you've ever acted old was 30
years ago when you were looking
to hustle somebody on the course.
You should have seen her. She'd
listen to these guys talking about
playing for ten dollars a hole and
she'd start holding her back or
massaging her poor "arthritic"
hands. Next thing you know, she's
smiling and counting their money."
"Marty Beck! You never told me
you were a hustler!" Louise was
astonished to learn of her lover's
shady side.
"It was a long time ago, Lou. Joe
Baxter finally hired me on at Elk
Ridge because his members
started asking for me. I tell you, it
wasn't easy back then for a woman
to earn a living at this game."
"How long were you on the tour,
Marty?" Shirley asked.
"About three years."
"Did you ever play in The Dinah?"
"Oh, no. The Dinah didn't start
until 1972. I left the tour in '66."
"What was it like, Marty?" Linda
asked. "The tour, I mean."
Louise settled back on the sofa of
their three-bedroom condo,
looking forward to hearing her
partner talk about such an exciting
time in her life. Marty sat on the
floor in front and leaned back
against her knees.
"Sometimes it was all I wanted to
do. Other times, it was… well, it
was pretty miserable." She felt
Louise's comforting hand on her
shoulder as her voice dipped in
melancholy. "I'll probably never
forget the way I felt the last day
I played. When I teed off that
morning, I was on top of the
world. It was the U. S. Open at
Hazeltine National in Minneapolis.
I was one of only a handful of
qualifiers in a field of about a
hundred. Everyone else was
exempt."
"What does that mean?" Joyce
asked. All of the women had
gathered in the living room to
hear the tale.
"It means that most of the golfers
playing in the Open didn't have to
qualify because they had won
tournaments already or they were
among the top money winners. I
was neither. I squeaked in after
finishing fourth at a qualifying
tournament the week before. My
best outing on the tour was third
place at a tournament in South
Carolina that most of the really
good players skipped so they
could have a break. The smaller
tournaments were my best bet for
getting a paycheck because it was
easier to make the cut. But the
purses were pretty small.
Sometimes, the winner walked off
with only four hundred dollars."
"That's amazing. I bet the men
were making thousands."
"Yeah, but the LPGA tour didn't
have that many big sponsors.
That's one of the things that
changed when The Dinah came
along. All of a sudden, the LPGA
had a major sponsor in Colgate and
a public face that people liked.
The media picked up on it and it
finally took off."
"So what happened at the Open?
Go on with your story," Shirley
coaxed.
"Like I said, on Sunday morning I
felt great. I'd had the best round
of my whole career the day
before and was tied for fourth
place, but just two strokes back
from the leader. I birdied the
first hole and scooted up into
second… and then the wheels came
off." Marty sighed at the memory.
"I hit it out of bounds on two and
dropped a stroke. On six and 13, I
hit it in the water. I swear, I
missed a half dozen putts by an
inch. But I didn't back down. Oh,
no, not Marty Russell. I kept
taking chances, and I even
finished the day with a birdie on
18, but all told, I'd dropped back
to 15th place. I took home about
three hundred dollars, and I mean
I took it home. Wallace was my
caddy back then, and he and I just
threw the clubs in the station
wagon and headed back to Holland.
I bet we didn't say five words to
each other all the way back."
"That was it?"
"That was my last professional
tournament. Wallace and I hired on
at the club where we played
growing up. They made him the
full-time pro and I gave lessons
part-time and worked the rest of
the time in the clubhouse."
"Wait a minute! They made your
caddy the full-time pro?" Joyce
was outraged.
"Yep! And everybody there knew I
could beat him from the blue tees,
even Wallace, but that's the way it
was back then. 'Course, it didn't
matter much in the long run,
because we got married pretty
soon after that and the next year
I got pregnant with Katie."
The six women sat quietly, no one
quite sure what to say in the wake
of a story like that. The clock on
the mantle chimed the hour of
nine.
"I don't know about you guys, but
I'm beat. It's really been a long
day," Shirley said. "And this old body of mine thinks it's midnight."
"That's because it is midnight
back in Florida where we got up
this morning," Linda answered,
tugging her partner to her feet.
