I waved Ted back to his paperwork and pushed through the swinging door that led into the main grillroom. There were about a dozen men having an early lunch, drinking beer or staring at some sporting event blaring out from the huge television screen that hung from a corner of the ceiling. Big windows along the front of the room looked out on the first tee, where a foursome was getting ready to set off. I wandered to the back of the grill, past the long mahogany bar, pushed through another door and ran up the stairs.
The top floor of the golf house at Shuttlecock was the sanctum sanctorum for the male members of the club. While political correctness had invaded even the hallowed fairways here, where women had equal membership rights and could get prime weekend morning tee times, there was still once place in the club where men could act like men, and that was the upstairs locker room. It was mostly one big, open room, with the ceiling following the lines of the hip roof and gables. Rows of old metal lockers ran off a wide center aisle, and in the middle of the space, there was a row of brown-tiled showers. On the opposite side, a bathroom area held stalls and urinals, and a row of sinks outfitted with combs, brushes, throwaway razors and even a couple hair dryers.
The front of the room, with a row of large windows overlooking the first hole, was the game room. There was a big billiards table on one side, its brilliant green baize gleaming in the light of a Tiffany swag. On the wall, a wooden rack held a half-dozen cue sticks, and a dusty blackboard showed the score of a recent game. Three hexagonal card tables were grouped opposite the table, also covered in baize, with wooden shelves along the edges to hold drinks and stacks of chips. Two big ceiling fans whirred slowly overhead in a useless attempt to move the thick, steamy, cigar-scented air around.
Only one of the card tables was in use, but the six men sitting there were fully engaged in their game. The colorful chips were tossed into the pile in the center, the ashtrays were overflowing with crushed butts, and the drinks glasses of the players were beaded with moisture in the fetid air.
Jack Connolly sat on the left side of the table, his face a profiled study in concentration. He didn’t see me right away, and I let him play his hand while I watched quietly from the side of the room. Jack was a handsome man. In college, he had been absolutely irresistible to women. His hair was still a tawny shade of gold, cut short, with small curls around the edges. He had a high brow, deep blue eyes, a patrician’s hooked nose and a wry, off-center way of grinning. The fingers that held his cards were long and elegant and I noticed his well-trimmed, manicured nails. He wore a thin gold chain around one wrist, but was otherwise without watch or jewelry of any kind. He wore casual golf shorts and a shirt that was neatly pressed, but not expensive looking. Jackie was never flashy or loud. But he did have a nice-looking cashmere sweater casually draped around his shoulders and knotted at the front.
The poker hand was nearing its denouement. The pot was being fought between Jack and a fat guy sitting across the table from him. I watched as Jack coolly raised his eyes from his cards to stare at the man.
“Fifty,” he said quietly, throwing a handful of chips into the center of the table.
The other man stared back at Jack for a long count, then blinked and folded his cards in resignation. Jack just smiled quietly to himself as he raked in the chips. “Roland!” he called out. A pudgy young fellow dressed in medical white from head to toe materialized from out of nowhere at the call. “Drinks all around,” Jack ordered, motioning at the table. “They need it. Hell, I need it.”
Roland vanished as quietly as he had appeared. Jack finally looked up and saw me standing there.
“Hack man!” he said with genuine pleasure, and stood up to shake my hand. “Gentlemen,” he announced to his pals at the table, “This is Hacker, my able-bodied, poor son-of-a-bitch partner for the weekend. He will accept your pity, but would appreciate your dollars instead.”
Jack introduced me around the table, and I shook hands while giving up trying to remember all the names. The fat guy who had lost the last pot to Jack held my hand for an instant longer than normal, and peered at me through his thick round glasses.
“Hacker, eh?” he said softly. “I’ve heard about you. Didn’t you used to play on the goddam Tour?”
“Only a couple years,” Jackie said, a huge grin breaking across his face. “And before that we were college teammates at Wake. Hacker made it to the finals in the Amateur before he turned pro. He’s since regained his amateur status, so he’s legit.”
