Không ngờ áp lực thế

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Tour caddies (người phục vụ trên sân golf) are well-compensated (được đền bù xứng đáng). The winning looper (người phục vụ trên sân golf) this week will pocket (bỏ túi) a nice $144,000. But they earn that 10 percent. A long-running joke (câu nói đùa) among caddies is that there are only three rules: Show up, keep up and shut up. Truth is, their jobs might be tougher than the players’. Well maybe not quite, but it’s close. Caddies are part pack mule (công cụ thồ hàng), part meteorologist (nhà khí tượng học), part psychologist (nhà tâm lý học) (BIG part), part mathematician (nhà toán học), part scapegoat (người hàm oan), part psychic and sometimes even part bartender (người pha chế). When I played in the LPGA’s Michelob Ultra Open a few years back, a veteran (kỳ cựu) caddie suggested to the man on my bag a little Drambuie and Sprite to calm my nerves. (Full disclosure: He did have a water bottle filled with Chardonnay available at all times. We never used it, but it was a comfort knowing it was there.)