The women had agreed to let
Shirley and Linda have the
bedroom downstairs; there were
two more master suites upstairs.
"I bet we're all awake at four
o'clock," Marty lamented.
"You up at four? That'll be the
day!" Louise took her lover's hand
and pulled her toward the stairs.
"We'll see you ladies in the
morning."
Marty drifted deeper into her
funk as she closed the door to
their bedroom. "I guess I really
threw a wet blanket on the party
with that miserable tale, didn't
I?"
"You didn't throw a wet blanket on
things, honey. Everybody's just
tired tonight."
The golf pro shrugged. She had
fought those demons so many
times, always thinking she'd
survived it in the end; but it was
hard not to dream about how far
she might have gone had she
played better that day. Louise
interrupted her reflections with a
soft kiss to the back of her ear as
they settled into bed.
"I love you, Marty."
"I love you too."
Over the next two days, Marty
and Louise played two rounds of
golf, one with Carol and Joyce and
another on their own. They
explored the downtown with
Shirley and Linda
, and all six
women relaxed at the condo from
the late afternoon until bedtime.
So far, it was a perfect vacation;
all of them were completely
enamored with the beautiful
desert resort.
On Thursday, the three couples
piled into the rented van to go to
Mission Hills in Rancho Mirage,
the home of The Dinah. The four-
day tournament got underway at
eight o'clock.
"Wow! Look at all the people!"
Louise was amazed at the crowd,
already numbering in the hundreds
at 7:30 in the morning. Most were
women, and many seemed to be
couples like themselves.
"Wait till Saturday and Sunday.
There'll be ten times this many
here then," Marty explained. "I'll get us a program. Why don't you
go on up and sit with Shirley and
Linda? You want me to bring you
anything?"
"No, I'm fine." Louise began the
climb up the bleachers to where
their friends were already sitting.
She and Marty had walked first to
the 18th hole to view the bronze
statue of Dinah Shore and to see
the Wall of Champions that
recorded the previous tournament
winners. Despite the early hour,
the air was humming with
excitement.
Marty shouldered through the
crowd to the kiosk where the
programs were sold. Hopefully,
Louise had brought their reading
glasses or they…
"Marty?"
The blonde golf pro whirled at the
sound of her name, at once
spotting her old friend Pat
Shapiro, now a pro at a private
Tampa club. "Pat!"
The two friends hugged warmly.
"I didn't know you were coming
this year."
"It was a Christmas present from
my new lady. She's sitting up in
the bleachers. I'd love for you to
meet her."
Marty and Pat had played on the
tour together, the latter woman
hanging on four years after Marty
had hung it up. Pat had been good
enough to land a sponsor, Marty
thought, but a Jewish surname
had been the real handicap in
those days. Over the years,
they'd run into one another at
some of the LPGA sanctioned
teaching and club pro events in
Florida, and enjoyed now both a
friendship and a mutual
professional regard. And Pat was
"in the family," so to speak;
though if she'd ever had a
partner, Marty didn't know about
it.
"I'd like to, but I've only got a
minute. I'm sure I'll run into you
both over the next few days. Did
you know Tami was playing?"
"You're kidding! How'd she get
in?" Tami Sparks was a recent
University of Florida grad whom
Marty had "discovered" as a young teenager. After working with her
for three years, she'd seen the
potential and had referred her to
Pat, who was an outstanding
teacher and better connected to
the ladies' pro tour.
"She won that qualifying
tournament in Atlantic City last
month. She's got her handicap
down to two. I think she's decided
to get serious about this."
"God, I hope so. It would be such
a shame to see all that potential go
to waste." Tami had given up so
much of her youth to an adult
game that she'd almost burned out
for good. On Pat's advice - and
against her parents' wishes -
she'd taken almost a year off
before turning back to the game
she loved.
"Well, she still has to make the
cut, but she's playing pretty good
golf right now."
"That's great. I'll be sure to find
her and say hello."
"She tees off at 8:40 on Number
10 if you're interested. Or you can
come over to the driving range in
about 15 minutes to watch her
warm up."
"I'll do that. It'll be great to see
her again," the blonde agreed.
