Damn Straight

by Elizabeth Sims

  Well. I am not one of those bores—no, not even when the round concerns the play of champions. I will tell you what happened, and I will recount certain shots, but beyond that you'll want the videotape.

  Here is what happened Sunday.

  Genie got a solid start, smacking a nice drive on the first, making a good, wide, smooth swing that gave me every confidence in her that day. It was clear to me that she would allow herself to play up to her potential, ready to reach, but not beyond herself.

  When both Coco's and Lona's tee shots found trouble, I relaxed a fraction and took stock of things.

  Coco and I had made eye contact on the tee but hadn't had a chance to speak. Her eyes were serious, but she took me in with a shade of amusement. Was it my visor? It was as if she were trying to reassure me. Yes, this is really only a game, Lillian, and it is up to you and me not to forget it.

  But as we all headed down the fairway, she gave me a sidelong look and a shrug that said, And trouble could come to us today.

  I hoped it would be nice for Genie to have Lona Chatwin in the final group; they were friends but not rivals. You'd often see Lona's name in the top twenty or twenty-five, once in a while in the top ten. She'd won a few times on tour, no majors. After a lackluster Thursday, she'd put together a couple of terrific rounds on Friday and Saturday, and there she was, in contention.

  She and Coco began the day two under, and Genie was a stroke ahead at three under. Any one of that trio had the game to win it. And as our round got underway, we saw on the leaderboards that the others had fallen back, had fallen prey to some of the devilish hazards on the Dinah Shore course, and most likely to some of the equally devilish hazards within themselves.

  Except for shaking hands with Coco on the first tee and muttering "Good luck," Genie ignored her. She ignored Lona, too. I sensed this bothered Lona, who was used to being friendly during a round, you know. She liked to chat with her playing partners and the gallery. I believe it was her way of dissipating the tension.

  Coco and Lona saved par on the first, despite their poor drives. Genie nearly made birdie with a beautifully judged twenty-footer that missed by an inch.

  I told myself I should feel quite safe today: Two police officers were walking along with us behind the ropes, and I knew that Coco Nash's security detail had to be around close. And there was Truby faithfully tagging along, albeit looking as if she needed a drink. Todd was at my side. I looked overhead: There was the Met Life blimp, Snoopy at the controls, floating benevolently over all. Yes, I should be feeling quite safe indeed.

  But I wasn't.

  The job of caddie is one you have to get your head into; inattention can cost your golfer a stroke or worse, say, if you don't spot her drive carefully and it gets lost in the macaroni back from the fairway. Or if you miscalculate yardage or if you accidentally switch balls on her. Lucky for me, Genie wasn't counting on me to help her with club selection or reading greens. She knew those greens pretty well.

  And she was in such a zone that I guessed she could use a shovel to play every shot and still dominate the course this day.

  I was careful and worked hard to anticipate what she'd want, but in moments when I could, I scanned the crowd, which was thick around our group. I decided that if anything happened, I'd jump on top of Genie, shielding her with my body until the cops could get control of the situation.

  Genie played the first six holes steadily—pure USGA golf: hitting all the fairways and greens in regulation, giving herself chances for birdies. She even had a putt for eagle on the second hole; it was a twelve-footer that looked good all the way, but it rimmed the cup and she tapped in for her birdie.

  After easily navigating the treacherous sixth hole with its serpentine water hazard, she got into trouble on the seventh, the short par four. Maybe she let down a little bit, or maybe something spooked her from inside, but whatever it was she executed the most hideous hook I'd ever seen a professional hit. The ball somehow tore through a line of trees, dribbled through the rough, and out of bounds. We weren't sure it really was out, because the course marshal assigned to that spot was hurrying back from the porta-pot, so we had to hike down to see for ourselves.

  It was close, but it was out, so we trudged back to the tee for Genie to take her stroke-and-distance penalty. As we began the trip back to the tee I caught a glimpse of coach Handy strolling through the bunches of fans on the opposite side of the fairway, walking right in tandem with us, but not looking over at us.

  Genie hit another drive, this one perfect and long. After sticking her pitch right next to the pin, she came out of it with only a bogey.

  Two birdies had put her at five under, and the bogey brought her back to four under, but Coco and Lona had remained at two under, playing the first seven holes in even par.

  I took advantage of a brief wait on the par three eighth to check discreetly on Todd and, for the second time, exchange the water bottle with a new cold one. He appeared to be fine, sitting quietly in his mobile home, not thumping, not scrabbling. Just calm old Todd. I put my hand inside and stroked him and murmured to him.

  When I looked up I saw Coco holding her finish after hitting a six-iron that arced gorgeously against the sky, bounced in front of the flagstick twice, and rolled in for an ace. The crowd erupted. Holy everloving shit! A hole-in-one in the final round of a major championship! Incredible, absolutely incredible. All of us, including Genie, slapped hands with Coco. What a moment. It took the crowd five minutes to begin to calm down. Now Coco was tied with Genie.

  Right then, the tournament became the head-to-head everybody had been hoping for. Lona's putter started to misfire, and she would three-putt that green and the next.

  As we made the turn into the back nine, Genie and Coco were still tied at four under, the TV cameras were all over us, the crowd was alternating between hushed reverence and wild cheering, the wind was starting to kick up, and I realized that my period was starting. You know that feeling. You're thinking, Hmm, is that a gas pain? Did I eat something funny? Then you remember, Oh, shit, it's time for cramps, and here they come. Can you blame me for having forgotten my cycle?

  I don't usually get bad cramps, I just bleed like an elephant. Rooting through Genie's bag on the eleventh tee, I came up with a tampon and raced into a porta-pot to install it—just in time. It was only a regular, though, and I knew it wouldn't hold me more than an hour, what with the strain of carrying Genie's bag. I thought about my snow-white caddie jumpsuit, and I thought about color TV.

  As we marched down the fairway I muttered to Genie, "Do you usually keep more tampons in here?"

  "Oh!" she said. "Uh, I don't know." She was in a tunnel.

  At the twelfth tee, I hustled over to the ropes, where the crowd pressed up to see their heroines take their mightiest swings.

  I didn't see Truby right then, though I knew she was sticking close. Cupping a hand to my mouth, I leaned toward a concentration of women, all but one of whom leaned eagerly in toward me, and softly said, "Anybody have a tampon? Super?"

  The first woman I happened to make eye contact with drew away instead of forward; she sort of recoiled, in fact. She was wearing sunglasses, but I saw her eyes through them. She flipped her gaze away instantly, as I found a nosegay of tampons thrust eagerly my way. I plucked three supers from the bunch, giving solemn, quick thanks. Everyone understood my gratitude.

  The woman who'd looked away melted into the crowd, and I lost sight of her. Something about her was off. She'd appeared surprised when I asked for a tampon, or frightened, or something. I replayed the tape of her in my mind's eye. Plastic sunglasses, a bad hairdo—a mousy tangle that hung down beneath a wide-brimmed hat: sort of a low-budget Garbo. I didn't know.

  Chapter 29

  I managed to change my tampon and wash my hands in a john before Genie teed off. The tension of the whole damned day was getting to me, and I wasn't even playing. At one point I snatched a quick word with Truby, described Garbo to her, and went back to hoping for t
he best.

  As Genie and Coco matched each other stroke for stroke through the fifteenth hole, now battling the desert wind as well as each other, the crowds grew more silent. Lona fell back to three over, and began to lose her composure over her long shots, spraying them all over the place. She had fallen prey to the pressure of being in contention on Sunday: My first major title, maybe. Oh, God, I could win it. Please don't let me blow it.

  I kept shifting my awareness between my caddie duties and watching the crowd.

  The sixteenth hole is a bitch. A long par four with a sharp right-hand dogleg, it rewards a perfect drive, but if you give it anything less, you're in big trouble: trees, fairway bunkers, screwy slopes. Most players hit a three-metal here, leaving the driver in the bag, so as to easier land the ball in the narrow, safe throat of the fairway.

