Dave Renwick, who has died aged 62, was a caddy who worked for three champion golfers, who - with the Scot alongside them - sealed five major wins.

His relationships with the players whose bags he carried were sometimes rocky, and some of his exploits were both colourful and tragic. He served time in prison in France after a fatal car crash in which he was at the wheel, and was mugged in Edinburgh and Atlanta.

However Dave - known to all in the golfing world as Buddy - was one of Scotland's best known caddies and certainly the most successful, and at one stage turned down an approach by a young Tiger Woods.

Born in East Calder, Renwick (pictured, left, with Rory McIlroy) became an apprentice electrician before embarking on a career in the oil industry, working on North Sea rigs and then for three years in Angola.

But the seeds of his true calling had already been sown. His father - a joiner - would routinely take a week off work for Dalmahoy tournaments and try to get caddying work. "I'd pull a trolley for a pound", Renwick recalled.

After the break up of his first marriage, he took up caddying himself and had spells with Jim McAlister, Anders Forsbrand and Bernard Gallacher before embarking on his defining role, bagging for Jose Maria Olazabal, when the Spaniard was just 20.

It was an instant success. The week after Renwick signed up with him, Olazabal won the 1986 European Masters in Switzerland.

The nine-year partnership lasted until Olazabal sealed the Masters at Augusta in 1994. It was Renwick's first major, but this was the volatile Spaniard and the forthright Scot had regularly clashed. Renwick felt he was never thanked for good advice but routinely criticised when things went wrong. He also complained that he only received a seven percent cut of any prize money - lower than the commonly expected 10 per cent minimum.

Despite his turbulent time with Olazabal, Fenwick was grateful to the Spaniard when he stuck by him after a road accident in France which left two of his fellow caddies dead. Having left the Irish Open at Portmarnock, where he had been drinking, the group took the ferry en route to France. Renwick later took the wheel and at around six am the following day fell asleep while driving and the car flipped, with devastating results. He plead guilty to driving offences and served six months in a French jail. Olazabal held his job open.

After they did part company, Steve Elkington quickly took him on, and in 1995 won the USPGA championship at Riviera with Renwick.

An eye operation derailed his caddying career however, forcing him to have a year out to have a detached retina fixed. This he blamed on a past injury, perhaps caused, he said, when he had been mugged at a cashpoint in Edinburgh.

He came back, joining the employ of FijianVijay Singh, a teaming which was to become enormously successful. Two USPGA championships, one in 1998 and one in 2004 were accompanied by the 2000 Masters.

During the second USPGA event he was mugged again - robbed at knifepoint in Atlanta in 2004, losing a watch and USD 150.

Renwick described the skills needed for caddying as being to offer advice only when asked for it and above all to get the yardages right.

Singh said of the cantankerous Scot: "He's very grumpy most of the time but in a good way. He's all for me and he doesn't want anyone to beat me, which is a very good thing. He'll let you know if you're doing something wrong."

After falling ill with stomach cancer Renwick told a reporter earlier this month that he would not be back to the sport. "Unfortunately, my caddying days are now at an end due to the fact I have been diagnosed with cancer. I’ve achieved a lot and life has been decent to me thanks to golf and the people I’ve had the pleasure to meet in this great sport," he said.