by James Ross
“What are you looking for?”
“A new grip.” J Dub picked up several of them until he found the one that he wanted. “This one has a flat side to it. This will help you keep your hands in the right position.” He slid the grip onto the shaft, the lubrication helping it to slide into place. “There you go.” He loosened the vice and handed the putter to Opur.
“This feels neat!” the youngster cried as he placed the putter in his hands.
“Be careful with it right now. It needs to sit overnight to dry. If I would have used the rubber cement it would have been ready in five minutes.”
Opur handed the putter back to J Dub. “I don’t want to mess it up.”
“Give it time to dry. Maybe we’ll go out on the course and test it tomorrow.”
“On the practice green?”
“No, I’ll get a few of the guys and we’ll go out and play a round of golf.”
“Yea!”
J Dub smiled at the enthusiasm. “You’ve been doing a good job hitting balls. I imagine you’re tired of doing that. We’ll see if you can take your game to the course.”
“How did you know?” Opur asked.
“I’ve been there myself,” J Dub answered. “When I learned to play, my dad made me hit balls all summer before he let me go to the course. After four or five weeks of that I wanted to play.” He reached out and rubbed the top of Opur’s head. “I gave you the rulebook. Did you finish reading it?
Opur shook his head back and forth. “Not yet.”
“Remember what I said at the beginning of the summer?”
Opur was ashamed that he hadn’t started it. “Yep.”
“My dad wouldn’t let me go out and play a round until I had read it.” J Dub nodded his head downward and looked out the top of his eyes. “You better brush up on some stuff the rest of the day and tonight.” He grabbed the putter. “We’ll give this club a rest and play with the guys tomorrow.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“M . . . M . . . M . . . Mom! . . . Y . . . Y . . . You’re embarrassing me.”
“I’m gonna take this in and give it to him for lettin’ you golf here,” Rayelene said as she grabbed the present intended for the head pro.
The two exited the minivan and headed for the front door of the clubhouse. “J . . . J . . . J . . . Jeez! Y . . . Y . . . Y . . . You don’t need t . . . t . . . t . . . to do that.”
“I want to. They’ve been so nice to you this summer.” The door to the clubhouse opened. Owen and Rayelene entered to minor commotion in the back corner.
Julie worked the register while J Dub sat behind the counter and worked on a crossword puzzle. His reading glasses rested halfway down his nose. “Are you ready to go?” the pro asked his prodigy.
“He could hardly sleep last night,” Rayelene butted in before her son could answer. She stood a step from the counter in a chic skirt, the floral prints not matching on the rear seam. Rayelene had chosen a denim top tied in a knot below her breast. The look magnified her tanned stomach and belly chain. Her hair was pulled behind her ears and tied in the back by a single neon-colored silicone band. She wore a pair of white sandals that brought attention to her manicured toenails. Even the guys in the back booth took notice at the thirty-something female with a little country in her voice. “Here. I brought you this.” She reached out to hand the present to J Dub.
The head pro scurried off of his chair and took the package, stumbling at the quick action. “You didn’t need to do that,” he said blushing.
“It’s okay. It was two ’fer one day at the MooseMart.”
J Dub snuck a quick glance at Julie as he tore off the wrapper. “My, my. We can put these to good use around here.” He took a golf tee out of his pocket, poked it into the crease that was between the top and bottom of the container and broke the plastic wrap that covered the box of chocolate covered cherries.
“They’re my favorite,” Rayelene said.
“Then you can take the first one,” J Dub said as he removed the top of the box and offered the container to Rayelene. She picked off the white-ridged covering and looked at each treat hoping to pick the best one. She craned her neck and deliberately hesitated not able to make up her mind.
“M . . . M . . . M . . . Mom, just take one.”
J Dub smiled at Owen’s word of warning then remembered how Rayelene had banged her foot the last time in the pro shop. “How’s your foot feeling?”
