Brian Nilsson Archives - Golf Digest Middle East

Veteran caddie explains the practical differences between men and women in pro golf

Golf Digest Middle East — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 04:52:06 +0000

Andrew Redington
Caddie Brian Nilsson and player Nicolas Colsaerts have worked together for 11 years.

By John Huggan
FIFE, Scotland — Brian Nilsson is a professional caddie. A good one too. The Thailand-based Australian has been employed on the European Tour for nigh-on 25 years, the last 11 with former Ryder Cup player, Nicolas Colsaerts. So Nilsson knows his business. But he doesn’t know everything, as he is quickly discovering during a brief sortie into the women’s game. Having worked for compatriot Su Oh at the recent ISPS Handa World Invitational in Northern Ireland, Nilsson is also on the 2016 Olympian’s bag this week at the Women’s Scottish Open and will be again next week for the Women’s British Open at Carnoustie.

Already, it’s been an education for this veteran bagman, the thoughts that normally flow naturally through his experienced head often requiring adjustment. What works well for a male professional, sometimes doesn’t for a woman. And vice versa. At the elite level, there are differences in the ways men and women play golf. They are, to coin a phrase, often two different games.

“Most of the women don’t generate the same clubhead speed as the men,” says Nilsson. “So they also generate less spin. And the flight on their shots is generally lower and flatter, the ball releasing more after it lands. Where a male pro hits, say, a 9-iron and pitches it 150-odd yards, the ball will grip on landing. But when maybe 90 percent of the women hit a 9-iron, the ball will release on landing. Because they don’t get the same spin.”

OK, so far so good. That all makes sense. But what difference does it all make in practical terms? How much of an advantage do the men get from their generally greater strength and clubhead speed?

The answer, as it turns out, isn’t as straightforward as you might think. Yes, most men have a yardage advantage and so can hit shorter clubs into greens, but the adjustments they have to make in a wind are sometimes harder to compute. An example:

“Here’s the thing,” says Nilsson. “In Ireland [with Oh] we came to a hole that was playing really strongly downwind. We had 145 yards to the pin and were trying to land the ball 137. From there, it would run to the hole. I asked Su what the 137 yardage was playing. I reckoned it was maybe a two-club wind. She said it was playing about 130. I was shocked by that. I couldn’t believe it. Only seven yards of help? In this strong a wind?

“So she selects her little 9-iron, hits it perfect and has a putt for birdie,” continues Nilsson. “Once I thought about it, that made sense. Because she generates less spin than I’m used to seeing, the ball doesn’t stay in the air as long. So the wind has less of an effect on how far it goes. In that same situation, Nicolas would have been trying to pitch the ball close to the hole. But let’s say he was trying to hit it 137, same as Su. Given the strength of the wind, he would have hit what we would see as a just over 100-yard shot. With a sand-wedge.”

Harry Murphy
Su Oh of Australia tees off in the ISPS Handa World Invitational.

What about into the wind? As it turns out (and generally speaking), women again have something of an edge when it comes to picking the right club.

“Because the women hit their shots flatter and with less spin, they get more penetration,” says Nilsson. “Their shots go through the wind better. On, say, a 110-yard shot, most men would be hitting the club that usually sends the ball 125-yards. But the women don’t have to allow nearly that much. Their yardage adjustment is a lot less, so their club selection is more straightforward.”

Through this learning process, Nilsson has understandably made mistakes. Applying the thought processes he has used for years on the European Tour hasn’t always turned out to be the best policy. Again, the key factor is the amount of spin that women can create on their shots compared with the men. Another example:

“There was a par 3 in Ireland where there was an obvious pin position behind a bunker,” he says. “Right away, I could see that becoming a bit of an issue if the hole played downwind. And it did. On the day we were there, it was 139 yards to carry the bunker, then seven yards from there to the pin, then seven more to the back of the green. I knew Su couldn’t carry the sand with her 9-iron. So she had to hit an 8-iron. At least that’s what I told her, despite the fact that I knew it was unlikely that the ball would hold the putting surface. Which it didn’t.

“Later, I thought about it more,” he continues. “We actually played the hole the wrong way. We should have hit the 9-iron and aimed 30-feet left of the flag. That was the best option. Me sticking to my guns was a mistake. Su hit a nice shot. It pitched right by the flag. But the ball finished over the green. That was my fault. We should have gone left. All of this is a big adjustment for me. But I’m fascinated by it. And the next two weeks we are playing links golf. So the ball will be on the ground more than normal. That’s another adjustment.”

Not the biggest one, though. During his more-than-a-decade stint on the Colsaerts bag, Nilsson has yet to see anyone longer with irons than the Belgian. And the next couple of weeks won’t alter that fact. Oh hits her 6-iron about 165 yards; Colsaerts hits his 203. Some things about golf’s gender divide never change.

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European Tour caddie and his wife on a mission to feed starving villagers in Thailand

Golf Digest Middle East — Sun, 10 May 2020 05:33:49 +0000

Matthew Lewis/R&A
Nicolas Colsaerts (right) of Belgium walks the seventh fairway with his caddie Brian Nilsson during the second round of 2012 Open Championship.

