Albatross

by Terry Fallis

  She just held the jacket, impersonating a deer in the headlights.

  “What! No. Adam. Um, no, I couldn’t possibly accept this,” she sputtered. “No, I couldn’t.”

  “Yes, you can and you will,” I said, looking her in the eye. “It’s important to me that you have this.”

  WE HAD FINALLY made the key decision as we drove from Augusta National back to the hotel. We’d studiously avoided the topic while on the course.

  “So? What’s the plan, young Adam?”

  “Despite some misgivings on my part, it feels inevitable to me,” I replied. “This past weekend has made it perhaps even more inevitable, if there are gradations of inevitability.”

  “Have I ever told you that you don’t talk like most twenty-two-year-olds I’ve encountered?”

  “Frequently,” I replied. “But a five-year exemption on the PGA Tour? No need for Qualifying School. No junior feeder tours. No daily practising. No camping, tournament to tournament. No scratching and scraping for local sponsors. None of that. Just playing with the big boys for the big money, every week.”

  “I see what you mean about it feeling inevitable,” she conceded.

  “Not to make the leap would almost be ungrateful, not to mention stupid when factoring in the financial potential of our situation.”

  “There’s more to life than money,” she countered.

  “Yes, but having some money would make it so much easier to revisit this decision in the future.”

  “A thoughtful way to view it,” Bobbie said. “So?”

  “I’ll do it, but only if…” I held my tongue and stared her down.

  “Are you trying to say you’ll join the PGA Tour only if you can carry your own bag while I walk beside you, dispensing pearls of golf wisdom and leading conversations on a multitude of obscure topics, none of which is golf?”

  “I think we understand each other,” I said. “If you’re up for it, I’m up for it.”

  I was still registered as a student at Stanford during the Masters. Becoming the first amateur to win the green jacket merely added gasoline to the already raging inferno of publicity around my strange golf gift. Thousands of emails rolled in and I was all over social media. It was my first time trending on Twitter.

  Winning the Masters as an amateur did mean that victory brought with it no money. But that was about to change. In the ensuing days, I appeared on every major television and radio talk show across North America, and several minor ones. I didn’t feel I had much choice in the matter. But I declined to wear the green jacket the way previous winners had on their post-victory media tours. I just kept telling people it was out at the cleaner’s. I made sure to do all the Canadian shows, too. Just talking to Canadian sports reporters made me feel more at home. Whenever possible, I made Bobbie appear with me.

  My mother couriered me a card from Alli, knowing I’d be eager to see it. She’d addressed it to my Toronto home in what I was sure was Kaweco Ruby Red ink. The message in the card was written in a nice blue ink. It said:

  Parker Duofold, Waterman Mysterious Blue.

  Adam,

  I’m thrilled and happy for you. What an amazing performance. It was surreal watching you and Ms. Davenport on television.

  All the best,

  Alli

  All the best? All the best?! She might as well have written, Yours in platonic perpetuity. Where were the X’s and O’s? Still, I supposed it was nice to have at least something from Alli, even if her heart wasn’t included.

  Chapter 9

  MAY 2018

  EVERYTHING CHANGED WITH the Masters. My parents floated me some money to get me started. Given what happened at Augusta and what it portended, they decided it was a good investment that would pay off quite quickly. Two weeks later, Bobbie and I were set up in San Francisco. We were both renting smallish furnished condos in the same building on a month-to-month basis. Many of the PGA Tour players settled in Florida, but I had come to love San Francisco while at Stanford. It’s an amazing city oozing literary history. I particularly loved browsing in the City Lights bookstore on Columbus. It had been instrumental in bringing the Beat Generation of writers to global prominence. Bobbie and I liked to spend what little downtime we had at that special bookstore. Downtime? Yeah, right. We squeezed in two or three visits amongst the media mayhem and the growing demands on my time.

