First I made sure that Nick Faldo didn't have any bricks in his bag and only then did I check that he had no more than the allowed 14 clubs when I arrived to caddie for the golfing great at Fanling.
The six-times Major winner, someone had warned me before I started my stint at the Faldo Series International Trophy showpiece at Hong Kong Golf Club, had once snuck a brick and a few dozen extra balls into his bag when a British golf writer had spent a day caddying for him for a story.
So bricks, not birdies, were on my mind when I joined the 47-year-old and some of the world's finest young players for 18 holes on the Eden Course at Fanling.
Faldo, winner of three British Open crowns and three US Masters green jackets in his heyday, was treating the category winners in the Series to a round with him after the tournament proper had ended. So teeing up along with him on Friday were England's Ben Evans, Ajeetesh Sandhu of India, Taiwan's Ruby Tseng and Jayvie Agojo of the Philippines.
I had caddied for a friend before in an amateur tournament in the United States, where I hardly distinguished myself. On the very first hole, Bill Greene Jnr, a wealthy Tennessee banker, threw his ball to me for cleaning as I headed towards the flagstick. I missed the little white missile, which rolled towards a lake, and I had to scamper back quickly to stop it disappearing into the depths.
But the closest that I had come to the real thing in the pro ranks was listening to stories by Peter Coleman, Bernhard Langer's caddie for 22 years, over dinner during the Million Dollar Challenge in South Africa some years ago. I can hardly count helping Alfred 'Rabbit' Dyer, who toted Gary Player's bag for 20 years, find his trademark Panama hat when he lost it at a tournament some years before.