"cheaters_always_prosper" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bucher Brazil)

insurance purposes, of course). Aaron had lied, too, but
had not needed documentation; apparently it would have
been bad form to ask the head tennis pro's son for proof of
his age. I did have the problem. Solution: My mother's
secretary took pity on me. She falsified a few documents
with some white-out, a typewriter, and a copy machine that
gave the country club a paper trail. When I gave the
paperwork to the caddie master, he smiled a knowing
smile when he saw the Xeroxed documents--and handed
me the caddie test.

Hurdle No. 3: The caddie test. I failed miserably. The
questions about caddie etiquette and rules were simple;
they were common-sense answers. The problem was that
more than half of the test comprised maps of each hole on
the course, and I had to fill in yardages from all the natural
landmarks on a hole in relation to the putting green. For
example, "this tree is 217 yards from the edge of the putting
green, and this rock formation is... " I told Aaron that I had
failed. He told me I was stupid; no one passed the test
without cheating. Solution: I cheated on my makeup
test--purposely leaving one wrong answer--and I passed
and prospered.

Hurdle No. 4: I got the job, but I didn't even know how to
play golf. Solution: I bulled my way through the first few
rounds and learned quickly. (The game is so simple that I
had to laugh at the people who played it.)

So there I was, at age fifteen, caddying for movie stars,
producers, captains of industry--and making $75 to $100
per round. I was meeting incredible people, spending my
days on a world-class golf course, and getting paid four or
five times as much as friends who had routine jobs. What
did I do? I got greedy. I wanted more money, and it was
there.

There were some members of the club who were "new
money" in every sense of the term. The caddies loved them
because they were the people who thought it was classy to
tip for anything and everything. Carry their bag from their
car to a golf cart (forty or so yards), and you'd have ten
dollars for lunch. These people were also major tippers
for a round of golf A lot of them were professional sports
players (or owned a team) and felt that the size of the tip
was a measure of their masculinity. These golfers were a
real prize for a caddie; $200 to $500 per round was
standard. These were the rounds every caddie wanted but
only a few of us got.