They went to Charley’s, a truly great steak house on International Drive in Orlando. Walking in, Keith felt a little bit like a convict about to have a great last meal before being executed.
With Julie sitting there, blue eyes glistening, her dad laid it out for Forman.
“Keith, I know how hard you’ve tried and I know how hard you’ve worked at your game,” he said. “I also know you’ve spent the fifty I loaned you three years ago and, if anything, based on what happened this week, you’re farther from the Tour now than you were starting out.”
Keith started to respond, but the older man put up a hand to stop him.
“Let me finish,” he said. “Keith, there’s a time and place in life when you have to cut the cord on a dream. I know how hard that is—I know we all think we’re close, that we’re about to have a breakthrough. I was like that as a baseball player until I got to college and couldn’t get the ball out of the infield.
“You play golf a lot better than I played baseball. But—forgive me for being blunt—it’s not good enough. After three years, it isn’t bad luck and it isn’t because you’ve been injured. You’ve given it your best shot. It’s time for you to find a job, spend more time with your wife, and start thinking about a family.”
Deep down Keith knew that everything his father-in-law was saying was right. But he just didn’t feel ready to give it up. For what? Law school perhaps? The thought of all the research made him feel sick. Money managing? He’d sooner rake bunkers for a living than do that.
He looked at Julie. “Do you agree with this?” he said.
She looked him right in the eye. “That’s why my dad is here,” she said. “I didn’t think I could say the words to you, so I asked him to do it.”
To this day, Forman remembered the moment vividly. He remembered sitting back in the booth, just as his massive porterhouse steak arrived. He knew what he said next would change his life—one way or the other.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said, looking at Julie. “I’m just not ready to move on with my life. I still think there’s another act left in golf.”
* * *
The last act wasn’t any better than the first three had been. Keith and Julie separated, quietly divorcing a year later. There wasn’t any real animosity in the divorce, especially since there were no real assets to fight over. There was regret on both sides, but they both knew it had to happen. Keith was twenty-five. He wasn’t ready for a nine-to-five life or children.
He actually played a little bit better on the various Florida mini-tours and got to second stage of Q-School again. But on the final day of second stage he hit four balls in the water, stubbornly trying to make an unreachable shot to the 17th green, just like Kevin Costner in Tin Cup, and went from three shots outside the cut to nine shots out. At that moment—a year too late—he knew he was done.
He still wasn’t ready for nine-to-five or law school or any other kind of grad school. He thought briefly about going to work for a political campaign, but realized—finally—that golf was still his real passion. He started a blog, writing mostly about Web.com players and Hooters Tour players. He found stories about guys who’d made the big Tour, then slid back. Occasionally there was a piece about a guy who finally made the breakthrough to the big money—or at least the semi-big money.
Because he’d played, even if it had just been on the mini-tour level, he could talk to golfers like a golfer. They opened up to him. People began to notice some of what he was writing. Eventually, Golf Digest bought the blog and brought him in to write regularly on its website. Now he occasionally got into the print magazine itself. He wasn’t getting rich, but he was making enough money to afford rent on a decent-sized two-bedroom apartment in Boston’s Back Bay within walking distance of Fenway.
He was on the road more than he liked, although being single, he didn’t mind too much. He’d been in a lot more Courtyard Marriotts than he cared to think about, and he still drove more often than he flew because it was easier and because getting upgraded to first class had gotten harder and harder with the airlines flying smaller and smaller planes.
It was okay, though: he wasn’t in an office chained to a desk.
He finished breakfast and poured another cup of coffee to take back to his room. Once back there, he decided to return Slugger’s call before he showered. Even though he was fairly certain the call was about tickets, there was an urgency to the message that made him just a little bit curious.
He dialed.
“About damn time,” Slugger answered.
This wasn’t about tickets, Keith realized. Slugger would be a lot nicer if it were.
“I’m on central time,” Keith said. “In Memphis. It’s seven-fifteen. What in the world is so important?”
“I’ve got a problem,” Slugger said. “And I need you to help.”
“Too late. You voted for the guy, so you have to live with your conscience.”
Slugger grunted. “You wish that was it,” he said. “Listen, I’m serious. I’ve got a kid here at my club who has a chance to be a real player—I mean, he’s legit. Not like you and me. Much, much better than that.”
“So why is that a problem?” Keith asked.
“Because his father wants to grow up to be Earl Woods.”
That brought Keith up short. Earl Woods had been Tiger’s notoriously controlling, money-chasing father.
“Whoo boy,” he said. “That is a problem. But how can I help?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here.”
“Get there?”
“Yeah, you’re coming to Hartford right after the Open, right? Stop here on Monday on your way down from Boston.”
