Death in a Green Jacket

by James Y. Bartlett

  The shopping bus was getting ready to leave and the lobby was bustling with excited women, and a few men, from several lands. I went out to watch the fun, careful not to get between the shopping-aroused women and the door. I didn’t see Mary Jane until I went outside and saw her already in the bus, seated next to Beatrice Samper. They waved and smiled as the bus pulled away.

  Back in the lobby of the Olde Magnolia, I came face to face with Hans Kleiber, the Swiss Golf Federation director I had met the other night. His face lit up when he saw me.

  “Herr Hacker!” he exclaimed. “Guten morgen. Are you off to play some golf this fine morning?”

  “No,” I told him. “I have the morning free.”

  “Well, then,” he said. “Why not accompany me? I am off to the local air field to meet another official from Europe who is flying in from New York. My good friend Christian Geer from Belgium is arriving within the hour. You would enjoy meeting him—he is quite knowledgeable about the history of golf in Europe.”

  I thought for a minute. I needed some quick filler pieces for the Masters preview section. Something on the European game as a way of previewing the European players competing this year might just work.

  “That is very kind of you,” I said. “I’d love to meet him.”

  “Excellent!” Hans said, pumping my hand. “If you are ready, I am just now going.”

  We got into his rental car and headed out toward Washington Road. From there, Daniel Field, one of the general aviation airports in the Augusta area, was just ten minutes. During the week of the Masters, Augusta becomes one of the busiest private aircraft destinations in the world. Not only do most of the top stars in the game own or charter their own private jets, but the high-powered contingent of “patrons” tends to eschew the usual commercial flights into Atlanta—a two-plus hour drive west on I-20—or the piddling service provided by puddle-jumping commercial jets into Augusta’s Bush Field. Instead, every CEO, chairman of the board, network bigwig and a significant number of other out-of-town ticket-holders arrive on their Gulfstreams and Lears. The FAA assigns special air traffic controllers to the four fields in the vicinity of Augusta during the week, and landing and take-off slots as well as parking space on the tarmacs is almost as hard to obtain as a badge of entry into the hallowed gates of Augusta.

  The players flying in—Tiger, Phil, Vijay and the rest of the big boys—get first dibs on the good spots. Everyone else fights for room, or adopts plan B, heading for Macon or Savannah or Columbia and driving into town.

  As we pulled into the Daniel Field entrance, I could see things were already getting busy, even though the heavy traffic wouldn’t begin until Sunday night or Monday morning. Because the one-story, nondescript cinderblock terminal was woefully inadequate for the arriving hordes, the city had begun setting up bright white tents on both sides of the terminal building. We parked and walked inside one of these tents and found the beginnings of a lavish hospitality area, with Astroturf floor, bright colored pennants, comfortable lounge chairs, a fully stocked bar and a long buffet food line with tables and chairs beyond. Delivery men were bringing in more stuff, and people were bustling around making preparations for the rush to come.

  Hans wandered off to find out when his friend was arriving. I found myself a cup of coffee and wandered around watching all the activity. It always amazes me to watch people acting like mindless bees setting up for some big event. I wonder: What are they going to be doing next week? Or the week after? Is there a group of migrant event-workers, like fruit-pickers, that goes around the country setting up hospitality tents and laying out carpet and stocking the bars and marshalling the fleet of rental cars? Or are these all locals, who in the next weeks will be catering weddings, setting up tents for family reunions or handling some corporate grand opening? It all seems so temporary to me. Unlike, of course, producing a thousand words on the world of golf in the daily newspaper that later that day will be laid in the bottoms of bird cages all over New England. Hacker’s deathless prose. At least it’s absorbent.

  As I was sitting there doing nothing, which is actually what I do best, I was startled to see Arnold Palmer strolling by, a big leather satchel tossed casually over his shoulder. I stood up and caught his eye and he came over to shake my hand.