“Legit my ass,” the fat guy said. “What’s his handicap, plus four?”
“I’m a certified three,” I said, smiling. “Don’t get to play as much as I used to.”
“He’s too busy raking muck for that despicable fishwrapper in Boston,” Jackie said, laughing.
“Three? That’s awful strong for a former Tour player,” said the fat guy. “I don’t think that’s fair …”
“Oh, Charlie, quit your whining,” Jackie snapped at the guy, although he was still smiling. “You’ll be getting, what? Ten shots from him? Besides, he’s gotta carry my sorry ass around all weekend, and that’ll put anybody off their game.”
There were nods of assent all around, and the table began a spirited discussion of handicap strokes and the general inequities of golf in loud and happy voices. Roland came bustling out of wherever he hid with a tray full of freshly made cocktails. Jackie grabbed his, pushed back from the table and motioned at me to follow. He led me back to his locker in the last row at the rear of the building. An ivy-covered window overlooked the parking lot down below.
“You can change and stuff here,” he said, pulling his locker open with a loud clang. “Now, for tomorrow, when the tournament starts, I want you to wear this.”
He reached into his locker and pulled out a hanger with slacks, a golf shirt and a belt. The slacks were a strange blue color the clothing catalogs like to call teal. The shirt had a white background, with a scattered design in greens and blues that looked like someone on crack cocaine had gone wild with a brush. Embroidered over the heart on the front of the shirt were the words “THE BROTHERS.”
“If we’re gonna play team golf, we’re gonna dress like a team,” Jackie said happily, pulling out the exact same outfit for himself. “You know, it’s a gang thing, like the Crips and the Bloods. We’ll strike fear into the hearts of our opponents. I got different outfits for each day. Wait’ll you see Sunday! That is your size, isn’t it?”
I was just staring at the clothes and shaking my head. “’The Brothers?’ Jack, you just invited me to play in this thing a couple of days ago. When did you have time to custom order matching outfits?”
“Hell’s bells,” he said. “You gotta look stylish if you’re gonna kick some Shuttlecock butt. Now look, here’s the piece de résistance!”
He reached up on a shelf inside his locker and came out with two huge, wide-brimmed white Panama hats, trimmed in a wide band swimming in colors of red, yellow, pink and green.
“We’re each going to go outside wearing one of those?” I asked, unable to mask the incredulity in my voice.
He nodded.
“In the daytime?”
He grinned his wry, one-sided grin at me.
“On purpose?”
“I thought the Greg Norman straw-hat look would complete the look, even if he was one of the biggest choking dogs who ever lived. Did I ever tell you how much money I lost on his sorry ass in the Masters of ’90?”
“You are certifiably insane,” I said. “What have you got for Sunday?”
Jack Connolly laughed. “I knew you’d like it,” he said. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Jack wanted to get back to his card game since he was on something of a roll. I wanted to go hit some balls, since it had been at least three weeks since I last touched a club.
“Okay,” he said, edging back towards the card room. “Check back with me in about 45 minutes. We’ll play a practic
e round at around one o’clock. You need anything to eat or drink, just tell ‘em to put it on my tab. I don’t want you to spend a dime this weekend, buddy. Just play good and make lotsa birdies.”
I waved him away as I started to change into my golf shoes.
“Who we playing with this afternoon?” I asked.
“I dunno, we’ll pick up a game with someone.”
When I looked up, he was gone. I laughed quietly to myself. I had long ago learned not to try and keep up with Jack Connolly. In our college days, his staying power at parties was legendary. When we had traveled away from campus for a golf tournament, he had always figured out a way to defeat the usual bed checks and snuck out to sample the nightlife of wherever we were. Rarely did he get back to bed before dawn, or get much in the way of sleep, but he never missed a tee time and he was always a solid golfer. How he did it, I never was able to determine.
So I left him to his card game and drinking. I walked outside, picked up a bucket of practice balls and shouldered my clubs for the short walk up a hill next to the 18th green to the practice range.