  So much happened in Augusta’s immediate aftermath. I often didn’t know where I was, who I was, or what I was doing. Bobbie and I just hung on for the ride and tried to make sound, informed decisions on the fly. I likened it to being caught in churning whitewater, where turning back and paddling upstream was just not possible—particularly when it felt like we didn’t have a paddle between us anyway. We just had to ride the rapids to the end and hope we made it to calmer waters without being sucked into a whirlpool. My parents were as helpful as they could be on the phone, but really, Bobbie and I just took it day by day and tried to do the right thing at the right time. It was a new world, but I just didn’t think I was cut out to be an explorer. Despite my best intentions and efforts, I missed that short-story contest deadline courtesy of the Masters maelstrom. I resented that more than you can imagine.

  Bobbie and I won the first PGA tournament I ever played as a professional when I officially joined the Tour, about five weeks after Augusta. Okay, we actually won the first three tournaments we played. We hadn’t rushed right back to golf after the Masters, though there was considerable pressure from various quarters to do just that. No, we took our time, gathered ourselves, tried to set up my impending golf career on a solid footing, and prepared for the weekly grind on the Tour. We made our professional debut in May at the Players Championship at the famed TPC Sawgrass course in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Bobbie was amazing the whole way through. She really had a knack for keeping me talking and thinking, and sometimes laughing. We won by three strokes and collected our first cheque. The winner’s share of the purse was $1.9 million. I didn’t hyperventilate on the course, but I did as soon as we made it back to the car.

  The day after the Players victory, we flew to New York for a meeting. Lisa Griffiths was a former successful investment banker who had turned in mid-career to managing the personal fortunes of various high-profile athletes. Bobbie had done her due diligence in the search for just the right advisor and Lisa had risen to the top of the list.

  It was a small operation in a nice office on Fifth Avenue. Lisa came out to greet us and then escorted us into her office, which had a great view of Manhattan. I put her in her early forties. Her auburn hair was short and I guess you would say stylish, though I’m not exactly an authority on the matter.

  “Thanks for making the trip up, and congratulations on your Players win and of course your Masters victory a while back. You’re certainly not wasting any time establishing yourself on the Tour. I’d like to make sure we’re not wasting any time making your winnings work for you to maximize your future flexibility and security.”

  “Right. That sounds good to me,” I replied.

  She then talked at some length about her approach, tailored to the needs, wishes, and comfort levels of her clients.

  “Some of my clients are single, with no responsibilities beyond themselves and their entourage. Many of them opt for a more aggressive asset mix, with more upside potential and more risk. Others, whose careers are just a knee injury away from over, or who have families to support, often adopt a more conservative route, where returns are lower but more secure. Given your long-term potential, we could probably do a little of both for you. Protect some of your holdings—safe and secure, and growing slowly—and then invest the rest more aggressively and opportunistically to yield higher and faster returns.”

  We talked for quite a long time. I liked her. And so did Bobbie. Lisa Griffiths became my personal financial advisor and investment manager. I was about to have investments. We agreed on a fairly conservative approach. It seemed the right way to go. After all, I honestly didn’t know ho
w long I’d be earning money on the PGA Tour.

  “May I ask who your agent is for sponsorships, endorsements, promotions, and appearances?” she asked.

  “Well, we’ve been inundated with overtures from sports marketing firms but have avoided doing anything on that front until we’d sorted out financial management,” I replied.

  “Probably wise. But given your earning potential, particularly right now in the wake of the Masters and the Players, it’s likely time to sort that out. You can probably earn more off the course than on.”

  “The agents we’ve come across so far all seem a little slippery to me,” Bobbie said.

  “And whatever I know about sport agents I learned from a Tom Cruise movie,” I added.

  “Would you be prepared to share a few names?” Bobbie asked.

  “I’ve only ever recommended one agent, and I haven’t yet regretted it,” Lisa said.

  AFTER THE PLAYERS, I won the next week at the AT&T Byron Nelson in Dallas ($1.4 million), and the week after that at the Fort Worth Invitational ($1.3 million). As spectators and reporters kept telling me, no one in the history of the game had ever won their first three PGA tournaments—four, if you counted my Masters win as an amateur. It was golfing history. All I could think of was that no one had ever been quite so bored winning his first four PGA tournaments. That was also golfing history.

