I have always been suspicious of people with letters after their name. Last week in a portacabin behind the 18th green at Carnoustie my doubts were confirmed. I had arrived on the Sunday before the British Open full of enthusiasm for my first major of the year. I wanted to walk the golf course and take some extra measurements to add to the yardage book.

At the fourth green a security guard approached me to tell me that I could not walk on the green. It was flat and my yardage book already had all the relevant figures, so I moved on. On my way to the sixth green another guard intercepted me with the same message: keep off the green.

I tried to explain what I was doing, showed him my caddie badge and yardage book and laser. He was not interested in my story.

The guards told me they were there to protect the course against vandalism. I weigh 65 kilos, and was wearing trainers and was heavily armed with a laser and yardage - I must have cut a threatening figure. Having looked at the set-up of the first six holes I thought to myself that a crime had been already committed and the culprits were still at large sitting on the balcony of the clubhouse sipping single malt whiskeys and buttoning up their R&A blazers in the cool of the evening.

Upset at not being able to do my job, I marched back towards the clubhouse, to the office of the secretary of the R&A, Sir Michael Bonallack. I introduced myself as a caddie, maybe my first error. Seated sideways to the entrance, he moved his head a notch in my direction. My second mistake was to hope for an appeasing answer having explained my situation.

As I looked at his heavy right jowl and side profile, I concluded that knighthood must grace you with peripheral vision, because Sir Michael was explaining the situation to me in a dismissive fashion while looking at his desk. I was obviously going to receive little satisfaction. The icy reception made me wonder what would have been his response to my question "why did you destroy a great golf course"?

The answer? We cannot control the elements, Sir Michael was heard saying. The greenkeeper did not act upon our instructions, said the chairman Alastair Campbell. So just who was responsible then? And why did they do it?

The R&A are responsible for defiling this masterpiece. Their compromise was to extend the first cut of rough early on Tuesday morning when the initial reports of sabotage filtered out.

There are two possible reasons why Sir Michael would preside over such a near farcical finale to his tenure as Secretary of the R&A: firstly, he is vindictive and wanted to put these prima donnas in their place - I hope that this is not the reason; secondly, he is a cog in the grander scheme of the philosophy of the majors. This is driven by the belief that technological progress is regressive and the nature of golf courses as they were designed must be fabricated to the point of the absurd in order to protect the essence of the game.

Come the Sunday, I watched in agony as surprise leader Jean Van de Velde and his caddie Christophe deliberated over the next move after the player's drive at the 18th ended up a few yards wide and short of the snaking burn some 190 yards from the front of the green.

I remembered watching a similar scene five years ago at the US Open when Lee Janzen won his first major at Baltisrol. Janzen had driven into the right-hand rough but could still reach the green with a long iron. There was a ditch half way between him and the green. If he didn't quite catch the two iron it was in the ditch. A likely bogey the result and a squandered major.

The television cameras were in the faces of Janzen and his caddie while they deliberated over the most important decision that either of them could have made in their golfing careers. His caddie was silent, Janzen was confused. After what seemed like a very long time, during which I was inwardly screaming from my easy chair "tell him to hit a wedge short of the ditch, please tell him and he'll win and caddies worldwide will stand proud" silence reigned.

But Janzen made a champion's decision. He put the two iron in his bag and snatched the wedge out. Good move. I wished that Jean or Christophe had watched that US Open.

I could not witness the intensity of the decision-making process between the two Frenchmen: unlike American golf coverage, the BBC don't seem to feel the caddie/player club selection process is worthy viewing. Instead we have to endure the idle banter of the Beeb's old fogies.

I don't know if Christophe suggested to Jean the option of two sandwedges and his suggestion was dismissed. If this was so, a more experienced caddie would have wrestled the offending club from the player's hand.

It is a pity that we seem to have to personally experience a golfing disaster in order to learn. Looking at the folly of other golfers doesn't teach us. It will happen again.