By John Huggan
It is March 10, two days after the conclusion of the Qatar Masters, the last tournament played on the European Tour before the coronavirus changed the world forever. Brian Nilsson has arrived back in Bangkok, Thailand, his home for the last 17 years. The Australian, universally known as “Aussie Bri” on the Old World circuit, where he has spent the last decade on former Ryder Cup player Nicolas Colsaerts’s bag, didn’t hang about in the nation’s capital though.

Realising the heightened dangers of staying in such a densely populated area, Nilsson and his wife, Fohn (“Fohnzie” to her friends), headed south to the Hilltop Ao Nang resort in the Krabi Province, the “gateway to the islands,” not far from Phuket.

Little did they know that trip would be just the start of a so-far two-month-long odyssey that has seen the pair involve themselves in a life-saving mission, what has become known as “Operation Happy Tummy.”

With the tourist industry all but decimated, the local villagers were left penniless and hungry, their sole means of supporting themselves suddenly gone. Very quickly, the situation reached dire proportions; people were starving.

“We could see that the people were in trouble,” says Nilsson. “The tourist season had been quiet anyway. But this was disastrous. With no one coming in, there was no work. None. So we came up with an idea. Our friend, Pete Tanawatana, who owns the resort, has continued to employ 15 members of his kitchen staff. They began producing food for the locals. Alex Wuttijirakul, who owns a local bar, has also been a great help.”

Within the first week, 300 meals were being given away. That expanded when the poorest communities and villages were included. So 300 meals a week soon became 300 per day. But that was providing only one meal per person. Today, “Happy Tummy” is looking after about 400 people and preparing 5,500 meals per week. That works out to about 15 per person, or about two meals a day.

“Three days a week we cook their meals,” says Nilsson. “On the other days we hand out dry packs with 500 grams of rice, four eggs, some tinned fish and milk for the kids. So the locals are still doing some cooking for themselves. We don’t have to see them every day.”

All of which has required money, of course. The initial aim was to raise £20,000—enough to provide food for four months—and that target has almost been reached through a variety of means. Donations from Nilsson’s fellow caddies have come in, as well as from European Tour players. And Thailand’s leading golfers have stepped up, as well as the nation’s leading badminton, tennis, swimming and Tae Kwon Do stars.

“My wife works for a company called ‘All-Thailand Golf Tours,’” says Nilsson. “She got in touch with many of the leading Thai golfers like Boonchu Ruangkit, Prom Meesawat, Danthai Boonma and Kosuke Hamamato. They started a ‘chip-off challenge’ on the internet. They chipped five balls each into a bucket maybe 10 yards away. If you failed to get at least three, you had to donate to ‘Happy Tummy.’ That was successful. Then the top badminton players started something similar. And the tennis players and the swimmers and the Tae-Kwon Do guys. All of that raised quite a bit of money.”

Further complicating the need for cash is the fact that many of the people living in the Ao Nang area hail from other parts of Thailand. To claim the government hand out they would have to travel back to their home province, which is impossible with the country in lockdown.

“That actually became a moot point,” says Nilsson, failing to hide his disdain, “when the government announced they don’t actually have the money.”

Anyway, there is more to this tale than mere fundraising. The accumulation of cash was only the beginning. Realizing that food hand outs are but a short-term solution to the problems faced by the locals, Nilsson and his gang have introduced them to basic farming. It was an obvious conclusion: If you can’t buy food, you better grow it.

“In the last two weeks we have been planting bean sprouts, water spinach (known here as ‘morning glory’) and kale,” reports Nilsson. “The great thing is that the beans can be grown in three or four days. You don’t even have to plant them. We’ve been using old egg containers. Throw in the seeds, add water and boom. It is so hot and humid here, things grow quickly.

“Step two has been the digging of some large holes,” he continues. “Lined with plastic sheeting, they are perfect for farming catfish. That’s not hard to do. We’ve been learning how from YouTube actually. So soon we are going to be providing our own vegetables and fish. We’ll keep going with the rice packs. And we have a deal with one of the big milk companies in Thailand. We’re getting baby formula too for the kids. There are 14 or 15 kids under two (years old) in the villages.”

Geographic expansion of the scheme is also underway. Hearing of a nearby fishing community that had basically been cut-off, Nilsson has been to investigate, courtesy of the Thai police allowing him a special dispensation to get through the many road checkpoints.

“There are 60 people in the village,” says Nilsson. “They have been eating fish for weeks. And nothing else. So now we have set up a barter system. We send them chickens and eggs and rice in return for fish. That gives everyone a more balanced diet. We’ve also been trying to spread the word and tell others what we are doing. The hope is that other provinces will start similar projects. People are starving everywhere in Thailand.”

Two-months after it began, the journey from Qatar via Bangkok is a long way from over. But “Aussie Bri,” with a lot of help from his friends, is getting there. None of which comes as a surprise to his boss.

“Brian’s greatest quality is his loyalty to friends and those close to him,” says Colsaerts, who notes that he and Nilsson must rank in the top three on tour for the length of their working relationship. “I can’t imagine anyone thinks he is anything other than one of the good guys. You can’t last on tour this long without being passionate about everything you do. He and Fohnzie are wonderful people and a great match. You can see that in what they are doing now.

“I’ve seen the back streets in Thailand through Fohnzie. We’ve done things in the past for schools there. One was struggling to find teachers but we were able to help. And Brian has been involved every step of the way.”

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