Buggies and Caddies in Colorado

The short answer

If you want a caddie in Colorado, plan around summer and two addresses. The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs runs a caddie and leadership academy that starts Memorial Day weekend and runs sixteen weeks to just past Labor Day, staffing the resort's East and West courses with trained student caddies through the heart of the season. And CommonGround in Aurora, the Colorado Golf Association's own Tom Doak designed public course, hosts the Solich Caddie and Leadership Academy, founded in 2012, whose young loopers earn educational grants caddying for everyday golfers. Both are summer programs, both reward booking ahead, and both put your caddie fee to work in a scholarship pipeline.

Everywhere else, let the terrain decide. The Front Range cities, Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins and the Springs, hold plenty of walkable golf on rolling prairie ground. The mountain resort courses are another matter: routed through canyons and across ski country at 8,000 feet and higher, with long green to tee transfers, they are cart golf by design and usually price the buggy into the fee. Walk the cities, ride the Rockies, and wherever you play, respect the altitude and the afternoon sky.

The altitude, and how to play it

The number to remember is 6 percent. That is roughly how much farther the ball carries at Denver's 5,280 feet than at sea level, which turns a 250 yard drive into about 265 and a stock 150 yard eight iron into a club less. At the mountain courses, many of which sit between 8,000 and 9,000 feet, the gain is larger again. The thin air also reduces spin's effect, so the ball tends to fly straighter and lower spinning, bounces firmer on the dry turf, and runs. Trust the math on the way up and be suspicious of it on delicate shots: chips, pitches and downwind wedges all come out hotter than your eyes expect. A caddie or a local yardage consult on the first tee pays for itself here faster than almost anywhere in America.

Caddies with a purpose

Colorado's two caddie strongholds share a model worth supporting. The Broadmoor's academy and the Solich Academy at CommonGround both train students who caddie through the summer and earn educational grants, around 600 dollars a month across the season in the Solich program, for doing it. For the visiting golfer the experience is the classic one, a reader of greens and a carrier of bags on two of the state's best walking courses, with the bonus that the fee and the tip fund scholarships. Both programs run summer windows, roughly Memorial Day through Labor Day, so a June to August trip is the one that gets the full caddie experience. Book the caddie when you book the tee time.

Etiquette, storms and how to plan around it

The mountain weather writes the etiquette here. Summer afternoons build thunderstorms with real lightning danger on exposed ground, so Colorado golf is morning golf; take the early time, keep pace, and when the horn sounds, go in without debate. Hydrate more than you think you need to, because altitude dehydrates quietly, and sunscreen is non negotiable a mile closer to the sun. The usual courtesies apply, repair pitch marks, sand divots, rake bunkers, keep carts to the posted rule, and on the firm, fast surfaces of late summer, keep buggies well away from greens. Plan the caddie legs for the cities and the Springs, the cart legs for the high country, and the tee times for the morning, and Colorado gives you some of the best summer golf weather in America.