ON A PAR BY HIMSELF : Dee Darden--Caddy and Confidant--Puts Down the Bag for the Final Time

Dee Darden was, as he will tell you, born with grass between his toes. He can tell you about how the wind feels on his face, how the flight of a golf ball is magic and how the years can catch up with you. He can tell you about flying a fighter jet. And he’ll show you pictures of two of his old Air Force buddies, Buzz Aldrin and Ed White, who would venture farther into orbit while Darden was coming down to earth.

Darden landed on a golf course one day in 1976 after retiring from the Air Force, and the bucolic little patches have been his personal campgrounds ever since.

Darden’s wife, Jean, has been with him on this venture; until last week, both were caddies on the LPGA tour.

When Dee Darden, who turned 60 in June, retired from caddying last week because of an arthritic hip and bad knees, there was no press conference.

But his loss to the LPGA Tour is not insignificant. For several years Darden, who flew jet fighters in Korea and Vietnam, carried Beth Daniel’s golf bag. He also has been a longtime caddy for Nancy Lopez. Last week he began with Lopez in Seattle, but by Saturday, he could not haul her clubs over 18 holes without a lot of pain.

Darden had knee surgery in January and had hoped to finish the year caddying with Lopez. But last week’s outing was his finale. While Jean Darden will continue caddying for the LPGA, Dee will turn his energy to photography.

“Dee is not just a caddy, he’s a dear, dear friend,” said Ray Knight, Lopez’s husband. “We’re close to him, he’s a very good man with a huge heart. You never heard him complaining even when he was hurt. He was like a father figure. To sum up, he’s family.”

Darden, the most visible caddy on the LPGA Tour with his straw pith helmet with a solar-driven fan attached to the brim, has shared in more great victories than most. He has 26 victories in 13 years and has won at least once in each of the past 10 years.

“I don’t know any other totally free enterprise system,” he said. “There may be some, but I can’t think of any off-hand, maybe gardening or something. There are very few rules except those governing your integrity, no set pay scale, no contracts, you are outdoors, you’ve got some of the prettiest golf courses and scenic areas in the country, and someone else mows the grass.

“The hair raises on my arms when I watch these great players. The greatest feeling in the world is coming up the 18th with a two-stroke lead. In a physical sense, flying a jet doesn’t compare to it. It’s because the game is so damned hard.”

Darden’s southern charm, simplicity and mature deference to the players have endeared him to those who hang around this game. He not only accepts but embraces his nature--to stand behind the hero, urging greatness with a whisper, a gentle wind beneath the wings.

“There is absolutely no one out here (on tour) who doesn’t like Dee,” Jean Darden said.

The other day, Daniel (who is on a tear, winning three times in the past six weeks) and her caddy walked past Darden during the Nippon Travel-MBS tournament at Los Coyotes and asked how he was doing. He said he was doing “pretty good.” Then he shouted after them to abridge his comment, saying with a big laugh, “but not as good as you are.”

Maybe great caddies don’t get press conferences, but the greatest deserve some statement of appreciation, Lopez says. So Thursday night after the first round at Los Coyotes, Lopez and Knight threw a surprise party for Darden at the Buena Park Hotel.

Good friends of Darden’s, about 40 of them, were invited to this improvised retirement party. Daniel and Sherri Turner were there. The Lopez-Knight kids, Ashley Marie and Erinn Shea, were running around. Myra and Worth Blackwelder were there with their kids, Mallory and Miles, and so was Donna White. And, of course, there was a table full of caddies.

Darden showed up at the hotel about 7:30, believing he and Jean were meeting Lopez and Knight for dinner. The surprise party secret apparently was well kept. “I don’t get fooled much, but you guys . . . you guys really got me this time,” Darden said.

On a night when friends came by to tell him they loved him, would miss him, wish him well, Darden was moving easily around the room taking photos, overwhelmed and deflecting the attention.

“I was just floating on a cloud,” he said later.

Lopez wrote a poem, and midway through the party she stood in front of the room and read it aloud. “It always felt nice to have you by my side . . .

“To boost me, to support me, to nurture, to guide” . . . it began.

As she continued reading, laughter filled the room from time to time: “When you couldn’t loop that first week in Boca, Ray tried to help, but boy did he choke-a.”

“I love Ray so much but still I cried, I need a real caddy by my side.

“But you were still hurt and I was trying to cope. If I could just get Ray behind that old rope.”

As Lopez read, she would tremble from time to time, especially when she came to the lines:

“Finally you came back to me in Seattle, rarin’ to go and fight the battle.

“I was so surprised to see you get around so fast, I could only hope and pray that it would last.

“Then on Saturday when we walked up that hill, I knew by the look in your eye that you’d had your fill.

“It saddens me so to see you depart. But Dee, I’ll always hold you close to my heart. I’ll always remember that friendly smile, you made the word ‘caddy’ stand for style.”

Darden and Lopez then cried and embraced. A roomful of golfers and caddies and kids also were duly moved.

But one other moment might, years from now, remain the purest and most moving glimpse of Dee Darden.

On a night when the greatest woman golfer in the game today, Lopez, and some good friends gathered to pay tribute to him, Darden deferred. He stood behind a table, looking down at a big green and white cake embossed with a cartoon figure of an old caddy with a golf bag slung over his shoulder and a bandage on his left knee, poised to cut the cake and execute the symbolic conclusion to his beloved career.

Then with his friends beseeching him to tell some “caddy stories,” Dee Darden, friend to astronauts and golfers, with tears in his eyes and something in his throat that felt like a golf ball, pointed to Nancy Lopez and said, “Nancy, there ain’t nobody like you.”