Rayelene looked up from the box of chocolates. “If I said lousy would you massage it again?” Her eyes met his then quickly returned to the chocolate covered cherries. She chose one that was to her liking and popped it in her mouth. Rayelene worked her jaws and cheeks like she had three pieces of bubblegum and a jawbreaker in her mouth. She slowly moved her lips outward and gazed into the eyes of J Dub for an inordinately long time. So much so that it caused an awkward moment.
For lack of anything better to say J Dub blurted, “Let me take a look at it.” He immediately caught himself. But it was too late. Rayelene jumped up on a stool her skirt hiked well past mid-thigh.
Quick-witted Julie came to the rescue. “Who back there wants a chocolate covered cherry?” She grabbed the box from J Dub, offered the contents to Owen and headed for the rear booth.
J Dub moseyed to the register, leaned forward a tad and said, “Your foot looks pretty good from here.”
Rayelene extended her leg. When it reached its full length she pointed her toes toward J Dub, the slight opening between her legs unmistakable. “The ice helped it a little. But it still hurts. It felt best when you massaged it.” She ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth in an attempt to get the chocolate off the outside of her front teeth gazing deeply at J Dub as her tongue slowly went around her lips. Then she opened her mouth slightly and laid her tongue on her lower lip, her front teeth resting on it.
J Dub gulped, not knowing where to look.
“J Dub said he fixed your putter yesterday,” Fred yelled to Opur from the back booth.
J Dub took a breath of fresh air. He went to the corner, grabbed the golf club and handed it to Opur. “Show them what we did.” The lad walked to the corner booth.
Rayelene continued to stare at J Dub, enamored with his lanky good looks. “That’s all he talked about last night.” She wiggled her toes, met eyes with J Dub and asked, “Can you rub my toes again?”
The pro backed off, shook his head back and forth and mumbled, “It wouldn’t be appropriate in here.”
“You did the day I hurt it,” Rayelene persisted. She bent her leg, placed her foot on the stool seat and adjusted a ring on her middle toe. “Pleeease.”
“That’s a good looking grip you put on J Dub!” Rollie yelled from the booth.
“How many strips of lead tape?” Fred asked.
J Dub took advantage of the change in topics. “Three. Hopefully we got it fixed up to where he can make some putts again.”
Julie walked back to the register. “Those went over like a birthday cake in a kindergarten class. Only three are left.” She grabbed one. “Why don’t the two of you take the last one?”
J Dub reached in, grabbed a piece of candy and popped it into his mouth.
Rayelene backed off. “No, I just hold it to one a day.” She lowered her leg, resting it on a wrung on the stool and placed her hand on her hip. “Gotta watch where it goes.”
“Sh . . . Sh . . . Sh . . . She only has one f . . . f . . . f . . . for breakfast every morning.”
“J Dub fixed you up pretty good,” Easy Earl said to Opur. The kid beamed.
“Maybe that will cure your putting stroke,” Rollie yelled even though Opur stood two feet from him.
“Turn your hearing aid down!” Easy Earl shouted back. “We’re sitting right next to you not out in the field somewhere!” Rollie reached up and made an adjustment.
“It’s getting time to go,” J Dub said. “Let’s load the clubs.” He turned back to Rayelene, her bruised feelings evident. “One of us can bring h
im home at the end of the day. I don’t know how long he’ll be here today.”
She perked up a bit. “Will it be you?”
J Dub was caught in another awkward moment. Julie jumped in. “You’ve got the tickets to the Cardinal game tonight. I can take him home after I get off work.”
“Well, at least somebody will be excited tonight,” Rayelene said dejectedly. “Owen will have played his first round of golf I suppose.” She reached out and hugged her son. Opur hurried out the door with J Dub following. Rayelene’s eyes trailed the pro’s tailbone. She took a deep breath, fanned her right hand in front of her face and exhaled slowly. In a reflective moment she stared at the last piece of candy in the box. After hesitating for a second Rayelene reached over and grabbed the last piece. She popped the chocolate covered cherry into her mouth and chewed with open mouth, lips smacking loudly. Turning to Julie she said, “That’s the only thing that loves my ass.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“We’ll let him play the ‘up’ tees,” J Dub said as the guys congregated on the first tee. Fred, Rollie and Easy Earl had been sitting on the bench watching Opur putt for several weeks and wanted to be included in his first round of golf. They joined J Dub. “That is enough of a challenge for him.”
