Where Tiger holds record, course offers female model caddies

        I wrote yesterday that public golf courses would do well to avoid their initial instincts to cut prices and, instead, try some creative approaches to inspire customer loyalty.  Today, I stumbled upon a golf club’s web site whose creativity may have inspired Tiger Woods.

        Las Vegas area golf course Rio Secco hosted the 2009 Wendy’s Three Tour Challenge in November.  The Wendy’s pits teams of pros from the PGA, LPGA and Senior PGA Tours against each other.  The tournament was broadcast on TV this past weekend, and the ladies team of Natalie Gulbis, Suzann Pettersen and Cristie Kerr beat the men’s teams.

        That was only one example of how friendly Rio Secco is to women (the LPGA team has won there before).  A Rio Secco caddy program,

called T-Mates, has been a course mainstay for more than two years.  For about $200, more than the club’s green fee rate most times of the year, a golfer can sign up for a female caddy for the round, most of them supplied by local modeling agencies.  According to the Rio Secco web site, the caddy performs all customary caddy duties and even calls in her golfer's food order at the turn and hangs out with the customer for after-round drinks in the clubhouse.  That all adds up to about $40 per hour, a bargain by Las Vegas escort pricing standards.

        The Rees Jones designed Rio Secco, which is also host to the Butch Harmon Golf School, is apparently a favorite of Tiger Woods.  The club was the site earlier this year of the Tiger Jam, a charity tournament for the Tiger Woods Foundation.  Woods is the host of the annual event, which attracts such celebrities as Charles Barkley, Pamela Anderson and Eddie van Halen and has raised more than $11 million for the foundation and Vegas area charities since its inception in 1998.  Woods showed up for the 2008 event on crutches while nursing his injured knee and before his legendary win at the U.S. Open later that summer.

         It should come as little surprise that Woods holds the course record at Rio Secco with a 64, a feat he accomplished in 2007.  That was the year Rio Secco debuted its T-Mates idea and, we now know from news reports, a year in which Tiger may have been setting off course records as well.  One of his alleged mistresses, Jamie Jungers, is a Las Vegas model, cocktail waitress and caddy.  (The web site CaddyChicks.com features Ms. Jungers, indicating she is "Tiger's favorite caddy.")  As a female Vegas caddy, she very likely has trod the fairways at Rio Secco and may just have inspired Woods’ record round.  But also in 2007, Ms. Jungers has told interviewers, Woods dropped her when she mentioned her financial difficulties to him.  She also said he never paid for meals or tipped servers while the two dated. 

        In some things, apparently, he showed a lot of control.

Rio Secco scorecard, which notes Woods' record round, hole by hole.