Caddies get a tournament to celebrate one their own

This time, the club pro kept asking if there were anything he could do for the caddies, instead of the other way around. This time, a member made sure the caddies were signed in and had everything they needed. This time, the caddies weren't carrying clubs, they were swinging them.

No toting bags on the hot, sticky Monday at Cherry Valley Club in Garden City. Caddies, more than 70 of them, all were riding in carts for the Inaugural Keith R. Cerrato Memorial Golf Tournament, the local caddies championship.

Cherry Valley pro Ed Kelly decided to hold the event in honor of Cerrato, the Cherry Valley caddie who died at 24 in 2006 when he was crossing a street in Hempstead and was hit by a car (tests later showed that the car had faulty brakes).

"He was just going to graduate from Hofstra," said his mother, Mary Lou, who attended the tournament with her daughter Corey. "He just loved this job. He did it since he was 13 and he knew you had to pay your dues. He would give up a loop if Ed needed him to collect the golf balls or work in the bag room. I'm telling you, if he were here today I think he'd still be a caddie, I really do."

The tournament instantly evolved into a tribute to all caddies. Like ballplayers who wear their team uniforms to the all-star game, just about everyone wore a cap or shirt with his club's crest. Those clubs sponsored their caddies, with proceeds going to scholarship funds at Chaminade High and Hofstra, Cerrato's schools.

"He would be ecstatic that this was going on," said Brendan O'Kane, Cerrato's friend and fellow caddie. "And he would know everybody."

That would include, according to tournament director Bill Goldschein's official pairings sheet, G-Man, Shortie, Froggy, Caddy Shack and Big Hammer. An eclectic mix. "You see every strain of life," said Micheal Quille of Listowel, Ireland, near Ballybunion Golf Club, where he caddies. He played Monday during his college summer on Long Island.

On the driving range, you could see "Iron Mike" Blackman from Glen Oaks, the de facto defending champion because he had won the last organized Met Section caddies tournament in 1979.

Near the first tee, there was Southward Ho's Brad Keckler, who had been a headhunter on Wall Street until the meltdown. "I had to come back to doing this, to pay the bills," he said.

Everywhere, there were stories. Ron Derry, 67, of Hampshire Country Club in Mamaroneck, a single-digit handicap, told of having tried out for the PGA Tour along with his buddies Lee Elder and Jim Dent. "Alcohol got in my way - you want me to be honest," he told a visitor with a laugh. Now Derry is a respected retired building tradesman who still caddies and reminisces about having carried for Dean Martin in Atlantic City and Ben Hogan at Seminole Golf Club.

"Hogan didn't say much," Derry said. "Once, on the seventh hole, he was getting ready to hit a 4-wood and I told him it wasn't enough because he had the wind coming at him and he was hitting over the water. He hit a 3-wood and knocked it like this." Derry held his hands about a foot apart to say that's how close the ball landed near the hole. "All he did was look at me," said Derry.

Caddies can be competitive, too. Kelly said he purposely called it a tournament, not an outing. Mill River's Vlady Vasquez won with a 72.

But there was more to this than a trophy. "I'm overwhelmed right now," Gary Johnson from Hempstead Country Club said before he teed off. "I'm usually carrying bags and putters and now I get a chance to get in there and do it. I feel like a star."