  “Hacker,” he said, his huge mitts swallowing mine. “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, not much,” I said. “I heard something about a golf tournament and thought I might come down and see if it was true.”

  “Wisenheimer,” he said. But he was smiling. A couple of cute kids in the six-to-ten age bracket came running up and claimed their grandfather, grabbing a Palmer part for a hug. His tanned face creased with smiles. He looked over at me and winked. “Only thing I like better than playing golf,” he said. “Spending time with these little monkeys.”

  “Well get to it,” I said. “I’ll catch up with you later in the week.” Arnie would be around. He’ll probably keep coming to the Masters as long as he can draw breath. And once he goes, don’t be surprised if the dogwoods and the azaleas all die.

  Arnie and family headed off to the parking lot. The rest of us in the tent all heard a high-pitched whine. It got louder and louder until everyone in the tent was sticking fingers in their ears for self-defense. It sounded like a fleet of 747s was pulling up outside. I ducked out the end of the tent and peered through the chain-link fence at the tarmac.

  It wasn’t a jumbo jet, but it was a large bastard. I’m not a plane freak, so I don’t know whether it was a Gulfstream or a Falcon or a Hawker or a Lear. But it was big, white, shiny and loud as it pulled in close to the cinderblock terminal. The signalman guiding the beast into place gave it the crossed-X sign and the pilot finally cut the engines, which took several seconds to wind down so we could hear again. The bees inside the tent began buzzing again.

  I continued to watch as the front door popped open on the jet and slowly unfolded from the top all the way down to the ground, with a set of steps magically popping up. One of the pilots, wearing a gold-encrusted cap and a white shirt with epaulets, and a young woman dressed in a slinky white dress, came down the steps blinking in the bright morning light and hurried into the terminal. Almost at once, a long stretch limousine pulled up to the plane. A man with slick hair, wearing dark glasses and a black sportcoat over a black turtleneck, stuck his head out of the plane’s door and gave a nod. The driver of the limo, also all dressed in black, jumped out of the driver’s seat, ran around the limo and opened the side door facing the plane. Then he stood at attention.

  The guy with slick hair ducked back inside the plane after looking carefully up and down the tarmac. Within seconds, an older man with sharp, angular features and a mane of heavy white hair combed straight back so the ends danced in the wind at his collar, stepped out into the sunlight. He was wearing tan linen pants and an off-white guayabera, two-toned shoes and held a narrow black cane in his left hand. He eased himself down the steps of the plane, shadowed by the guy with the slick-backed hair, and folded himself carefully into the limo. The driver closed the door, ran around and got into the driver’s seat, while Slick got into the front passenger seat. The limo pulled off past the far side of the terminal and I lost sight of it.

  The pilot and the girl in white came back out of the terminal, in deep conversation with a pudgy uniformed person carrying a clipboard and waving his hands. The pilot stood at the steps and finished whatever he was saying to the pudgy guy while the girl reboarded the plane. The two men shook hands, the pilot got onto the plane, the steps folded back up and, with the high-pitched whine beginning to build again, taxied away.

  I noted the numbers on the engine cowling: N8805C. Be interesting to find out who owned the ride.

  I strolled into the terminal to find Hans, who had found his friend and was helping him collect his bags. He saw me and motioned me over.

  “Herr Hacker, this is my very good friend Christian Geer. He is from Bruges, which is perhaps the
loveliest village in all of Europe.”

  I shook the man’s hand. He was short and stout, with thinning hair swept back across his head. His demeanor was reserved and he looked at me carefully with small black eyes.

  “How was your flight?” I asked. “It’s a long trip from Belgium.”

  “We actually arrived yesterday in New York,” he said, his voice clipped and accented with French. “There are no customs officials here in Augusta, so we must arrive at a larger city first. Herr Kleiber tells me you are an American journalist, no?”

  Geer looked like he’d just bit into something sour and distasteful when he said the words “American journalist.” My uh-oh antenna went up.

