Deep Rough

by A. J. Stewart

  “You play?” I heard the question and looked down at a guy sitting alone at a table by the window. It was a typical icebreaker to use at a golf club, but he was anything but typical. For starters, he was older than the rest of the crowd. He had to be pushing eighty. And he was black. I glanced around the bar. He was the only black person in the room. He watched me silently.

  “Not regularly,” I said.

  He nodded the way old guys do, full of confidence that they’ve seen more stuff go down in their lives than you’ve had chicken dinners.

  “You don’t look corporate,” he said.

  “No? What does corporate look like?”

  He nudged his head toward the guys at the bar.

  I nodded. The guy definitely knew a thing or two.

  “You play?” I asked.

  “Only a little, nowadays.”

  I stepped over to his table and offered my hand. “Miami Jones.”

  “Jackie Treloar.”

  “A pleasure, Jackie.”

  “Mine, I’m sure.”

  He had a warm smile and was wearing a yellow Pringle sweater.

  “You a member here, Jackie?”

  “Honorary.”

  I didn’t know what that meant, but I suspected it meant he got the AARP rate.

  “Can I buy you a drink, Jackie?”

  “That’d be mighty kind of you. Arnold Palmer, thank you, son.”

  I nodded and went to the bar. The bartender was pouring four Yuenglings and four tequila shots. And it was a Monday. I waited and then ordered two Arnold Palmers. I’d lived in Florida for a long time, and Arnold Palmers were a popular drink around the Palm Beaches. But I had to admit I’d never had one. I’d seen them in cans before, but the guy behind the bar wasn’t having any of that. He took the post mix gun and half-filled two pint glasses with ice and lemonade. Then he grabbed a pitcher of iced tea from the fridge and filled the glasses to the top.

  “You don’t use the cans?” I asked him.

  It was like asking a New York bartender if they made cosmopolitans premixed. He frowned and shook his head. “Mr. Palmer would hate that.”

  “You’ve met Arnold Palmer?” I hoped it didn’t sound like I didn’t believe the guy, even though I didn’t. But he grinned and nodded to the back of the bar, where I saw a framed photograph of the very bartender with Arnold Palmer himself. Arnold had even signed it. I gave my impressed face and handed the guy some cash. Then I carried the drinks back to the table by the window.

  “Thank you, sir,” Jackie said as he raised his glass to me.

  It was lemonade yellow at the bottom and ice tea brown at the top, and Jackie didn’t mix the two. As he tipped his glass the lemonade slipped up the edge from the bottom so that he got a mouthful of both beverages. Genius. I copied his trick, and found the drink to be refreshing, which is a fine quality in a beverage on a Florida afternoon.

  “So you used to play more often?” I asked him.

  “I used to do everything more often,” he said with a smile.

  “Ain’t that the truth.”

  “You still a young man.”

  “Some days less than others.”

  “What did you play, before, rather than golf?”

  “What makes you think I played anything?”

  “Like I said, you ain’t corporate. And you said you don’t play golf regularly. But you got an athlete’s body, that’s for sure.”

  I made a note to tell Danielle that I had an athlete’s body.

  “I used to play baseball.”

  “Where?”

  “All over. New England, California, here in Florida.”

  “Fine game, baseball.”

  “Yes, sir, it is. You ever play?”

  “Only at school. Golf was my game.”

  “You any good?”

  The old man smiled. “I did okay.”

  “You play any PGA tournaments?”

  “I played a few. When I started the PGA wasn’t so welcoming of colored players, you understand? I played mostly non-PGA events back then. I won the Negro National Open. That was a good field.”

  “I don’t doubt it. When did you get your card?”

  “PGA? 1964.”

  “You must have been one of the first black guys.”

  “One of them. Not the first. That was Charlie Sifford. He got his in ’61. That boy could play.”

  “Still, it must have been hard to break though. Even after Jackie Robinson.”

  “Yeah, even after Jackie. My pa wanted me to follow Jackie into baseball, but I fell in love with this game.” He looked out the window and across the course. Despite the lime and tangerine it was still a handsome course, manicured grass and the ubiquitous palm trees. The sand traps were as white as the finest beach, and the water hazards gleamed like a favored swimming hole.

  “I grew up in Mississippi, did you know that?”

  I shook my head.

  “My uncle, my mother’s brother, he caddied at the local club. He brought me along when I was no more than twelve, and I carried bags. There was a doctor who played regular, Doc Mooney. I wanted to go to college to study medicine because a him.” Jackie chuckled at the thought. “I figured doctors got lots a time off to play golf. And old Doc Mooney, he’d get onto the back nine and let me have a hit. Away from the clubhouse, you understand. Not many of the other members shared his open mind.”

  Jackie sipped his drink. His eyes were distant, a thousand miles and sixty years back in time. I said nothing. I wanted to hear what he had to say.

  “You know it was Doc Mooney who paid for me to go to LA?”

  “You went to Los Angeles?”

  He nodded and a grin swept across his face. “I did. This was after I won the Negro National. And a couple other UGA tournaments.”

  “UGA?”

  “United Golf Association. It was a tour for black players.”