  Bobbie was having the time of her life. She was a true professional on the course. Her great respect for the game made her popular with other players, caddies, and fans alike. She was in her element during tournaments, though her approach to the game was unlike any other caddie’s on the Tour. The only time we ever spoke of the game was when we both arrived at our ball. Then our golf interactions were very brief and in a code we’d developed. She’d say something like “Five-iron, full, ten degrees high, don’t think, feel.” I knew exactly what that meant and I’d make the shot.

  I wasn’t exactly shunned by the other players, but neither was I warmly embraced. Perhaps I was overly sensitive, but I thought I could sense simmering, if not seething, resentment just below the surface. As in college, no one ever saw me on the range working out swing problems. No one ever saw me working closely with a coach. No one ever saw me shank a drive or smash my club into the side of a bunker in frustration. I just won. That got under some players’ skin, and I understood why. Of course, I worked on my putting, sand shots, and even some light chipping when full swings weren’t needed. But that was about it. I made a few friends among the other players, but not many. Instead, I spent my evenings during tournaments hanging out and having dinner with Bobbie, and then writing.

  I was a little blocked creatively from everything else going on in my life. So Bobbie suggested I start journaling, just to try to wrestle with what was happening and how I felt about it all. So I did. I began filling these lovely notebooks I’d ordered from Amazon with Tomoe River paper. I just loved the feel of a fountain pen nib against that special paper. I didn’t really record anything profound, but it did give me a way to process what was happening to me and my life. It also seemed to reinvigorate my creative juices. So I’d journal for a half hour or so, and then work on a short story. The important thing to me was, I was still writing. Finally, I still wrote letters to Alli. I just never sent them.

  The next stop on the Tour was the Memorial in Dublin, Ohio. It had one of the larger purses. I was the odds-on favourite given my victories in the previous four tourneys. I was the clubhouse leader after the first three rounds. I could feel the pressure building for another win. It was getting to be a little much. I wanted more time for myself and my writing. Winning again just didn’t feel like a good idea, I mean other than the $1.6 million victor’s cheque.

  Bobbie suspected but said nothing. I didn’t have a meltdown on the course and start shooting balls into the woods, ponds, and gallery. No, I just started on Sunday’s back nine to miss a putt here and there. No one suspected. I’d learned how to be discreet. I came second by a stroke. I could feel the pressure drop like a relief valve on a boiler that’s too hot. It was just what I needed. Yet I still took home a cheque for more than $800,000.

  She approached us in the clubhouse after the TV lights had been extinguished and most of the other players had already left. Bobbie and I were seated in the restaurant when she appeared. She was decked out in casual golf attire to blend in. Her shoulder-length dark hair bounced a bit as she walked. She wore glasses in tortoise shell that gave her a very studious mien.

  “I thought I might find you here,” she said. “I’m Susan Maddocks.”

  “You made it,” Bobbie said, shaking Susan’s hand and making room for her in the booth.

  “Yes, it was touch and go for a bit, and the traffic is brutal out there, but at least it’s going in the opposite direction,” she replied. “Sorry about you coming second, but it does little to slow the interest in you, financial and otherwise, as a valuable asset. But nevertheless, we should strike while you’re hot, if I’m not getting too far ahead of myself.”

  “Lisa Griffiths speaks very highly of you, and she suggested we meet,” Bobbie said.

  “I like Lisa a lot, and we tend to see eye to eye on most things,” Susan said. “Why don’t I just give you my philosophy around sponsorships and endorsements and we’ll see where it takes us.”

  “That sounds grand,” replied Bobbie.

  “For me, unlike many player agents, it’s seldom about the show me the money moment. You, Mr. Coryell, are a fully formed person with certain beliefs and interests and behaviours and ideas, all of which come together to create, whether you like it or not, your brand. And to be clear, you do not define your brand—others do, in how they perceive you. Sorry to go all Marketing 101 on you, but people are already beginning to discern your brand. You’re the biggest thing to hit golf since Tiger Woods. So it’s time to take active control of how you are perceived so that your brand becomes closer to, if not the same as, who you really are and want to be. We do that by how you conduct yourself in the public eye—ideally in the same way you would in private—and with what, and whom, you are associated.”

