Caddie's Role:We arrived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the 89th PGA Championship amid rumours the hot spell had arrived and was due to plant itself in the state for the foreseeable future. If there is something that is predictable in the United States of Amazement it is the weather.Weather forecasters, especially inland, tend to speak the truth. We jumped out of the plane and it felt like we had opened the oven door while the fan was blowing. It was a burning wind and a temperature that felt like 150 degrees.

So when I watched a seven-day forecast on the local news station that had big orange sun-balls for the entire week and upper 90s to low 100s predicted as highs with the lows not much lower, I realised why they call it a sweat-box down there.

There is one thing you have to be in such heat when you have to go outdoors to make a living and that is sensible. Not always the easiest way to be for a major-pumped golf pro. But limiting your time outdoors was the order of the week.

My boss, Retief, played just nine holes on Tuesday and nine on Wednesday in his effort to conserve energy. Adopting a normal routine, and particularly for majors, we would have at least two 18-hole practice rounds completed before the tournament starts, so easing off on preparation was a big compromise for many diligent golfers.

John Daly took the cautious approach to the extreme by not coming to the course until Thursday in preparation for his first-round tee time. He had been going through his preparations in a nearby casino, stating that he knew the course well having gone to college not far away in Arkansas. In keeping with the brain-numbing heat, Daly went on to shoot the best round of his year, a three-under-par 67. So for those trying to cite preparation and routine as a means of achieving success, last week may not have been the best example.

I am not sure how many bottles of water I drank on average during each round, but I consumed at least 10 litres each day.

The word was that Big John was guzzling more Diet Cokes than usual and maybe smoking slightly fewer cigarettes, but he likes to stick to his consumption routine no matter what the temperature. I heard his caddie suggesting he might want to try a couple of Gatorades instead of the Cokes.

Not only does the liquid come out quicker from your body at these soaring temperatures but the golf ball comes off the clubface a lot quicker too. To give an indication of just how much the heat affects the distance the ball goes, without any wind the ball was going at least two clubs farther than at the last major in Carnoustie.

Bermuda grass deals well with the heat but bent grass does not. So we knew during the practice rounds that the big electric fans that moved the stifling heat around the putting surfaces were so placed to keep the greens alive, rather than us humans cool.

We all took advantage of the big blowers, directing our players toward the rush of cold air by placing our imaginary hole-placement discs near the fans so we could linger in the relative cool a little longer.

I think Oklahoma must have been the state where they invented mall walking, the practice whereby people go specifically to the mall not to shop but to take their daily exercise in the cool of the air-conditioned complex. Walking from your car to the entrance of the mall could result in a mild outbreak of heat stroke.

The tournament officials have a rule that when the heat index goes the other side of 100 degrees we loopers can go topless, so to speak; we are not obliged to wear our caddie bibs.

I am sure it is a legal requirement rather than a compassionate gesture. Anyway, most of us took advantage of "biblessness" - though I have to admit you become fairly used to using the little pouches in the bibs for throwing your bits and bobs into, and when you go without them you realise how handy they are in normal weather.

I went to the mall to do the cultural thing and participate in consuming on a grand scale. The people of Oklahoma are extremely friendly and are quick to pick up on a foreign accent. So as I was paying for my purchases the shop assistant struck up a conversation.

I explained what I was doing in Tulsa and she immediately asked if I knew Tiger Woods. She had a theory about why he had not won an event in Oklahoma, apart from the fact that this was only the second he had played in Tulsa since he turned professional. The lady went on to explain that we were in the Bible Belt and given that Tiger is a Buddhist, she continued, he had no chance of winning in Oklahoma.

I will be looking out for the Buddhist temples when next I return to Tulsa because there was a change of religion last Sunday at the Southern Hills Country Club.

Despite some outrageous attempts by Big Buddha Woods's main rivals, Ernie Els and Woody Austin, to steal his thunder, the eastern philosophy was never really in danger of yielding to any other religion in the final major of the year.