  Here Genie got in trouble again, pushing her drive badly right, giving herself an impossible shot to the green. When we got to the ball, we saw that the gigantic eucalyptus tree in the right rough was exactly on the line between her ball and the flagstick.

  That was one big honking tree. You know eucalyptus? In California they grow real, real tall and dense, like enormous drum major hats.

  "Ah, shit," I muttered involuntarily when I saw the situation.

  Genie walked up. "I either need to start it left and bend it around that tree or..." She gnawed her lip.

  "Think you could just hit it straight and land it on the right edge?"

  Squinting, my boss said, "The angle's not that good. I'd be in the bunker or worse. Remember how wide that bunker is?" She laughed softly. "Dewey said I don't need to work the ball. Well, I always knew he was full of it. I've got to work it now, and I hope he's watching on TV."

  Coco's drive had landed exactly where she wanted, in the left-center of the narrow fairway throat. She'd allowed herself a half-smile as everybody watched it float down and roll into perfect position for a safe approach to the green. I thought about that sprinkler head I'd watched her look for that night, and I'm pretty sure she winked at me as she pocketed her tee.

  I stood watching Genie make the mental calculations and go through the physics—or metaphysics, more accurately—of the shot she wanted to make. I could see her seeing it in her mind's eye, feeling the swing in her little inner Genie. The marshals had pushed the fans back, and stood holding the ropes against a row of stomachs.

  I saw Garbo again, standing with her arms folded, watching Genie from thirty yards up. I looked at her hard, but it was like looking at a discarded mannequin. I noticed she was wearing a white dress, grayed with age, in a dated A-line shape.

  Perhaps it's needless to say, but Genie hit the shot of the tournament right then. She tucked her head down and swung, and the ball took off like a quail, on a rising angle, skimmed past the eucalyptus, and, with the spin she'd put on it, curved gracefully to the right, coming to rest at the front edge of the green.

  She'd barely talked to me since the first tee, but several times she'd made a point of touching me more than necessary whenever I handed her a ball or a drink of water. Her hand would linger at mine, her fingers on my skin, or she would use two hands, cupping my hand briefly in hers. Then she'd take a nice relaxed breath.

  I knew when she hit that shot there would be no stopping her today at all. This day would be hers. She parred sixteen, and Coco did, too.

  I studied Coco for any cracks. There were none: no perspiration on the upper lip, no fiddling with club shafts, no telltale dive into a porta-pot to cope with nervous bowels.

  Still, one of them had to beat the other. One of them had to make a birdie or a bogey. Something had to happen.

  And it did on the seventeenth, the pretty par three, where Coco's supporters chanted for her to make another hole-in-one. She nearly did, too: Her shot landed softly a foot from the cup and rolled five feet past. She made the birdie.

  Genie's ball went into the deep left-side bunker, from which she blasted a beautiful recovery, but it needed to go in, and it didn't. She made par, and now, at the eighteenth, Coco Nash was in front by a shot.

  Genie was totally serene. The wind, which now verged on a gale, ruffled her hair, but that was the only part of her that was ruffled, I'm quite sure.

  She had to gain a stroke on her opponent on this final hole to tie and send them both into a playoff, and she needed to gain two to win it outright. If she eagled and Coco made par, she would win.

  If you're a fan, you know the eighteenth is a very tough hole to gain a stroke on, let alone two. It's the signature hole of the Dinah Shore course, the killer par five, long and hazardous, with an island green. To make it onto the green in two shots is very rewarding—and very rare; only the longest hitters can do it. Most golfers play it safe, laying up their second shot to set up an easy wedge over the water to the pin. If you make your putt, you've got your birdie. But if you go for the green in two and find the water, you're lucky to make par; bogies are the usual result of such a pride-fueled fiasco.

  I'd loved that eighteenth hole for years, watching on television. Damn, that second shot to the dance floor is the most daring shot in women's golf, and it comes on the last hole of the biggest major. Oh, yeah.

  And now, being here, watching the contest I was watching, I thought I'd wet my pants.

