The Worlds Only Caddie School for Soldiers

The Caddie School For Soldiers (CSS) is a veteran non-profit 501(c)(3) and registered Scottish charity SCIO: SC052511 that has the mission of helping veterans work through their physical injuries and/or Post Traumatic Stress (PTS) by bringing them to St. Andrews for a month to train to become caddies.

In the winter of 2019, the world's only caddie training school for soldiers was established in St. Andrews, Scotland in partnership with the Kohler family and company. At each session soldiers from America, Canada and the UK live together for one month in The Home For Soldiers, in St. Andrews, and train each day at the magnificent Dukes Course. In the company of a new family, these splendid soldiers rise above the darkness of war that haunts them. Some of them have wounds that prevent them from ever working as caddies and what they take from the school is a healing experience that strengthens them and renews their faith in life. Others have reported for work at The Old Course, Royal Liverpool, Royal Portrush, Dumbarnie Links, Cabot Cliffs and Cabot Links, Coral Creek, and The Country Club. One soldier escaped the killing fields of Cambodia when he was six years old and made his way through the jungle to a Red Cross station and eventually to America where he enlisted in the army the day after he watched the planes crash into the towers in Manhattan and then lost his best friend in Afghanistan. Another is a lovely young father of three small children who was blown up during a fire fight. One of his children bears the name of his best friend who died in the fight. One of our Navy Seals lost sixteen of his closest friends in Afghanistan in an operation called "Extortion One Seven" and accompanied all the caskets home. His parents flew over to Scotland for the end of the session and I will never forget his mother saying to me--"My son told me that he has found a family here, he never expected to find again." These soldiers are all different of course, but what they have in common is a day to day battle to believe in some new purpose so they can build a meaningful life for the people they have pledged themselves to. They often arrive anxious and withdrawn, almost like ghosts who had once again ventured far from home, into uncertainty. But day by day out on the golf course, as they earn the trust of a stranger at their side, they begin to earn back some essential belief in themselves. That is the profound equation at the heart of a caddie's journey. Witnessing this healing and providing these soldiers with a new skill to earn a living doing meaningful work that bestows upon them the dignity they are entitled to, has been a great privilege for everyone involved with the school. The world has learned about our mission on The ToDay Show and The Golf Channel in America, Sky Sports and the BBC World Service that aired in over 100 countries. And we have earned the support of The GARY SINISE FOUNDATION, The ON COURSE FOUNDATION, The NAVY SEAL FOUNDATION, The ROYAL MARINES CHARITY, and The WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT.