Billy Foster is back at the Open Championship this week, where he will carry the bag for an incredible 41st time…
Anguish at the Open Championship is most often reserved for the players who let the game’s oldest major slip through their grasp. But not always.
“I’ve been very fortunate to win 45 golf tournaments around the world with different players,” Billy Foster admitted a few years ago. “I’ve said it on record that I’d give them all away to caddie for the winner of the Claret Jug.”
Boy has Foster been close. The most desperate near miss was when the legendary caddie stood beside Thomas Bjorn when the Dane contrived to lose a two shot lead to Ben Curtis with three holes remaining at the 2003 Open at Royal St George’s. Then there was Lee Westwood’s golden opportunity at Turnberry in 2009, as well as near misses with Darren Clarke on two separate occasions.
Yet still, Foster’s love affair with The Open endures.
The 62-year-old first caddied in this tournament for South African Hugh Baiocchi 42 years ago, and has since lugged it around the links for majors winners from Seve Ballesteros to Matt Fitzpatrick. He has only missed one since, at Royal Lytham in 2012.
“I had a cruciate ligament injury,” he says. “And I still went.”
Indeed, Foster just can’t stay away.
It looked as if the Yorkshireman’s record of caddying in every Open – when fit – since the age of 20 was going to finally end this year at Royal Birkdale.
That was until the phone rang last week. Foster was picked up by Matthew Southgate, who finished in a tie for sixth on the Open’s last visit to Birkdale nine years ago. The Englishman has now made it through the gruelling 36-hole final qualifier on six occasions.
“He just called me and said ‘I’ve qualified, will you come and work for me?’” Foster tells TG. “You’re not going to miss the Open. I’ve done every one since 1984.”
This will be Foster’s 41st Open, surely a record, and he has memories here to last a lifetime.
His finest moment, he says, was “walking up the last hole with Tiger Woods at St Andrews four years ago, and the ovation”. Foster was working with his playing partner Fitzpatrick, hanging back as Woods crossed the Swilcan Bridge to take in the applause.
“Everybody was thinking it was his last Open,” Foster says. “He’s shedding tears and I’m walking pretty much just at the back of him. It was an incredible experience.”
Foster will return to his old pal Westwood’s bag next week as LIV Golf makes its return at JCB Golf & Country Club in the Staffordshire countryside.
But for now, there are more memories to be made at the tournament that means more than them all.