Caddie's Role:No matter which way you decided to get yourself from Arizona to Thailand for last week's Johnnie Walker Classic it was going to be a tough trip.

The plan for my player, Retief Goosen, was that if we got beaten in the first or second rounds of the World Golf Championships we would fly east to Thailand. If we made it beyond the second round then we would approach the holiday island of Phuket from a westerly direction.

After a second-round defeat to Niclas Fasth, the advantage of going east was that we got to spend a couple of days at home before heading on again to south east Asia. Obviously flying west would have taken a little less time.

The other competitors who were playing in both events all flew west. The common factor between all off us was that we were totally discombobulated.

With the successive events having strong global brands in sponsors Accenture and Johnnie Walker there was a similar infrastructure and feel at both tournaments.

There was no mistaking that we were near the equator in Phuket last week, the daily 34 degree temperature forecast sounded hot but the high level of humidity meant that you pumped sweat at the flick of an eyelash.

The expats who play the course regularly said that most of them get two caddies; one to carry the bag and the other to hold the reflective umbrella to divert the intensity of the sun's rays.

Traditionally throughout Asia caddying is a woman's job. This applies to Thailand. The room in which we stored the golf bag was located by the caddie shack. So when you went by in the morning you were greeted with the babble of loud high voices from the caddie area which sounded more like a kids' playground than an area for adult congregation.

These people must be the friendliest in the world. They always greet you with a big smile and a warm "Sawasdee Kap" (hello).

The sight of these diminutive women carrying golf bags, many of them as big as the porters themselves, was a feat of physical prowess that did not seem possible.

Not one of them looked like they were struggling to support the heavy professional golf bags, which were not held too far above the ground given the size of both bag and carrier. It perked a few of us flagging professional loopers (most of us male) up when the afternoon heat, coupled with the weight of the bag, kicked in halfway around the back nine.

None of these local caddies seemed to drink as copiously as us. Is it possible that your body becomes accustomed to retaining fluids the more time you spend in a hot country?

The island of Phuket, off the south west coast of Thailand, is one of the original tourist destinations in the kingdom.

Although it started out 25 years ago as a place for the more adventurous traveller to visit, with their highest expectation of accommodation being a beach hut, the package tourists have taken over.

There is always something a little frustrating about coming to a beautiful location to work. We stayed at a nice resort close to the beach. At breakfast, conversations about how fellow diners planned to spend their days made me a little envious; snorkeling, scuba diving, sipping cocktails in the shade by the pool or simply hanging out on the beach sounded way more appealing than humping a bag around the Blue Canyon Country Club.

The higher end tourist has taken over the idyllic parts of Thailand but there is always some traditional charm that you can never cover with concrete. As I breakfasted one morning a golfer asked his waiter if there was peanut butter available. He had a vacant look on his face but eventually seemed to get the message.

About five minutes later he returned to the expectant golfer holding a round tray aloft supporting a colourful looking cocktail which turned out to be a Pina Colada. The Thais are good at figuring out what us westerners want and giving it to us. The request for a cocktail at 8am was obviously not as outrageous as that for peanut butter. As global as our world has become there is still plenty of opportunity to get amusingly lost in translation.