“Are we allowed to play this many?” Opur asked.
“Very good,” J Dub answered. “Did you do your assignment and read about the rules of golf?”
Opur shook his head negatively. “I looked at it.”
“We can do anything we want around here,” Fred butted in. J Dub scoffed at his friend. “We know the owner.” He winked at the head pro.
J Dub smirked. “Within reason. You guys follow the rules. There’s no need to get after you.” He turned to Opur. “In golf you’re allowed a maximum of four players per group, but this place is open to the public and we bend the rules a little for the regulars when it’s slow. As long as we keep up with the group in front of us and don’t hold up play, I let the guys go out in a five-some once in a while.”
The guys hit their drives from the middle tee markers. “Some things never change,” Fred said as he watched his ball fade to the right.
“You can’t get your fat ass through the ball,” Easy Earl joked.
J Dub walked to the forward tees and took Opur under his tutelage. “This is no different than the range,” he started trying to put the youngster at ease. Opur placed his tee in the ground, went through his checklist of fundamentals, stood over the ball and drilled it down the middle. J Dub marveled at the kid’s swing.
“Like that?”
“Yeah, just like that,” Easy Earl yelled as he scrambled into the cart. What he had been trying to do all of his life the kid had mastered in a few weeks.
“If he beats me his first time out then I may give up the game,” Rollie followed.
“Come on, guys,” J Dub pleaded. “Let him play. We’ve all had our first round of golf. It’s hard enough without all of the wisecracks.” J Dub turned to Opur as they climbed into a cart. “Don’t let them get to you. That’s part of the game. It means they care about you.”
Opur nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders, unfazed by the comments. “They don’t bother me any. I’m just doing what you’re telling me to do.”
J Dub chuckled at the irony of the statement. “But what you don’t understand is that I tell everyone to hit it down the middle and only a few can do it.” He chuckled some more. “Keep doing what you’re doing.”
“What now?”
“Knock it on the green, take two putts and you’ll have your first par.”
A few minutes later after the ball dropped in the cup Fred yelled as he jumped up and down. “You parred the first hole you played!”
“You made it look easy,” Easy Earl added as he reached over and picked up the flag.
“How did you do that?” Rollie asked.
Unfazed, Opur shrugged nonchalantly. “I just did what J Dub told me to do.”
“You guys saw it,” J Dub added. “He played the shots the way the game was designed; middle of the fairway, center of the green, a nice roll at a birdie and a tap-in par.”
“It took me my adult life to do it that way,” Fred whined.
“That’s because you spent too much time at the dinner table,” Easy Earl chided his buddy. Fred’s belly, as hard as a rock, looked like a beer keg covered by a golf shirt.
“Yeah, right,” he smiled. “It keeps me from over swinging.”
J Dub made a fist and held it out firmly for Opur to tap as they returned to the cart. “Good job. That’s exciting to get your first par.”
Opur shrugged. A look of indifference covered his freckled face. “That’s what you’re supposed to do, isn’t it?”
Two holes later Opur watched as his tee shot ran through the fairway and settled in the first cut of rough. As he prepared to hit the ball he reached down with the face of his club and gently rolled the ball over to get a better lie. “Hey what are you doing?” J Dub asked.
“Making the ball easier to hit,” Opur replied.
“Who told you to do that?”
“Nobody. I saw Rollie do it on the last hole.”
“Just because he does it doesn’t mean that you can. Those guys always bump the ball to give themselves a better lie.”
“Why can’t I do it too?”
“It’s against the rules of golf,” J Dub explained. “You’re supposed to hit the ball from where it came to rest.”
“Should I put it back?”
“No, it’s too late for that. You lie two since you bumped it. Play the ball from where it lies now.”
