The Richard Jackson Saga: Book 11: Interesting Times

by Ed Nelson

  Did you know that Golf Today has their reporters keep records on every shot made in the tournaments that they report on?”

  “I didn’t”

  “They never know what shots will determine the winner, so they keep track of clubs, distance, weather, time of day, results of the shot, all that.”

  “When they write the story, they can pick out the shot that set it all up for the winner. It makes them look like the super reporters of golf, knowing which shot set things up.”

  “Like Monday morning quarterbacking.”

  “You got it.”

  “So where does this lead us.”

  “I had a thought, so I made some phone calls. I got after-hours access to their morgue.”

  “Their morgue?

  “Do they store dead golfers or what?”

  “Funny. A magazine or newspaper morgue is where they store dead stories, hence the morgue. It is also their library.”

  Talk about feeling dumb for a moment.

  “What did you find?”

  “Confirmation of my theory. I have been working on this for almost a year. It was a lot of data to wade through.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Let me set the scene a little. What surprises can a greenskeeper play on a golfer during a tournament.”

  “That’s easy, pin placement.”

  “How do they decide that?”

  “I don’t know, random draw?”

  “Not at Augusta they don’t”

  “How do they do it then?”

  “They analyze the player entry field for its strengths and weaknesses. They want to make the course as challenging as possible.”

  “I get that.”

  “If the entered players are good at chipping to the pin, they will place the pin accordingly. If they are good at pitch and run it will go elsewhere.”

  “So, they are playing to the weakness of the field. They can’t tell how any individual golfer will do on any shot, but they can tell the average of the field.”

  “John, this is huge, if you know the entered players you can analyze their weakness and thus predict pin placement. Then you can emphasize that in your practice.”

  “You got it, Rick. The entry list for this year has been posted and I can predict with an eighty-five percent accuracy the pin positions that will be used.”

  “When did you become such a statistician?”

  “I’m not, my wife is. She teaches statistics at UCLA. She had a lot of help, as I told you it took a lot of number crunching. She gave it out as a series of class assignments. She broke it up into separate groupings or modules as she calls them, so no one could figure out that it was about golf.”

  “Somehow I will figure out a way to repay her.”

  “Win. That will set me up to make a lot of money.”

  Our food arrived about that time, so we went silent as we chowed down.

  “John, what if a golfer was notoriously bad at a given shot and the greenskeeper hated him.”

  “He would have a bad day.”

  “What if the greenskeeper wanted to make money at it and sold the information to gamblers.”

  “Rick, one step further. What if he set the course up at the gambler's request?”

  “He better hope the mob never finds out. Unless it is the mob doing the setup.”

  “Did you look at the other courses?”

  “Yes, and they seem to be random, just trying to make the round exciting. Difficult placements, but not to any discernible pattern in the relationship of the field. My wife used terms like inferential and null hypothesis and a bunch of other stuff, but she concluded there was no relationship between the field of golfers and pin placement.”

  “She got into it and found there were some feuds between a few players and greenskeepers but there was no evidence that it predicted pin placement.”

  “So, if anything is going on it is only at Augusta.”

  “Yeah, but what are you going to do, call the mob and ask if they are trying to tilt the field at Augusta.”

  “Uh, no.”

  “That wasn’t convincing.”

  “I don’t know anyone in the mob.”

  I didn’t tell him that Mum and Dad did… oh, and Popeye. I decided I would find out where Popeye is and ask him if he has ever heard anything. Mum and Dad discouraged me from talking to Mr. Lucky and his crew.

  We drove out to the clubhouse for our ten o’clock tee time. I was playing with a full member, Dr. John Worthington. Why is it always a doctor?

  We each had a caddy assigned plus John could walk the course with me. I noticed on the practice green a couple of other players who would be in the tournament. This was serious business.

  After warming up on the driving range and putting a few we were up. I wasn’t playing for the score I was playing to learn the course.

  My constant practice was paying off. I was placing the ball where I wanted it on almost every shot. There were a few odd rolls and bounces as to be expected but I was hitting well for both distance and accuracy.

  John was taking notes by the page full on every hole. He had a running conversation with our caddy. They would even consult with the Doctor’s caddy on occasion. Try that in tournament play!

  Doctor Worthington was a nice guy and we had one of those pleasant nothing conversations guys can have.

  He was almost a professional level player, so it was easy to compliment him on good shots. He returned the favor. That was unusual for me, I normally was with a tense win at any cost person. He made the round relaxing and fun.

  We took a break for a quick lunch at the turn. There he asked me if I had thought of turning pro. Instead of my usual smart answer, I told him the truth.

  “I don’t need the money.”

  “That’s right, you have an acting career.”

  “Funny you should say that I’m thinking about giving that up to.”

  “Then how will you live. It may seem like you have enough money now if you have a million dollars, but it won’t last your lifetime.”

