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What: “A Wee Nip at the 19th Hole,” by Richard Mackenzie, 134 pages, Sleeping Bear Press.

Price: $18.95.

For today’s golfers, the dominant image of the caddie is embodied in Fluff Cowan, who has become his own droopy-mustached mini-industry as Tiger Woods’ bag carrier and on-course advisor. Of course, Fluff Cowan has about as much in common with the first caddies who lugged clubs at St. Andrews more than 200 years ago as the Old Course does to a par-three nine-holer with AstroTurf tee boxes.

Mackenzie, caddie manager at St. Andrews, chronicles the evolution of caddies at the home of golf in a book sprinkled with historical footnotes on the game itself, a Scottish glossary and photographs and illustrations of eras very different from today’s. It’s probably no leap to assume Mackenzie considers the proliferation of electric golf carts in place of human bag carriers anything but progress.

Caddies of the mid-1800s often supplemented their meager incomes as apprentice ball makers and club makers; some were also golf professionals before the distinction between the two lines of work became clearer.

Early caddies were poorly paid and regarded, with some justification. Some were “ragamuffins” who took their drink more seriously than their jobs and enjoyed their “wee nips” 19 holes before the 19th hole. One senior caddie in the early 1900s, Old Grant, after berated and rejected by a player because he was drunk, shot back, “Maybe I’m drunk, but I’ll get sober. You cannae gowf and ye’ll no’ get better!” Old Grant staggered away and scattered the man’s clubs on the ground. He didn’t get a tip.