"Listen, a bunch of us from the
tour are meeting for drinks at the
clubhouse Saturday at two o'clock.
You ought to stop by."
"Who all's going to be here?"
Marty hadn't kept up with most of
the women she'd played against
week in and week out for those
three years long ago.
"Fran, Becky… Mary Jean… and a
couple of others I can't think of.
You should stop in."
"Okay, I'll try. But I'm here with
five other people and one car, so I
can't promise."
The friends said goodbye and
Marty picked up a program and
worked her way back to the
bleachers. "I just ran into a friend
of mine from Tampa," she said
cheerfully. She went on to explain
about Pat Shapiro and Tami
Sparks.
"Hey, she's that kid you were
working with when we first
started coming down to Florida!"
Linda remembered the teenager
that followed Marty all around the
club.
"That's her. And she's playing in
this tournament."
"You mean to tell me that someone
you gave lessons to is now a pro?"
Louise was immeasurably
impressed.
"Yes, ma'am! Listen, I'm going
over to the driving range to say
hello to her. You guys want to
come meet her?"
"I'm not giving up this seat,"
Shirley pronounced. Their seats
were in the only patch of shade.
"Lou?"
Louise really enjoyed seeing her
partner so excited, but she
couldn't help but feel like she
might be in the way. She didn't
know any of these women Marty
was off to see, and Marty might
cut her visit short because she
wouldn't want her to feel left out.
"Why don't you go on by yourself?
She's a friend of yours and you
should talk to her without having
me hanging around. I'll say hello to
her some other time."
The blonde woman started to leave
again when Carol and Joyce
climbed to their row and sat to
await the first group of golfers
teeing off. "You'd never believe
what we just saw," Joyce said, still
shaking her head in amazement.
"What?" the group asked in unison.
"There's a woman over there that
looks exactly like Marty did when
I first met her. She's wearing a
sponsor's tag."
The women craned their necks to
see if they could catch a glimpse.
"She looked like me?"
"A lot. At least the way you looked
back then."
"You mean before I
got so old and
fat." Marty had no problem with
calling it as she saw it.
"Marty Beck, you are not old and
fat! You're… just right," Louise
argued.
"Nice try, sweetie," she grinned.
"I know you love me, but I'm still
old and fat."
Watching her lover walk away,
Louise asked the others, "Why do
you think she goes on so much
about being fat? I think she's as
cute as she can be."
"I guess people just have their
own ideas about how they want to
look," Carol offered. "We've
probably all added a few pounds
over the years, but that doesn't
make it easy to accept the
changes."
Louise sighed and shook her head.
She weighed the same today as
she had most of her life, but she
had to admit that things were…
apportioned a little differently.
Still, she'd just never been the
sort to put so much emphasis on
what was on the outside, and she
wished Marty wouldn't either.
As promised, Marty found her
young protégé warming up at the
driving range. From about 20
yards back, she watched as Pat
quietly instructed the woman at
the tee. It was hard not to envy
both of them; Tami for her
youthful potential, and Pat for her
mentoring role and ringside seat.
If the young woman continued to
play well, they could both ride the
wave for several years, right at
the center of all the action on the
women's tour.
The decision six years ago to
hook Tami Sparks up with Pat
Shapiro had been gut-wrenching
for Marty. She would have loved
the chance to get back onto the
tour, and there was no one in her
life then who would have tied her
to home. But the kid deserved a
real shot, and Pat knew the ins and
outs of the LPGA better than
anyone she knew. It would have
been selfish on her part to try to
do it on her own just to have the
chance to get back on the inside
again. But seeing them here
together was tough.
"Well, look who's finally learned to
keep her head down!"
"Marty!" Tami dropped her club
and ran to embrace her former
coach. "What are you doing here?"
"I heard that some hotshot kid
was making her move, and I
thought I'd better check it out."
"I can't believe you're here! Wait
till Mom and Dad find out." Mike
and Cathy Sparks would always be
grateful for Marty's guidance of
their daughter's career.
"It'll be good to see them again.
Listen, is it okay if I join your
gallery on the course? You can say
Mulligan Page 13