  “I realize that like most people you have never heard of Jackson Enterprises.”

  “Oh, but I have. My broker was telling me about them just the other day.”

  “What did he have to say?”

  “They are making a fortune with the new shipping containers and handling systems. He urged me to get in on it before it was too late.”

  “How can you do that? To my knowledge, they aren’t a public company.”

  “There is a fund established to use every legal method to force them to go public.”

  He got a funny look, “Rick Jackson? Are your parents the owners?”

  “No, I am. Lock, stock, and barrel. I would advise you to stay away from that fund. It will not end well for them.”

  His golf game went all to pieces on the back nine. As we finished up and were totaling our scorecards he spoke up.

  “Rick, I spoke out of turn. I wasn’t told to keep that fund a secret but the more I think about it I’m glad I said something to you. I wish you well in both the Masters and in the attempted takeover.”

  “Thank you, I will have to find out who is putting this fund together. I’m not certain what tactics they will try, but I will warn my people.”

  That gave me a lot to think about. I shared the conversation with John on our ride back to the hotel.

  “That’s way above my paygrade. Who can you talk to about this?’

  “It depends on who is organizing this effort.”

  “You know the President and the Queen of England. That should help.”

  “I hope I don’t have to get them involved. If I do it is because the Soviets are behind it.”

  “You sure know some fun people.”

  Chapter 38

  Rather than calling the Queen or President, I placed a call to Popeye. Well, I placed a call to Jackson Transportation who told me that Popeye was in our office in Buenos Aires.

  I then placed an international pers
on-to-person call. The Operator called me back when Popeye’s office was on the line, they couldn’t get Popeye so wanted to know if I wanted to talk to anyone at the office. I told them yes.

  Once the call was placed it rang a bunch of times until someone answered in Spanish. I asked for Popeye.

  In Spanish I was told, “He is down at the docks, do you want to leave a message.”

  “Yes, please.”

  I left my name and number and told him to call whenever he got in. There wasn’t that much time difference between us. They were two hours ahead so it shouldn’t be that late before he called.

  John and I had dinner and returned to our rooms. As I walked into mine the phone was ringing, it was Popeye.

  “Rick, what’s up?”

  “I have a strange question for you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Have you ever heard of the mob fixing any of the major golf tournaments?”

  “Now that is strange. Does this have anything to do with you playing in the big ones this year?”

  “It might, I need to know what I might be facing.”

  “How could they even begin to fix a tournament without intimidating half the field. I haven’t read of any major golfers having both legs broken.”

  “No, it is much more sophisticated than that.

  I proceeded to explain how the Masters had a pattern associated with the pin placements and that this could be used to influence the average outcome.

  “Rick, that would work for the Vegas crowd, they know more about statistics than most university professors. That is how they know to bring the eye in the sky and their other equipment in to look for how the cheating is being done and by whom.”

  “I thought it was the cameras that caught them.”

  “Yeah, but you can’t have that many cameras. For example, on any given table they can tell you what the average amount bet, hands dealt, and payouts given on any given time block of the day. They have statisticians that build the data basis over time and then check to see if any table varies by an acceptable amount.

  “If it does, they start watching it. With them, it's all a numbers game. They would love this deal with Augusta. I will ask around to see if anyone has heard of anything like that.”

  “Okay, but be careful, I don’t want to start a new growth industry on the pro tournaments.”

  “I will, though it sounds interesting. The bad part is these guys are not above moving the odds by breaking a leg or two.”

  “I’m sorry I asked. Please be careful.”

  “I will Sybil would kill me if I got you in trouble.”

  “How is Aunt Sybil anyway.”

  “She's great. She is with me on this trip, and we are entering and winning Tango contests. She is as good as the old Liberia’s first mate.”

  “Wow, he sure could Tango, what happened to him?”

  “He’s still on the ship as the Captain now. He works for you.”

  “Hmm, I can still remember my time as a Polliwog on my equator crossing, I may have to arrange a special trip for him.”

  “Ah, Rick, it was just clean fun.”

  “Terrible tasting fun is what I remember, besides, you may want to go on this trip.”

  “Where away?”

  “I have been thinking about the international dateline and the equator at the sacred hour of the fall equinox.”

  “Count me in, The Order of the Purple Porpoise is the most rear of them all, which makes crossing the line seem like nothing. Few alive have done it. I would love those bragging rights.”

  “I’ll make it happen.”

  Keeping that in mind I placed a call to the Scottish Lines office. I forgot the time difference. I left a message with the evening staff that I would like a call tomorrow at my breakfast time here at this hotel.

  My last call was to Jim Williamson in my California office.

  “Jim, this is Rick, I have picked up a disturbing rumor.”

  “What's that?”

  “A fund is being put together to force Jackson Enterprises to go public by any means possible.”

