To hear the best British Open stories, talk to a caddie — probably in a pub — in Scotland. They see and hear more than most and provide a colorful history few golfers and spectators are willing or able to match.

In Hawaii caddying is becoming a lost art, but back when the game began here it was a big deal. So big, Oahu Country Club gave out a Caddies Cup award intermittently for 20 years, ending in 1953.

Arthur Armstrong and Charlie Makaiwa won three each, from 1930 to 1936, and it turned out they could carry their own bags exceptionally well. Armstrong was inducted into the Hawaii Golf Hall of Fame with the first class in 1988. Makaiwa joined him two years later.

Maui pro Henry Yogi — a former caddie at Mid-Pacific Country Club — will become the 71st member of the Hall of Fame at Saturday’s eighth annual Hawaii Golf Ho’olaule’a Awards. The event also celebrates the champions of the six major Hawaii golf associations.

Few have carried someone else’s bag. OCC hasn’t offered caddies to its members this century, and at most tour events now pros bring their own — much to Hall of Fame volleyball coach Dave Shoji’s chagrin. He figures he caddied in about 15 PGA and LPGA events in Hawaii back in the 1980s and ’90s.

“It was so much fun I couldn’t wait for that time of year to come around,” recalls Shoji, whose handicap fluctuates between 5 and 8. “I’d hang out at the golf course, which I love to do anyway, just to get a bag.

“It was fun, really fun. It wasn’t work at all for me. It was so exciting just to be inside the ropes. Back then it was not so sophisticated. I could figure yardage, but not like they do today.”

So could Armstrong and Makaiwa, who could also find pretty much every errant ball on OCC’s hide-and-seek layout. Both would win Manoa Cups there, which was no coincidence. Their gift for the game was also no coincidence. Shoji says he learned a lot from watching the tempo of the pros he caddied for — “That would be helpful for anybody and everybody.”

Armstrong and Makaiwa might not have gotten quite as much out of watching the swings of their OCC members, but they also learned what not to do.

Both Hall of Famers played with the “Palolo Gang” during the Depression years and into the late 1940s, along with Jimmy Ukauka, another Hall of Famer. According to Bill Gee’s 1984 Hawaiian Golf Almanac, the group dominated amateur golf in those years.

The name came from Palolo Muni, their original course. The gang headed to Ala Wai after Palolo was plowed under for a housing project in 1940.

Makaiwa would win four Manoa Cups. The tournament will be 108 years old in 2016 and has crowned Hawaii’s amateur match-play champion since it switched from stroke play in 1926.

The “Sweet Swinging Hawaiian” — named for his lanky build and fluid game — also represented Hawaii in four U.S. national Public Links Championships. And, he captured eight of the 28 State Hawaiian titles, seven coming in the 1960s, when Herman Wedemeyer also won twice.

At 17, Armstrong reached the finals of the U.S. Public Links in Pittsburgh, traveling via steamship and train. He was the first from Hawaii invited to the Masters, after reaching the quarterfinals of the 1949 U.S. Amateur, but couldn’t afford to go.

He won a record seven straight Atherton Cups, which was then the state amateur stroke play championship. He tacked on two Manoa Cup Championships, in 1938 and ’48, and seven Hawaiian Open titles (between 1939 and ’55), before it became a PGA Tour event.

Armstrong was an assistant pro at Waialae Country Club for 21 years before leaving in 1955 to work at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. He served as Presidio Golf Club’s director of golf until retirement.

By then, he had lots of good stories to tell, and so did Makaiwa.