  Genie, however, stood looking down that fairway as if she were about to drive a motor scooter to the green. She was tranquil, she was confident, she knew she could do it, had done it before, would do it ten times in a row if she had to.

  Coco had the honors, by dint of her birdie on seventeen. She stepped up and sent off a rocket straight and true, the ball landing in one more perfect spot, exactly at the bend in the dogleg, sitting on the close-cropped fairway grass that felt like velvet beneath our feet.

  Genie went next, with as smooth a swing as any she'd made in her life. She hit it so hard it ran through the fairway, past the bunkers on the right, and rolled to a stop in the first cut of rough.

  I made a sound, but Genie took my arm and murmured, "If it's sitting up, it'll be easier to hit it off there than the fairway."

  I understood: A close lie, even on the fairway, gives you little margin for error, as you attempt to sweep your ball away with a fast-moving fairway metal. But a ball sitting up nicely in a fluffy bit of grass is almost like hitting from a tee: A professional can catch the ball very slightly on an upswing, thus adding to the height of the shot and to the chances of the ball holding the green when it comes down again.

  Lona, whom everyone had by now forgotten about, bunted a safe short drive down the fairway.

  This tournament happened to be the swan song for the Texas legend Deborah Wolsey, who had announced that she would retire at the end of this season. Old as she was, she'd played an outstanding tournament, making it onto the leaderboard after the second round, and into the next-to-last group today.

  There'd been a tremendous ovation when Deborah's group approached the eighteenth green, quite a deservedly long one, and that caused a delay in play as she acknowledged the crowd's tribute. The fans really loved that woman, especially the old-timers who easily remembered her playing in the very first Dinah and all of them since then. Finally, she had to ask the crowd in the big grandstand to hush down so that her group could putt out.

  Our group strung itself across the fairway at Lona's ball, waiting.

  And as we stood there, I felt a new dread enter my heart, such as I'd never known. For I saw plainly that if there was to be a cataclysm, the time was now.

  It was a dazzling moment. The contest had reached its climax, and all the witnesses were ready to see something they'd never forget. There was the whole tableau of competition, the whole dream; everybody's brass ring lying out there in the afternoon desert sun, lying there for the taking beneath the eyes of God and ABC Sports.

  Chapter 30

  I was scanning the crowd ahead and to the right when I saw my low-budget Garbo duck beneath the rope and charge onto the course toward us. My blood pressure doub
led. I looked for a weapon in her hands but saw none, at first.

  It took her maybe four seconds to cover the ground to where Genie and I were standing. Genie was gazing at the ground, gathering all her fibers for the perfect shot to the green she needed to make.

  Hoisting Genie's bag to chest level, like a tackling dummy, I stepped into the woman's path just as she reached us. Her hand was held high, ready to strike with something. What was it—a rock, a grenade? A bottle? She was clutching something. She ran into me full blast, but I was braced, the bag with its fourteen clubs and unusual payload giving me extra weight. She more or less bounced off. The pocket Todd was in was on my side of the bag, and I was sure he hadn't gotten crunched.

  By this time Genie had leaped away, behind me, putting maybe three yards between us, moving more on instinct than from a clear sense of what was going on.

  There was a confused gasp from the nearby portion of the gallery.

  The two police officers assigned to us had been talking together, some distance back in the fairway, but now noticed the trouble and began to react.

  Coco Nash had been leaning on her two-iron, near her ball and caddie on the other side of the fairway. Instantly, she started toward Garbo, raising her club.

  The woman threw herself against me again, but I managed to stand my ground. She bobbed one way, then another, trying to get a clear path to Genie. She grabbed one of the bag's straps and, with frightening strength, snatched it away from me one-handed and flung it to the ground. She was still holding her weapon, and I saw, to my total bafflement, that it was a lightbulb. Genie had stepped closer, staring at this woman, as if trying to make sense of what was happening. Now very close to Genie, the woman cocked her arm with the lightbulb, preparing to smash it into Genie's face. All this took only instants, but to me it happened in slow motion.