  “There are offers all the time, and there have been articles published about how we should do that.”

  “What are the benefits.”

  “For you none. You lose control of your company, taking what seems a huge chunk of money which would turn out to be a pittance against future earnings. In turn, the investors would get rich, and the people who made the deal happen filthy rich.”

  “What's the upside for me?”

  “None, the only people who go public are those who need to raise a lot of cash so they can fund their growth. You have the cash, at least if you didn’t keep giving it to the Chinese, and growth has been exponential. We are trying to keep it under control.”

  “Could you start an investigation to see if this is real, and if so, who is behind it?”

  “Do you have any ideas?”

  “An investments group trying to get rich or a nation actor like the Soviets trying to break me.”

  “Let’s hope for the investment group. I will have to hire a firm which specializes in takeover investigations.”

  “Spend whatever it takes, I want to head this off. I don’t want to lose the company and I don’t want to start a war with the USSR.”

  “At least you don’t think small.”

  After that I was so worked up that I went out for a run, it was just dusk, and I made certain to wear a bright jacket as I had to run along a road.

  I only had to jump for my life from one pickup truck, so I counted it as a win. After a few miles, the adrenalin wore off, so I turned back and turned in for the night.

  The next morning, I updated John on my phone call to Popeye. He was vaguely aware that Popeye was a relative and that he did something in construction but that was it.

  I explained he was my uncle and that his job was to keep the work going on all our projects around the world. He was a very hands-on person I told John. I must say that John is quick on the uptake as he now understood that Popeye may be the guy that would know some underworld people.

  I didn’t tell him as a last resort I would call Mum, she knew the Don of Don’s, and I’m not talking Oxford.

  On that cheerful note, we went back to the course and played my last round here, at least for a while. In the pro shop, I was asked if I could take a few minutes to talk to the President of the club. Of course, I could.

  I was introduced and we went into the restaurant which wasn’t open yet, it only did lunch and dinner. Breakfast was in a small café. It didn’t seem to make a difference as we were seated at a table and served coffee immediately. I turned down the offer of food as I had just eaten.

  “Rick, may I call you Rick?”

  “Certainly, I prefer that. There are too many other things people call me.”

  “I didn’t know if you preferred your British titles.”

  “That only works in England or one of the Commonwealth nations. Here it is Rick, or Richard if you want to be formal, or Richard Edward Jackson if Mum’s mad.”

  “Funny how that works, I can still hear my dear departed mother saying my name like that. It made things serious right away.”

  “Yes, it did, you wanted to speak to me?”

  “To be blunt Rick, we would like you to become a full member here rather than just an associate.”

  “What brings this on?”

  Your prominence in the golfing world, while maintaining amateur status, your ability to afford the tariffs, and that you have been recommended by some very high-profile people.”

  President Eisenhower immediately came to mind.

  “When would this happened.”

  “Well, this is where it gets extremely sensitive. New members are only brought in when a present member dies or is asked to leave. Unfortunately, we have three members on their death beds right now.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “So are we. Beyond losing good friends the maneuvering to join has alr
eady started. Membership is by invitation only and if you ask to join or even hint at it you will never be let in.

  “That doesn’t seem to stop people, so we are always looking for the type of people we want in. You come under the heading of young blood. We are thinking of the long-term good of the club.”

  “If asked I would join, but if I’m not asked that is also okay.”

  “Exactly. This will not happen before this year's Masters, but we will keep you on our list.”

  “Thank you, I appreciate the honor.”

  I did appreciate it, but I seemed to be getting more cynical all the time. Who would benefit from this association the most, me or them? Ah, what the heck. It was always a good thing to have a nice course to play on.

  I should have asked if they were reciprocal with any other clubhouses. That might have been considered tacky.

  Chapter 39

  One thing both John and I noticed once more was that the hole placements were nothing like we predicted they would be at the start of the tournament.

  They would be moved daily during the tournament, but we had a predicted pattern for all the hole placements that fit the average of the field of players. It was so convoluted that it was of no surprise that no one had ever suspected a pattern being used.

  Also, the hole placements would have to meet the rule: According to Rule 15-3, the most important factor when deciding where to place a hole is “good judgment in deciding what will give fair results.” The USGA also admonishes tournament officials not to be "tricky" when choosing hole locations.

  Toward those objectives, Rule 15-3 advises officials to examine the green’s design and to consider the type of approach shot required. Officials should consider the length of the likely approach shot and should allow sufficient putting distance around the hole. For example, the hole will typically be placed farther from the edge of the green when the expected approach shot requires a long iron rather than a more lofted club.

  Weather conditions also are factored in. For example, greens will hold an approach better when they’re wet. More specifically, Rule 15-3(ii) recommends that holes should be placed "at least four paces from any edge of the putting green," and even farther if there's a sand trap near the edge or if the area surrounding the green's edge slopes downward.