Caddie's Role: Two helicopters broke the tranquillity of a Monday morning at Lake Nona, Florida, last week. They swooped down and landed on both sides of the practice ground, depositing their famous passengers. Golf carts rolled up to take the eight players overland for the short trip to the clubhouse.They had arrived for the first day's play of the Tavistock Cup.

The players were the Isleworth team: Mark O'Meara, John Cook, Robert Allenby, Stuart Appleby, Craig Parry, Scott Hoch, Lee Janzen, Charles Howell and Darren Clarke. Their most famous golfing neighbour, Tiger Woods, was not on either chopper as he had decided not to play. But the team seemed to carry some of the Woods spirit with them by donning Woods' winning colours of red and black.

The choppers returned with some supporters of the away team and dumped them at the end of the range in case any of the players had decided to warm up early. These Isleworth residents went to the clubhouse for an early lunch before the main event kicked off at midday.

This was an up-market affair. So exclusive was the event that we caddies had the Central Florida State University golf team acting as our helpers. These young men all aspire to be professionals and are obviously very good golfers. They had been assigned to carry out all sorts of menial tasks, including raking the bunkers. Given how easy everything was for us at this little show, I was surprised that we actually had to carry the bag.

We did not even have to worry about checking yardages. A laser company had persuaded the organisers to let the caddies and players use their laser gun to figure out our distances. This alone saved the caddies a day in preparatory work.

The rumour was, as we skeptically got to grips with the new machinery, that there would be cheques in the post if we were seen on TV using their product. I noticed a lot of lingering and double-checking going on over the two days by some very deliberate caddies. I would have to assume that there will be a lot of cheques in the post.

Our cart-drivers dispatched us to the manicured landing pad, which had reverted back to a range again. Each player was assigned a position, a team on each side of the podium from which the the inaugural Tavistock Cup would be presented.

Christopher Anand, of the Tavistock Group, gave us the background to the birth of the ultimate club championship. He assured the audience that the generous prize fund of $100,000 each for the winners and $50,000 each for the losers, including a load of other incentives and bonuses along the way, was of little consequence to these wealthy champions.

The mega-wealthy audience may well have agreed, but we caddies and some players shook our heads in disagreement. This was money for old rope, but it was a significant amount which made it well worth a winning effort, especially from the caddies' perspective.

The speeches dragged on, with O'Meara, the Isleworth captain, comfortable in his speaker's role, and Ernie Els less so, introducing their respective sides. The MC, Frank Nobilo, also a Lake Nona resident, declared his obvious bias but gave a balanced introduction nonetheless. He figured that between the 18 players, they had won over 320 tournaments, including a heap of majors. He was not playing this event down: before a ball was struck, this was already a big one.

Ernie's daughter and Mark's son raised the Tavistock flag, the ceremony was complete, and the first Tavistock Cup was under way.

From a sartorial point of view, the Lake Nona team of Ernie Els, Nick Faldo, Sergio Garcia, Retief Goosen, Trevor Immelman, Ian Poulter, Justin Rose, Annika Sorenstam and Sven Struver held the weaker hand in their insipid yellow shirt and beige trousers. The red and blacks looked more menacing.

The exclusive gallery was showing its colours, too: there were plenty of yellow and red shirts clearly visible. Not that there was an excessive crowd. About 3,000 attended on Monday. The supporters were limited to marketing partners, club members and their guests.

The only outsiders allowed into Lake Nona were a group of disadvantaged school kids.

Garcia's caddie tried to motivate his man to play a spectacular shot off some dead leaves onto the raised ninth green to a tight pin. "Come on, give these little guys something to remember here," he said as Sergio was evaluating his situation. Unfortunately for Sergio's caddie, they got something to remember all right: he skulled the ball across the green into thick grass. I think the kids were happy to be close to the action, no matter what.

There was a British Open qualifying round feel to the event, with marshals controlling the orderly fans with a hand-held rope; otherwise, there were no crowd restrictions.

When the first Tavistock Cup was handed over to the winning captain, Mark O'Meara, there were some rumblings about the authenticity of some of the Isleworth "resident" players. They were joking of course, but it just indicated the casual nature of the event. If it ever does escalate to a sought-after trophy, which it probably will given the competitive nature of top golfers, then those residency questions may have to be answered.

A worthy beneficiary of this little junket was a cancer hospital which received $500,000.

Meanwhile, for those involved in the inaugural event, it was a no-expense-spared enjoyable couple of days. I left the clubhouse to the sight of a group of caddies on the terrace smoking hand-rolled Cuban cigars, sipping complimentary cocktails after their seafood platters had been cleared off their linen tablecloth. It's an image I hope to take to the cauldron of Augusta National this week as the pressure of the year's first major intensifies.