  “No,” I said. “I’m an American golf writer. I’m not sure I’m qualified to call myself a ‘journalist.’”

  I was trying to inject some levity, but Geer continued to peer at me.

  “I do not think I understand,” he said.

  Hans rescued me. “Come, come,” he said, picking up Geer’s bag. “Let us go.” He shooed us ahead of him outside and into the parking lot.

  “Yes,” Geer said, glancing at his watch. “I have an appointment at two o’clock this afternoon with Chairman Grosvenor. I must not be tardy.”

  “Plenty of time, plenty of time,” Hans said, as he packed the bag into the car’s trunk and unlocked the doors. “We can perhaps stop for some lunch? I have fallen in love with the barbecue here. I have had this sandwich for three days in a row!”

  As we drove away I turned to Geer in the back seat.

  “So, what are you meeting with Grosvenor about?” I asked.

  He fixed me with a steady gaze. “I am sure that the Chairman would not want me to disclose anything about our private meeting to the press,” he said, ice dripping from the words. My uh-oh meter began to spark and smoke.

  Hans, driving, felt the cold blast on the back of his neck. He waved his hand in the air.

  “Oh, Herr Grosvenor likes to spend a few minutes with each of us from abroad,” he said. “We talk about various issues in the game today. We share our opinions. It is good to learn what others think, especially over here in America.”

  “Building international goodwill and all that?” I said.

  “Exactly,” Hans nodded approvingly. “It is good of him to give us his time.”

  I heard Geer harrumph in the back seat.

  “Well, I do not have time for such frivolities,” he said. “Hans, would you mind taking me directly to the club? I have important matters to discuss with the Chairman, and it really can’t wait.”

  Hans looked back in his rearview mirror with some concern.

  “Is everything all right, Christian?” he said, concern in his voice.

  “No,” the man said, “It is not.”

  Nothing more was said. It was not a long way back to Washington Road. We pulled in, Hans negotiated his way past the Pinkerton gauntlet, and pulled up at the memorial turnaround.

  “Please take my things back to the inn,” Geer said. “I will get a ride back later from someone here.”

  “Of course, Christian,” Hans said. “Is there anything else I can do?”

  “No,” he said. He turned on his heel and strode determinedly into the clubhouse.

  Hans got back into the car and looked at me.

  “Christian is quite a serious man,” he said, “He is, after all, a leading banker in Belgium. In all of Europe, in fact. But he is not usually quite so intense. I hope there is nothing wrong.”

  There was nothing I could say, so I said it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  There was a message waiting for me from Conn Thackerey when we returned from our barbecue lunch at a place called Sonny’s Big Boy. Hans had been ecstatic, but I found it a rather middle-of-the-road pulled pork and slaw kind of place. Good, but not in Hacker’s Top Ten BBQ Joints, where the leader in the clubhouse remained a place between Dallas and Ft. Worth, the name of which I will never divulge because as soon as it becomes famous, it drops off my list. Selfish? You’d better believe it.

  “Hack Man!” he said when I got him on the phone. “I’ve heard your lady friend is in town.”

  “How did you happen to hear that?” I asked. “Hacker,” he said chidingly. “Didn’t I tell you that there are no secrets in this town? That everything that happens, especially anything involving the National, becomes instantly known by all?”

  “I believe it,” I grumbled. “Yeah, Mary Jane showed up last night.”

  “I have to meet this poor woman,” he said. “Warn her to run, flee, escape with her life!”

  “I’ve already told her that,” I said.

  “Well, I will try again,” he said. “Meet me tonight at the Commerce Club around seven. We’ll do cocktails and then see what Chef Bubba has whipped up.”

  “You’ve got a Commerce Club with a Chef Bubba?” I said. “That should be interesting.”

  “Ah, Hacker,” he said. “Don’t let stereotypes deceive you! I think you’ll enjoy it.”

  “Where is the Commerce Club?” I asked.