  “All of that makes sense to me,” I replied. “I want to be seen as who I actually am, and not as a manufactured commodity. I don’t want to be a boy band. I’m just a nice guy who happens to be able to hit a golf ball straight and far when I need to.”

  “Good. That’s what I like to hear,” Susan replied. “Right now I could sign you up for long-term endorsement deals starting at ten million dollars a year for companies in medicinal cannabis, liquor, beer, and the largest singles resort company. You’d be rich. I’d be doing okay out of it, too. But knowing a little about you, and having spoken to Lisa, I would not put those deals in front of you, and if you asked for them, I’d counsel against them. They will not shape your brand in the way you want.”

  “Right,” I replied. “So we take a pass on the easy money, for all the right reasons. What do we go after?”

  “Well, we will not need to ‘go after’ anything. We’ll just signal what we’re interested in and then watch as the lineup forms at the door.”

  “So who is in the lineup?” Bobbie asked.

  “It’s a diverse group depending on your tastes, but I’d suggest a car company, an airline, a golf conglomerate, probably Nike, maybe an industrial interest if they’re enlightened about global warming, a hotel chain, and perhaps a big tech company that’s going to be around for a long time, like an Apple or a Samsung.”

  “And then we make a decision and sign some kind of a deal with one of those big companies?” I asked.

  “No, Adam, we’d sign contracts with all of them, covering off all the major sectors,” she replied. “And there’s one other area we should consider. The luxury goods segment. Golf is seen as a luxury game. So companies like Rolex and Montblanc might also be in the queue.”

  “Did you say Montblanc?” Bobbie asked with elevated eyebrows.

  She nodded.

  “Cool,” I said.
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  Twenty-four hours later, Susan Maddocks became my agent. Within a week, the line of suitors at the door was long and lucrative. It all unfolded just as she said it would. We signed one-year deals only. That was my idea. Susan recommended longer terms, but I didn’t really want to be locked in for the next decade. We’d take it year to year. She balked a bit, but understood and made it happen.

  We skipped the FedEx St. Jude Classic the next week. Then we waited until we won the following two tournaments before signing any deals. Incidentally, the first of those two victories was the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills in New York, the second major of the Tour. I didn’t look at the cheque until we were in the car, pulling out of the parking lot. It was for $2.2 million. The following week, we won the Travelers Championship up in Connecticut, adding $1.3 million to the pot. Those two wins strengthened our bargaining position, raised the value of the endorsement contracts, and gave our new corporate partners comfort that I was the so-called “real deal.” With six tournaments then under my belt as a professional, I amassed five victories and a second-place finish, taking home just under $9 million. Not bad for six weeks’ work. It certainly made Susan’s negotiations with corporate partners quite easy.

  The Nike deal was for $10 million. BMW North America came in at $6 million. Those were the two anchor deals, with several smaller agreements with Air Canada, General Electric, and Breitling, the high-end watch manufacturer. And yes, Susan did broker a deal with Montblanc, which in addition to a very large chunk of change included pens and inks and other paraphernalia for Bobbie and me. I carried around some guilt that so much came to me so fast, but I confess it didn’t stop me from writing my short stories with a Montblanc 149 Meisterstück in Oyster Grey ink. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that shortly after we signed the BMW deal, both Bobbie and I were driving new Beemers. I opted for a dark blue X5 so we always had room for my clubs and luggage in case we decided to drive to some of the Tour stops. Bobbie chose a bright red 335i. She loved that car. It was a little unusual to cut the caddie into endorsement and sponsorship deals, but given my apparent status and potential on the Tour, Susan could dictate terms that weren’t possible for most other elite athletes. That was the term often used to describe people like me—elite athletes. Hyperbole at its finest.