  “Like the Negro baseball leagues.”

  “More or less. Did you know that the PGA had a clause in its by-laws that it was for players of the Caucasian race? That was in there. Up until the sixties.”

  He shook his head. So did I. I wasn’t there. I didn’t know what folks were thinking, or why they acted the way they acted. But I knew a little about human psychology. I had a master’s in criminology that I studied in my final couple years of playing ball. I figured if I was going to join Lenny in his business, I should learn a little about it all. It wasn’t the first time that a formal scrap of paper proved to be close to useless. Lenny taught me everything I needed, about investigating and a whole lot more. So I understood that the greatest fear folks have is the fear of the unknown. Things that go bump in the night. That which you cannot see or cannot comprehend. The movie wouldn’t be half as scary if you got to see the shark right at the beginning. So I knew that folks feared the unknown, and that was a big reason for the stupidity that ensued. But I couldn’t imagine a world where Jackie Robinson didn’t get to play at the highest level, or Muhammad Ali or Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods. I think I understood the reasons why it happened, but I couldn’t get my brain around the thinking behind them.

  “So you went to LA?”

  He smiled. It wasn’t a Florida smile. It was something deeper, more satisfied. “After Charlie Sifford got his card, Doc Mooney said I had to try get mine. But my wife, she was scared, you understand?”

  “Scared?”

  “Charlie didn’t walk onto the first tee to soft claps and whack his ball down the fairway. There was a lot of resistance, a lot of anger. He got abuse, he got threats. My wife didn’t want me to get hurt. Truth be told, me neither. I don’t think I could have done what Jackie Robinson did. I wasn’t that brave.”

  “Me either.”

  He nodded. “But then Pete Brown won the Waco Open. He was the first Negro to win a PGA event. So it was that I got my card, I played a few tournaments, and later Doc Mooney gave me the money to go to California.”

  I said nothing.

  “You ever been to L
A?” he asked.

  I nodded. I had been. I once played a game in a place called Rancho Cucamonga, in the San Bernardino valley, deep in the mass of humanity that was greater Los Angeles. What I remembered most was the smog. It sat like a brown blanket in the valley. They say the stars shine brighter in Hollywood. That wasn’t my experience.

  “It was something,” Jackie said. “People—and cars—woo, gee. You never seen so many cars. Big old beauties the size of a navy destroyer.”

  “You played there?”

  “Played? Yes, sir. I played.” He grinned at me like there was more.

  “What aren’t you telling me? How did you do?”

  “I won.” He gave me a nod. It was both self-satisfied and humble. I gave him my impressed face.

  “You won a PGA tournament?”

  “1966 Los Angeles Open. Yes, sir.”

  “Wow, that’s something.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “A PGA tournament . . .”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good field?”

  “You wanna know who was runner-up?”

  “Who?”

  He held his drink up at me. It took me a second.

  “Arnold Palmer?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You beat Arnold Palmer?”

  “Yes, sir.” He beamed like a kid on Christmas morning. He was milking it now. Golf stories are like fishing stories. They get better with the telling. And I was okay with that. I had done some stuff in my life. I’d won a few things, here and there. And I was happy to give the old guy as much road as he wanted, and I was equally happy to go down that road as long he wanted.

  “He was a gentleman among men, Mr. Palmer. I tell you that.”

  “Yeah?” It seemed that I was not only the sole person in the bar who had not tasted an Arnold Palmer, but also the only one not to have met the man.

  “You win anything else?”

  He shook his head. “No, sir.” He wasn’t disappointed. It was what it was. I knew that feeling, too. I’d won a few things. But I’d missed a fair few, too.

  “I was already thirty when I won that one. My wife and I moved here to Florida, we had two baby girls and a good life. There wasn’t the prize money back then like it is now, goodness no. But I paid Doc Mooney back for the money he gave me to go to LA. Every cent. And you know what he did? When he passed on, he left that money to my girls.” He shook his head at the workings of humans. I often did the same thing. Fear didn’t know color, and prejudice could flow either way. It all depended on who feared the most, and on the character of the person. This Doc Mooney sounded like a stand-up guy.

  “I played a little on the Senior Tour later, but never won nothing. But I didn’t care. I got paid money to play a game that I had to hide to play in the beginning. You understand?”

  I understood. I would have bought my own uniform to play baseball. And although I never made it onto a card in a pack of gum, I had few regrets. I understood very well.

  “Is your wife still, you know?” I wasn’t sure how to phrase the question.

  “She’s at home, tending her raised flower beds. I can’t drive no more. But the access bus brings me down here, and in the season I can still play the executive course. I’m not long off the tee, but I’m still straight.”

  “I’d love to play a round with you sometime. Nine holes sounds about my speed.”

  He looked at me for longer than was necessary, and then he said, “You know, I believe you might actually mean that.”

  “One hundred percent. I’ve never played a game of golf with a tournament champion before.”

  He looked out again across the lime and tangerine branding, at the championship course. “Perhaps when the circus leaves town,” he said.