  “You know the tallest building in town?” he asked.

  “That big white bank building that’s always lit up at night?”

  “That’s the one,” he said. “Eighteenth floor. I think they made the building that high to match the number of holes in a golf course. How sick is that? See you there at seven. Tell the lovely lady to dress for a business club dinner. Coat and tie for you, bub.”

  He rang off. I looked at my watch. Two o’clock. The shopping bus wasn’t back yet. It was time to do some work, so I went upstairs, unpacked my laptop, blew the dust off it and began belting out pithy, penetrating and pungent prose previewing the coming Masters for the golf fans of New England.

  Of all the majors I write about, Augusta is always the toughest. It’s been played on the same course since 1935, even though that course has changed in character several times over the years. Most golf fans have watched the thing on television year after year, and know the course as well as their own. Every year, in the guise of reporting on the “tradition” of the Masters, we have to come up with the same hallowed and hoary facts about the place. Fruitlands Nursey, Amen Corner, Bobby Jones, Alistair Mackenzie, flopping nines, underground heating and air conditioning systems for the greens, ticket scalpers getting arrested, par-three winner never winning the big tournament, Gene Sarazen’s 5-wood, Nicklaus in ’86, Hogan’s last round, Billy Jo Patton, Eisenhower’s tree, Butler Cabin, and on and on and on.

  Of course, I have to throw it all in there. My readers lap it up like starved kittens. I guess part of the tradition of the Masters is hearing the same old crap over and over, year after year, and believing that this somehow translates into something important we should all hold dear. Step away and look at it with fully open eyes, and you realize that it’s just another golf tournament on a heavily tricked-up golf course that no one in his or her right mind would play more than once without significant financial incentive. All the beautiful azaleas and dogwoods and incredibly plush turfgrass in the world can’t disguise the fact that Augusta National is a golf course that obscenely overemphasizes the importance of the short game. A well-balanced golf course will demand accurate driving, strategic and risk-reward iron shots, and a deft short game and a steady putting hand. If you can bust it long—and most of today’s pros can—then many of Augusta’s greens are approachable with short irons. When they had no rough to speak of, there was absolutely no penalty for trying to bash every drive as far as you could. And even in the last few years, with the addition of so-called “rough” that most nearly resembles everyone else’s fairways after the mowers have been kept in the garage for a couple of days, the penalties for missing a fairway are minimal. So the tournament basically comes down to a putting contest on greens stretched to the outer limits of common sense. That’s interesting, sure, but it’s not really a complete test of golf. The pros all gush about how much they treasure the
place and what a fantastic tournament it is, but get them aside one-on-one in private with enough Guinness Stout in them to loosen their well-coached tongues, and to a man they’d admit that the golf course is ridiculous and the geezers that run the place are a bunch of humorless old farts.

  But I kept all that in the back of my head while my fingers tapped out this year’s preview stories, predictions, rundowns on the current crop of players who seemed to be on form, and whether any of them had a chance to defeat Tiger. They know, I know and Tiger knows none of them really do unless for some reason his game develops a spasm of some kind. But the truth is, if Tiger plays within 40 percent of his capabilities, he should win. There is no one else.

  I was just finishing up the last piece, late in the afternoon, when I heard people clumping up the stairs. The door burst open and Mary Jane staggered in, under the weight of five or six shopping bags. She tossed them on the bed, looking at them with an expression of sheer satisfied joy.

  “I gotta pee,” she said, rushing off. “But wait until you see what I got!”

  I thought about making a run for it, but figured I’d have to sit there and make expressions of amazement and wonder at her purchases some time, so I might as well stay and get it over with.

  I ooh’ed and ahh’ed as she unpacked her purchases, most of which were admittedly cute things for the six-year-old Victoria. After the half-hour presentation, the bed and most of the floor were covered in tissue paper, shopping bags and assorted tops, skirts, sweaters and socks. It looked like the Christmas tornado had hit.