“That doesn’t seem right,” Opur complained.
“A lot of rules in golf don’t make sense, but there is a reason behind all of them. This is a basic violation.”
“That’s not fair if they get to do it,” Opur continued.
“I’m teaching you how to play the game the right way,” J Dub said. “There’s only one way to learn. Now you know. You won’t do it again.”
Opur sulked, feeling deflated. “So that means that I’ll probably get a bogey on this hole.”
“That’s if you can continue to make good, smart shots,” J Dub said. “You better let that little bit of adversity go and start bearing down again. Everybody is going to have a bogey once in a while.”
Opur proceeded to knock the next shot on the green and two putted for a one over par bogey on the hole. “How many pars in a row is that?” Rollie asked as the group headed off the green and walked toward the cart. “Four?”
“I didn’t get a par,” Opur moaned.
“You were on in two and had two putts,” Fred said.
“No. J Dub charged me an extra stroke.”
“What for?” Easy Earl asked.
Opur stared angrily at J Dub. J Dub held firm. He knew that the fiery temper was a good sign of a tough competitor. “I nudged the ball a little to give myself a better lie,” he explained.
“We do that all the time,” Rollie said.
“J Dub said that I was supposed to play the ball down,” Opur said. The pro stood behind the boy and motioned quickly with his hands for the guys to agree.
“We should too,” Fred said. “The course is in good enough condition.”
“We’re old and stuff like that doesn’t matter anymore,” Easy Earl said. “We’re not out to win The Classic or anything like that.”
“He’s teaching you what not to do,” Rollie added. “I was wrong on the other hole.”
“So, what do you want us to give you?” Fred asked.
Opur looked again at J Dub. The pro had drilled into him how honesty was a big part of the game of golf. The boy looked down at the ground. “I had a bogey.”
The guys shrugged. “That J Dub is a hard-ass,” Easy Earl joked.
The pro smiled at his regular then turned to Opur. “But what did I tell you?”
“You said that I wouldn’t make that mistake again,” the boy replied.
“Then take your lump and move on,” Fred quipped as the carts headed for the next tee.
The round perked along. Opur made some good shots and got himself in trouble once in a while. J Dub’s coaching seemed to help the boy around the course until they reached the ninth hole. Opur had pulled his drive into the left hand rough and had a difficult shot out of a group of trees. “What should I do now?” he asked J Dub.
“You don’t have much,” the pro said as they surveyed the situation.
Opur’s inquisitive response was predicted. “How do I play it?”
J Dub gazed down at the ball. “Wiggle your butt in there against the tree and see what you have.”
“What do you mean?”
“See if you have a swing,” the pro advised.
Opur did as he was told. After he got his back up against the tree he gingerly eased the club back away from the golf ball. “I can’t swing at it like I want to.”
“Be careful not to hit anything on the practice swing,” J Dub urged.
“Why not?”
“If you disturb something on the tree it will cost you another stroke.”
“That’s not right,” Opur protested.
“Right or wrong; that’s the situation we’re in,” J Dub reminded the boy. “You should have finished reading the rule book.”
Opur changed the direction of his body several times. “I might be able to hit it this way, but it won’t get near the green,” the boy said as he motioned to a point back out in the fairway.
“A lot of times you have to take what the golf course gives you,” the head pro agreed. “Try to knock it back out in the fairway and we’ll do the best we can.”
Opur wiggled back up against the tree and angled his body so that he could get a club on the ball and chip it out from the trouble. As he took his backswing the club went high over his head and caught a low lying limb. He stopped as several leaves and a tiny branch trickled to the ground. “Darn!”
“Why did you do that?” J Dub asked.
“What?”
“Stop your swing,” the pro answered.
“The limb caught my club,” Opur explained.
“If you would have continued with the swing, everything would have been okay,” J Dub said. He walked into the trees and picked the fractured limb up off of the ground. “You have to take another penalty stroke. If you would have continued your swing you wouldn’t have gotten charged for it.”