The sun was shining brightly in a cloudless sky. Huge beds of summer annuals waved in a light breeze, their scents mingling with those of freshly mown grass to give the air a delicate and unmistakable perfume of golf. At the range, which spilled downhill from the hilltop tee, perhaps a dozen men were beating balls. From the narrow crescent of grass, the broad curve of the river sparkled in the sun as it swept past the angular lines of the old clubhouse. There were some tennis courts off in the woods to the right, and I could see the blue slash of the club’s swimming pool over near the clubhouse. With school back in session, the pool was largely deserted, except for a pretty young lifeguard who was stacking up the chaises.
I wandered down the tee to an empty hitting station, next to two guys who were hitting balls with stern purpose. I put down my bucket, strapped on my golf glove and began some stretching exercises designed to loosen up the big muscles of my back. One of the men next to me was lecturing the other about the golf swing, and I quickly discerned that the two were partners for the weekend’s tournament.
The one doing the lecturing was a small man with a stocky, well-defined build, somewhere in his late forties. It was obvious from his lithe, trim shape that he spent some time in the gym. He had jet black hair long on the sides and in back, but cut short on top and in front, and he used lots of wet goop to keep it in place. He was dressed all in black: slacks, golf shirt and highly polished shoes. His golf shirt was open at the neck, displaying a thick, twisted strand of gold chain that hung down onto his thick, black hairy chest. As he lectured his partner earnestly, I noticed his deep-set eyes, framed by a prominent forehead and a large, aquiline nose. His narrow pointy chin stuck out defiantly as he made his points, gesturing with sharp-edged hands. With his well-muscled upper torso, he looked like a black-topped fireplug, short but powerful.
His partner, on the other hand, was an older man wearing a sweat-stained baseball cap beneath which a few stray strands of wispy white hair escaped. He was at least a foot taller than his partner, and outweighed him significantly. He had broad shoulders and a prominent beer gut, and his clothes seemed to sag on his soft frame, especially his pants, which clung desperately to his waist. He wore thick glasses with lenses that were tinted slightly darker than normal. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I could tell by his body language that he was getting slightly annoyed with the incessant and energetic lecture he was getting on the basics of a sound golf swing from the black-clad fireplug. He stood there patiently, resting both hands atop the butt of his club, and tried to listen and nod at all the right places.
The fireplug was expiating on the importance of a full rotation in the backswing, demonstrating the turning motion in exaggerated movements. “You gotta turn, Fred,” fireplug was saying. “Turn your back to the target. Then, coming through, lay your head on the pillow. On the pillow, Fred. Like that.”
He demonstrated for Fred. The backswing turn was good, but what he did with his head during the swing was something I had never seen before. He seemed to be trying to stick his right shoulder into his right ear while hitting the golf ball. It was a move I don’t recall reading in Hogan’s book, “Five Lessons.”
Fred nodded, raked a ball from the pile at his feet and whacked at it. It didn’t look to me like Fred bothered much about either turning his back to the target or laying his head on his pillow. He just swung at it, and watched as the ball skittered off to the right.
“Watch your angles, Fred! The angles!” Fireplug yelled. “You released way too early. Hogan says you gotta keep those angles until the very last second!”
“Vitus,” Fred said with a noticeable sigh. “I haven’t got the faintest idea what you’re talking about, and in case you haven’t noticed, I ain’t no Hogan.”
I chuckled out loud at the exchange. Vitus the fireplug heard me and shot a dark look at me.
“None of us are,” I said with a friendly smile.
Vitus pulled himself up to his full height, which still didn’t come up to my shoulders. “If you don’t mind,” he said icily, “We’re working on our game here.”
My smile faded. Prick, I thought. “’Scuse me,” I mumbled and went back to my stretching. I wasn’t going to let the guy spoil a beautiful day. Golf is not a physically demanding game, but it’s also not an activity that God had in mind when He designed the human body. So I always loosened up before I began striking balls, otherwise I would feel it the next morning. And with four days in a row of golf ahead, I didn’t want to put undue stress and strain on my back or legs. Heck, even Jack Nicklaus used to spend an hour a day stretching and loosening. Just another thing me and Jack have in common.
