The Yorkshire caddie who worked the bags for Seve, Westwood and Tiger
Horse RacingThe best stories in golf rarely come from the players themselves. They come from the people walking beside them, the caddies, and nobody walks or tells a tale quite like Billy Foster.
A lad from Bingley in West Yorkshire, Foster started caddying for Gordon J Brand in the early 1980s and within a few years found himself on the bag of Severiano Ballesteros, the most charismatic golfer of a generation. He worked for Seve through a love hate apprenticeship that would shape the rest of his career. From there the list reads like a Ryder Cup team sheet, Darren Clarke, Thomas Bjorn, Sergio Garcia, Colin Montgomerie and the man he would partner for 15 of the most successful years of his life, Lee Westwood.
He carried for Tiger Woods for a short spell as well, travelled the world several times over, and finally walked into the winner's circle at a major in 2022 when his current player Matt Fitzpatrick won the US Open at Brookline. After 40 years of waiting, Billy wept on the 18th green.
His autobiography Bagman, written with Michael Calvin, became one of the most acclaimed sports books of recent years, full of the raw, profane, unforgettable stories of life inside the ropes. As an after-dinner speaker he is in a category of his own, a Yorkshireman who has seen almost everything golf can throw at a man and still loves the game that much more for it.
Two decades of world class speakers in the basement at EC3. Want to book Billy Foster or someone like them? Tell us what you need and we will come back with a plan.
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