Caddie Zack Rasego's journey from Apartheid to the Home of Golf

This week it is with another in a long line of Springbok golf champions, Branden Grace, also an Old Course winner, at the 2012 Dunhill Links Championship, also with Rasego on the bag.

But life has not always been a bed of roses for a man considered one of the best bagmen in the business - he was voted European Tour Caddie of the Year in 2012 by a jury of his peers - growing up in Apartheid South Africa in the North West Province when the white minority regime still ran things with a rod of iron.

"My family was poor, my father worked away from home, so it was my mother, two sisters and two brothers plus my grandmother, we had some cattle on poor agricultural land which we owned, but I don't recall clearly being forcibly removed as we were to allow white farmers to take over the land.

"We were moved to a tented encampment near to Sun City," reflects Rasego, adding, "We lived in military tents for three, four years, but even when we were rehoused, there were few opportunities for blacks."

Rasego had no idea what golf was until, as a teenager with no education to speak of was offered a six-month course to train as a caddie at the Gary Player Country Club, home to the controversial Million Dollar Challenge to which all-white multi-millionaire pros played for a million bucks on a course manicured by black labourers on subsistence wages, the apotheosis of 1960s South Africa.

"When I first met Zack, I saw he was a very quick learner and who had a great eye for the job," recalls Gary Player, nine-time 'Major' champion.

But, for Zack Rasego, it was to be an opportunity rather than a threat; he was the man identified by he still calls, "Mr. Player," to have strong skills and great potential as a caddie, Player hiring the 16-year-old former farm boy, going on to win the1979 Sun City Classic.

"Mr. Player was a hard taskmaster, but he taught me that if you are going to do anything in life, you had better do it well and better than the next man," says the 52-year-old South African adding, "We never played golf, football was the national sport of black people in my country and our all-black caddies team won something every season in the Sun City Sunday league.

"I was a good player, but not good enough for a career in the sport, a tough-tackling full back who few forwards got past."

Player also played a part in his protégé's next step in his long walk to freedom, recommending Rasego to Oosthuizen, then an up-and-coming South African golfer emerging from the Ernie Els Academy at Fancourt.

Despite being on the Mossel Bay man's bag for his first European Tour title, the Open de Andalucía Open in March 2010, the rumour mill was awash with reports that the pair were to split; Oosthuizen relented and the rest, as they say, 'Is history.'

The South African star sauntered to a maiden, 'Major,' The Open Championship at the Old Course, St Andrews, Rasego, the faithful retainer by his side as they crossed the Swilken Bridge with a seven-shot lead and the Claret Jug in the bag.

Rasego's memories of the day are a measure of a humble man from humble beginnings, recalling, I was so pleased for Louis," adding, "I was happy we won the Open at such a special place as St. Andrews [but] I stayed away from him, to make sure he got all the exposure.

"It was extra special too, on Madiba's 92nd birthday, and at the Home of Golf, memories that will stay with me for the rest of my life," insists Rasego.

But, as Rasego himself concedes, a caddie's life is a precarious one, the Open-winning partnership coming to an end soon after Oosthuizen had held the Claret Jug aloft.

A cross between a rollercoaster, a merry-go-round and a dating agency, caddies and players come and go, Rasego eventually teaming-up with the next South African star off the conveyor, another Fancourt graduate, Branden Grace, the impact almost immediate.

Grace won back-to-back events on home soil at the start of 2012, before going on to win twice more that season, the including the Dunhill Links Championship at St. Andrews, Grace's first but Rasego's second win at the Home of Golf.

On his chosen career, Rasego is philosophical, observing, "As a caddie, you just have to learn than no matter who you work for, he's your boss, the one who is going to pay you, and mutual trust and respect between you and your boss goes a long way.

"You have to know your player, his strengths and weaknesses, read the mood as carefully as the greens, its far more sophisticated than in the old adage, 'Turn up, keep-up and shut-up',"

But, after four wins on the 2012 European Tour, Grace informed him he wanted a change, Rasego as sanguine as ever, saying, "It was his call, it's business, not personal, so I went back home to South Africa to spend some time with my family.

"I went back on Tour, to the USA, working for Korean Jeong Jin, when out of the blue came a call from Branden, asking if I would go back and work with him, and I said, 'Yes,' straight away, a business decision again."

Grace said, with grace, "I made a mistake but now I have corrected it."

And the reputation of being the man with the Midas touch was cemented before too long, Grace winning in South Africa and Qatar within weeks of the Rasego reunion.

Rasego would never advise any young black South African to take up the profession that has taken him to all points on the compass and earned him a living far beyond his wildest boyhood dreams.

"Absolutely not, I would say, 'get your education, now we have our country back, it's possible, then you have choices,' and my advice to them after that would, never look back, live in the present and always look ahead to the future."

A shy but engaging man, Zack Rasego feels at home in Scotland, saying, "I am so proud to have won twice at such a special place as the 'Home of Golf,' and, in moderation, I do enjoy a single malt, preferably a dram - but never more - of Glenfiddich after dinner.

One suspects that if Branden Grace was to lift the Claret Jug on Sunday for a third Rasego triumph at St. Andrews, the caddie's relationship with the country and its national drink might just be cemented for far longer than the tenure of the professional golf caddie.