Japan is a culture shock for most Westerners. There are many peculiarities in everyday life that cause a gaijin (foreigner) to do a double take. There are few cultural surprises left for Australian golfers, however: they have been playing the relatively lucrative Japanese tour for years.

However, when Anthony Gilligan arrived for his first event about 10 years ago he was totally unfamiliar with proceedings. He arrived on the first tee for the pro-am, met his playing partners and realised that all three were sharing one caddie.

The caddie was a woman, a middle-aged woman at that. The players' bags were neatly stacked on a sort of "super caddie car". Gilligan's initial concern related to how this delicate-looking woman was going to haul those heavy bags around an undulating golf course for 18 holes.

The first tee was raised and there was a steep descent to the fairway with a pond halfway down the path that was laid for the caddie car to be pushed along. What Gilligan didn't realise was that there was a magnetic strip along the path. The caddie had a remote control in her pocket and as soon as the last player hit, off trundled the vast club wagon down the path towards the pond.

Gilligan mistakenly assumed that the cart had taken off as a result of gravity. So he charged off after it in order to save the clubs from a watery terminus. This little scene of a foreign player running manically after a fully-loaded caddie car was greeted with a characteristic fit of giggling by the locals and moved Gilligan well ahead in a normally lengthy introduction process. He was an instant hit with the "house caddies".

The house caddie, traditionally a woman aged 35 to 55, is an institution at every golf course in Japan. Their uniform is a cotton jacket and trousers - at the Casio World Open in Ibuski a few weeks ago they wore pink. They wear a helmet, with a wide visor covered by a big white scarf, white gloves and spikeless golf shoes. Red lipstick and make-up would appear to be an unwritten part of the appearance code.

If their uniforms were less colourful they could be mistaken for energetic nuns with their scarfs and visors looking remarkably similar to a mother superior's habit.

When the professionals come to town they trade in the battery-operated caddie cars for the single manual ones. Normally they are effectively doing a job for three singlehandedly. The tour caddie, who only has to endure the peculiarities of one golfer, does not know how easy he has it until he sees how these women work. They will turn out at least six days a week and earn 10,000 yen (about £90) a loop. They earn every last yen of it.

So let me paint the picture of the caddie duties on an average hole. One player hits it 180 yards off the tee and 50 yards left. The second hits it down the middle 220 and the third carves it into the right bamboo, destination unknown.

The caddie-san has to go hurtling down the fairway and figure out where the respective balls have come to rest and what clubs the golfers would like to use to advance the ball towards the green, not to mention looking for the ball in the bamboo.

I followed one caddie, Mrs Nakagawa, around in the pro-am at the Casio tournament. She is a 50-year-old with a 22year-old daughter, and has caddied at the club for 18 years. She loves being out on the green grass, she explained as she grappled with a weed on the pathway.

The house caddies have a great sense of belonging to their place of work, it is like their communal garden. Many would have been farmers before the golf course was built, so there is a special affinity with the land.

The Japanese play quickly, and the caddies don't have time for a game themselves. Not that they would be allowed anyway. Mrs Nakagawa will probably never play a round of golf herself in her life. She has, however, a great appreciation of the game.