That certainly wouldn’t be difficult, although that would mean one night at home between the Open and Hartford as opposed to two.
“Tell me again why I’m doing this?” Keith asked.
“For the kid. Not for me. For the kid.”
“Let me think about it.”
Keith hung up, took his shower, and walked to his car in what was already almost ninety-degree heat even though it wasn’t yet eight o’clock. It was fifteen minutes to the golf course. He waved at the rent-a-cop posted outside the parking lot, who put out a hand to stop him.
“Parking pass?” the guard said.
It was hanging from the rearview mirror. Keith pointed at it. The cop nodded sullenly. No doubt he’d been hoping to turn him away. Most of the cops who worked golf tournaments were friendly and helpful. There were always a couple of exceptions.
“Thanks, Barney,” Keith said, rolling up his window to drive away. That was his name for any of the unhelpful ones, after the bumbling deputy Barney Fife in the old Andy Griffith Show. Barney was the ultimate cop-wannabe.
Keith parked the car, got his computer bag out, and began walking in the direction of the clubhouse. It would be another long, hot day on the PGA Tour. It occurred to him that Slugger might be offering him a break from the grind. Or maybe not.
Either way, he decided he should find out.
3
Twelve days later, Frank Baker stood in the middle of the ninth fairway at Perryton Country Club, hands on hips, staring in the direction of the green. It was rated the hardest hole on the course: a long, tree-lined par-four with a gentle dogleg to the right, uphill to a well-protected green, bunkers left, water right. It was 7:20 a.m., and he and Slugger were finishing their early nine holes even though school was out and Frank had plenty of time to play.
They were on the course that early for two reasons.
First, the humidity was already hanging in the air like an invisible curtain even though the sun had only been up for a couple of hours. Frank’s shirt was damp with sweat, and the mugginess was only going to get worse as the day wore on.
Second, his swing coach’s friend Keith Forman was supposed to meet them for breakfast at seven-thirty. Frank’s dad had already told him that he was bringing a golf equipment representative to the club to meet him at nine. This way, the
re would be time for Frank, Slugger, and Forman to talk before the equipment rep showed up.
Frank knew this was going to be a long week. The PGA Tour was in town, the Travelers Championship being held at River Highlands. Frank had been going to the Travelers for as long as he could remember and always enjoyed watching the pros, occasionally getting to meet one—if only for a minute or two—and collecting autographs. He was too old for autographs now, but he still liked the idea of hanging around on the range checking out golf swings—Slugger always called a player’s swing his action, as in “I love his action”—and walking the golf course.
He hoped the weather would cool off later in the week. He had tickets, thanks to Slugger, on Thursday and Friday.
“What are you looking at?” Slugger asked, driving up after hitting his second shot from the right rough. “Are you gonna hit or just stare into space?”
“Sorry,” Frank said. “I was just making sure my dad wasn’t back there somewhere.”
“He’s not here until nine,” Slugger said. “We’ve got time. Keith just texted me he’s coming up the drive to the clubhouse. So hit your shot and let’s go.”
That got Frank’s attention. He already had his seven-iron in his hand. He abandoned any pretext of his pre-shot routine, swung smoothly, and sent the ball sailing high into the blue sky. It stopped, checked up quickly on the still-soft green, and ended up about ten feet left of the cup.
“Pre-shot routine is overrated, huh?” Slugger said.
Frank laughed and jumped in the cart. Slugger was in the front-right bunker. He hit a good shot to about eight feet. It didn’t matter. Frank rolled his putt in to win the ninth-tee press.
“You keep hitting it like this, and you’re going to have to give me shots,” Slugger said as Frank plucked the ball from the hole.
“You keep losing like this, and I’m going to weigh two hundred pounds eating all the donuts I keep winning, coach,” Frank said, laughing. That wasn’t likely. Frank was six foot one and weighed a wiry 165 pounds. He had light brown hair and an easy smile. Only in the last year had he started to feel confident about talking to girls, at least at the club where he was well known. At school he was still pretty invisible—except when he had a boxful of donuts in his hand to break the ice.
Watching Frank laughing with Jenna Baxter—a standout tennis player who was a year older than him—outside the pro shop one afternoon, Slugger had commented to Frank’s dad that it appeared Frank had finally discovered girls. “He discovered them a while ago,” his dad had answered. “Now they’re starting to discover him.”
His dad, in the right mood, had a quick, dry sense of humor.
Five minutes after finishing on 18, Frank and Slugger walked into the clubhouse and found Keith Forman sitting by the window.