Once I felt loose, I started swinging with my sand wedge. It’s a heavier club than the others, so that too helped me stretch out. I started by hitting some half shots, not worrying about how far the ball was going, or even in what direction, but simply trying to develop a smooth tempo and make good contact. Most golfers go out to the practice range, pull out a driver and immediately start trying to hit the ball 300 yards. Big mistake. One must work up to hitting full shots, slowly and carefully.
Once I had a rhythm going, I stretched out the swing to three-quarter and then full swings. Then, I switched to a seven-iron and, again, began by hitting little half-shots, and some knock-downs, trying to keep the ball low and in control. I tried to keep the tempo slow and smooth, always slow and smooth. Effortless. Trying to “not try.” After a bit, I began to focus on the 150-yard marker planted down the hill, and began to try and hit the ball somewhere in that vicinity.
I get into my own little world on the practice range. Hitting balls is both fun and therapeutic. As I get into a practice session, everything around me begins to fade out. The world slowly dissolves and disappears as I concentrate only on my tempo, my swing, and the ball. McNamara and his entire brass band could march up behind me and launch into the Washington March and I probably wouldn’t notice. I would be thinking about my tempo, looking at the golf ball sitting on a little tuft of green grass, and trying to make that ball get in the way of my swinging club. And doing so with some deep, inner part of me that’s primal and unknown.
I had moved from seven- to a five-iron and then on up to my three-iron, which I was using to crack some nice controlled draws down the hill where they landed and stopped near the base of a tree some 200 yards away, when I finally noticed Vitus and Fred had stopped their own practice and were staring at me. Vitus had his arms crossed across his burly chest, and his bushy eyebrows were knit in a thoughtful expression, while ole Fred slouched beside him, his mouth open as he watched my last shot bore high through the air and down the hill.
When I stopped, Vitus spoke. “You’ve got a beautiful swing, sir,” he said. Fred nodded his agreement.
“Oh, thanks,” I said. “I just can never get my head to stay on the damn pillow.”
I was, of course, trying to be face
tious, and at least Fred got it. He chuckled softly, and nodded at me, smiling. The fireplug, however, didn’t react. He strode up to me and stuck out his hand.
“Vitus Papageorge,” he introduced himself. His grip was hard, and he scrunched my knuckles together hard, just short of being painful. Maybe he had got it after all. “I don’t think we’ve met, and as the club president here, I know pretty much everyone. What flight are you in?”
I confessed that I had no idea. I was aware that the field of golfers had been divided into various divisions, according to the combined handicaps of the partners, but I didn’t know where Jack and I had been placed.
“Well, who are you playing with?” Vitus asked, looking at me as if I were a total idiot.
“Jack Connolly,” I told him.
“Oh,” he said, and blew out a breath in a rushing sound of disapproval. “Well, I certainly hope you can keep him reined in. He has been known to act out, and I hope there won’t be any such incidents this year.”
I didn’t reply. As true as his observations might be, I thought it was a bit classless to say so out loud. Unless one was a prick.
“Well, then, you must be Hacker, handicap 3,” he said, eyeing me with suspicion. “You will be playing in our flight. Fred and I have won our flight the last two years running. Isn’t that right, Fred?”
Fred sighed and nodded. I was about to introduce myself to the man – his partner had rudely ignored him – when Papageorge cut in again.
“Where, exactly, is your handicap established, Hacker?” he demanded. “You have an awfully smooth swing for someone with a three handicap.”
“Hingham,” I said, the name of the club where I played perhaps three times a year.
“Indeed,” Papageorge said, his eyebrows moving up and down rapidly. “Well, if you don’t mind, I may ask Teddy McDaggert to make a phone call just to verify that. Just to ensure that the playing field is level, of course.”
Death at the Member Guest Page 4