  The bar started to fill and the shadows across the course grew longer. The bartender came out from behind his bar to tell Jackie that the access bus had arrived to pick him up. The guy ignored the protests from the polo shirts at the bar, who were clearly dying of thirst, even though it would probably cost him some tip money. I liked him even more for that. But I told him I’d help Jackie and he nodded his thanks. There wasn’t an elevator in the building so Jackie used the railing and my arm to get down the stairs. We found a white minivan at the front door, and he used my arm to push up into his seat.

  “Nice talking to you, Jackie.”

  “And you, Miami,” he said. “Be good.”

  I would try.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I met Ron back at the bar. He was buying a round and grabbed me a beer. We sat by the window. I was looking out at some guys putting on the practice green below in the failing light.

  “You seen Danielle?” I asked.

  “Once or twice. Doing the rounds. You learn anything interesting?”

  I had spoken with Nathaniel Donaldson, one of the richest men in America. I’d chatted with the club treasurer. I’d shared a drink with the winner of the 1966 Los Angeles Open. I’d learned plenty.

  “Not really,” I said.

  The corporate expense accounts started getting boisterous so Ron and I retreated downstairs. The dining room was full of golfers and caddies and their various other accoutrements. Ron wandered behind the bar there and grabbed two beers and we stood outside. A group of guys in white coveralls were chatting over beers. The course had fallen into darkness and all the bodies had retreated to the clubhouse.

  “Who are all these people?” I asked.

  Ron nodded. “It’s a crowd, all right. Those guys there in the coveralls, they’re caddies.”

  “They look like they work at the Jiffy Lube.”

  “They wear the coveralls to identify them on the course. And on TV.”

  “Should they be drinking before a big tournament?”

  “They don’t have to hit the shots, you know. But you’ll find that most of them are on the ball by Wednesday night.”

  “So the tournament starts Thursday, correct? What do they do until then?”

  “Monday is usually a travel day. For a major they’ll get here early and maybe practice. But for a regular go-around like this, it’s a down day. Some caddies will walk the course. They’ll get a course briefing tomorrow morning from the PGA Tour superintendent. Get the yardages and so on. But they’ll walk the course themselves anyway. Make notes on where things are. Traps, water. Distances to the greens. And then the players will play a practice round, some will spend time on the range hitting balls, some will putt. All depends on their demons.”

  “And then?”

  “Wednesday is the pro-am. A bunch of corporate sponsors get to play with the pros. We invite some local amateurs, kids on the up, that sort of thing. The guys aren’t compelled to play, but most do. It’s another walk around the course, and it can also relax them a bit. Then there’s the pre-tournament briefing and the dinner, and Thursday we kick off.”

  “Is the bar going to be that full every night?”

  “Afraid so. Even with the hospitality starting up tomorrow, it will be cheek by jowl.”

  Some of the caddies were horsing around, shooting each other with a hose. It was like a frat party. In the distance of the seventeenth hole I heard the sound of splashing, like someone was getting tossed in the pool.

  “You got a pool here?”

  Ron shook his head.

  I shrugged. I remembered the pressure of professional sports. At this level everyone was a good player. It was usually the mental side that made the difference. But the human mind can’t be in the on position all the time. It needed a release. I figured the horseplay and whatever other shenanigans were going on were part of that release.

  Then I thought I saw movement on the first fairway. A human body formed from the growing darkness. Then a second body. The first was easier to see because his trousers were white. It was Heath McAllen. He was carrying a short iron, maybe a pitching wedge. He had been the first to arrive, and now he was the last to come in off the course. I suspected that being number one in the world was
no accident. He was talking to the other person. The other person was harder to make out. They were blending into the background. They almost reached the far edge of the practice putting green before I noted the curve of the hips and hefty belt and the sidearm.

  Danielle smiled as she and the golfer kid approached. A jealous guy might wonder what they had been doing out there in the darkness. There were all kinds of golfing double entendres that fit the moment but not the mood.

  “Hey, you,” Danielle with a smile. “Haven’t seen you all afternoon.”

  “Been out and about.”

  “You dashed off pretty quickly.”

  I thought back to my false positive with the guy who I thought was Ernesto, which sucked the wind out of me. It wasn’t so much racial profiling as vehicular profiling, but either way I’d still gotten it wrong.

  “I’ll give you the rundown.”

  Danielle said, “Sorry, this is Heath McAllen. Heath, this is Ron Bennett and Miami Jones.”

  We shook hands. “It’s nice to meet you lads,” he said, and his accent reminded me that he was Scottish. Or was it Irish?

  “How do you like the course?” asked Ron.

  “Looks nice. Nasty-looking water out by seventeen.”

  “We call it the Pacific,” said Ron. “You won’t want to pull your tee shot on the third, either. The Pacific reaches between three and seventeen, and behind the green on fifteen.”

  The kid took out a little notepad and wrote that down. “Ta,” he said.

  “Can we get you a drink?” Ron asked.

  “Sure, thanks. A squash.”

  Ron frowned.

  “Lemon soda,” said McAllen.

  Ron nodded and retreated to the bar.

  “You play here before?” I asked.

  McAllen nodded. “Once, three years ago.” He looked like three years ago he would have been in middle school.