horse. No one knows anything about her,’” said Smith, who willingly accepted the assignment under the stipulation that he could stay on Lang’s bag if she reached match play.

Lang then worked her way to the championship final, where she met women’s amateur legend Carol Semple Thompson, of Sewickley, Pa., who was playing in her 102nd USGA championship and seeking her eighth title.

Both Lang and Smith were under the impression that Thompson was beaten in the previous day’s semifinal, “so when we showed up on Thursday, Diane was like ‘Oh no, we’ve got to play Carol. We don’t want to play Carol,’” Smith said.

Lang jumped to a 2-up lead after four holes, but was 2-down at the turn. That’s when Smith injected his brand of wisdom. Sensing Lang starting to tighten, he offered an apt analogy.

“I just told her to imagine stepping into the street to wave down a bus,” Smith started. “Well, that bus isn’t going to stop and is going to run you down if you don’t do something, so what are you going to do? You’re going to run.

“Well, Carol is driving that bus, so we’ve got to pick up our step or she’s going to run us over.”

The match went to the 18th hole before Thompson uncharacteristically three-putted to lose the hole and match 1-down.

“We couldn’t beat Carol that day, she gave us some help that day,” Smith said.

Afterward, Lang thought the 2006 USGA Senior Women’s Amateur was going to be held in Kiawah Island, S.C.; Smith thought it was going to be at Sea Island Golf Club at St. Simons Island, Ga., near his home in Brunswick, Ga.

No matter, Smith was going to be there.

In his blood

Smith, 53, began caddying in the late 1960s at Pipe O'Peace Golf Course – later renamed to Joe Louis Golf Course -- in Riverdale, Ill. He was also a pretty fair golfer and earned a golf scholarship to Florida A&M, where he was in and out between 1972 and ’79 without earning a degree.

So Smith continued to carry the bag, and in 1994 returned to caddie at Ocean Forest Golf Course in Sea Island. In 1997, his lone daughter decided she didn’t want to attend college, so Smith said “someone in this family is going to get a college degree,” and went back to earn a degree in business.

In 1998, he began to caddie at Westchester for six months of the year and recently returned to Sea Island for the other six.

“As a caddie you always want to be a part of something great,” he said. “You want to be on the bag when your golfer wins a major or something like [the Senior Women’s Amateur].”

The quiet-spoken Smith is not about to get in his player’s face. He understands the fragile nature of a player’s psyche, so stays off to the side and offers nothing but subtle encouragement.

“He won’t give me any advice on my own game,” Lang said. “But he will say things to me indirectly. He said ‘Miss Diane, all these ladies are playing way too much break on these greens, they just need to go right at the hole.’ Well, he was talking directly to me, cause I knew I was playing too much break.”

That reassuring smile

A year ago, Smith and Lang hooked up for a second run, but not without some anxious moments. In advance of the Senior Women’s Am in October, Lang called looking for Smith in Brunswick, Ga., and left a message with his sister. Contact me was the message.

Well, Smith’s sister never relayed the message until it was nearly too late. Smith called his old contacts at Sea Island and said he was going to be coming, hopped in his car and drove down from Rye.

Well, Lang, thinking Smith wasn’t going to show, was assigned another caddie. Then Lang learned that the assigned caddie had been promised to another golfer and was told someone named Barry was going to be her new caddie.

“I didn’t even give it a second thought, cause I didn’t think he was coming,” Lang said. “I just remember seeing that big smile of his and that really relaxed me.

Lang once again rolled into match play, but this time met Thompson in the quarterfinals.

Knowing that Smith was good with analogies, she jokingly asked what would be appropriate for the rematch.

“I just told [Lang] to think that she owned the bus, since she had won the previous year, and that Carol was also on the bus,” Smith said. “Well, we just wanted Carol to get off the bus first and we’d just keep on.”

Lang won 3-and-2 en route to a 1-up championship win over Anna Schultz, of Rockwall, Texas, for her second USGA title, the seventh repeat champion in the event’s 45-year history.

Afterward, Lang was not as certain that Smith would be making the trip to Sunriver this year. Rest assured, he said, there was a year to plan for the trip, and not to worry about the expense.

“I’ll be there,” he said.

Coming West

As this year’s championship drew near, Smith had not heard from Lang. This time it was Lang who was having difficulties as she lost all of Smith’s contact when her computer hard drive crashed months earlier.

Smith was not going to take any chances, so picked up the phone.

“It was about 9 o’clock one night and I was drinking my coffee,” she said. “He was on the other end, telling me he would be there for me. I said ‘OK.’”

Late last week, Lang arrived in Sunriver, waiting to catch up with Smith. There was a slight hitch.

Smith, had though all along that the championship was at Bandon Dunes, so when he got off the plane in Portland, he called a friend just to double check. His friend looked online and saw that Bandon Dunes was, indeed, hosting a USGA championship.

Smith made the five-hour drive to Bandon Dunes only to find that it was the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship being held in late September. So Smith got the appropriate directions and made another five-hour drive to Sunriver.

“He’s been all over this state,” Lang said. “But he told me he’d drive it three times back and forth just to be here for me.”

And he was.

Stuart Hall is a writer with the Golf Press Association whose work has appeared previously on USGA Championship Web sites.