Slugger had told Frank about Forman a week earlier. Frank had actually read some of his stuff and had seen him on Golf Channel when he made occasional appearances there. Most kids Frank’s age spent their free time either texting or playing video games. Frank watched Golf Channel—while texting or playing games on his phone. The fact that Forman had played golf in college and had been a pro for a while didn’t really impress Frank. His stories on the Golf Digest website were well written and “inside”—which Frank liked. But they didn’t impress him that much either. Seeing him on a set with Golf Channel analysts Brandel Chamblee, Frank Nobilo, or David Duval? That was impressive.
Now, though, Forman was sitting at a table overlooking the 18th green and appearing a little bit bleary-eyed, drinking coffee.
He stood up when they walked over, and he and Slugger hugged briefly. Slugger introduced Frank.
“I honestly don’t care if you can play or not,” Forman said. “I just had to meet someone named after Home Run Baker.” He paused and then added, “And no matter what Slugger tells you, I did not see Baker play.”
That, Frank thought, was funny. He liked Keith Forman right away. He was about six feet tall and maybe a few pounds overweight. He had brown hair, brown eyes, and a low-key vibe. As the three of them sat down, Polly, the usual morning server, came over to the table. There was no one else in the dining room at that hour—a blessing as far as Frank was concerned. The fewer curious members who came over to interrupt, the better.
“Who’s this on?” Polly asked after they’d ordered.
She had worked at the club for as long as Frank could remember.
“On me,” Slugger said.
“Pro shop number or personal?” Polly asked, referring to the fact that Slugger sometimes charged things to the pro shop’s club account, other times to his own.
“Mine,” Slugger said.
“How’d it go this morning?” Forman asked as Polly walked off.
“He beat me three ways,” Slugger said. “Normal morning nowadays.”
Forman smiled. “So tell me, Frank, you want to turn pro sometime soon?”
“Not really,” Frank said. “I have another year of high school, and then I’d like to go to college for at least a couple of years. I’m not really in a big rush.”
“But your father is, right?”
Frank and Slugger both answered the question at once: “Right.”
* * *
It was never easy for Frank to describe his father to an outsider. Keith Forman made it easy, though, because, as he put it, “I’ve never met your father, but I know your father.”
Frank’s parents had divorced when he was very young, and his mother had moved to Japan for her job—her desire to do so being one of the thorny issues between his parents, he’d later learned. Frank remembered a judge asking him if he wanted to live with his mom or his dad and answering, “Not in Japan.” Soon, his mom had remarried and made a whole new life on the other side of the world. Thomas Baker had been a single parent for more than a decade, completely devoted to his son.
Growing up, Frank and his dad were very close, best friends. His dad loved baseball but also golf. He and Frank would go out to play late in the afternoon all summer and on weekends in the spring and fall. At first, Frank was interested only in driving the cart. But as he got older and began to play the game well, it became more about trying to break 100. Then 90 and then 80. By the time he was fourteen he was a 1-handicap and his dad, a good player who was about a 5 at his best, had turned him over to Slugger for lessons.
Frank loved working with Slugger. He told funny stories about his “failures” as a player even though he had once been very good. When they were on the practice tee, though, he was all business. He was working. He expected Frank to do the same.
It had all been fun until Frank’s surprising run at the U.S. Amateur the year before. Having just turned sixteen, he’d been the youngest player to make it through 36 holes of stroke play into the 64-man match play field. Then, in a shock to everyone—including himself—he’d won four matches to make it to the semifinals. All of a sudden he was seeing stories on the internet labeling him the “Perryton Prodigy,” a word he had to look up to understand the first time he saw it.
Until then, his dad had been his biggest cheerleader. No coaching, no questioning what he was doing, no talk of anything but playing golf. It had all changed at the start of this school year, when he’d come home a star after his performance in the Amateur.
Agents were calling. So were equipment reps. And college coaches—lots of college coaches. Clearly, his dad was enjoying the attention, and the possibility of early retirement. His dad was fifty-five and had never especially enjoyed buying and selling stocks for other people, although he did fine at it from his office in the attic of their house.
“You make it big,” he’d said one night, “and we’ll get a place in Florida. You’ll be able to practice year-round once you’re out of high school, and I can retire and get really good at golf and drinking at the bar after golf.”
“What about college, Dad?” Frank had asked.
“If you’re as good as Slugger and I think you are, you don’t need college.” He laughed.
“Pass Go, collect two hundred dollars—or more.” The reference was to their favorite board game. In simpler times he and his dad had played Monopoly for hours.
Frank spent what felt like a long while laying this out for Keith Forman.
Twice they were interrupted by members coming in to eat. Both apparently recognized Forman from his TV appearances and came right to the table.
“So, Slugger, you got a celebrity in town,” Bob Dodson said, interrupting Frank in midsentence as if he were invisible.
“Old college teammate,” Slugger said. “He’s in town for the Travelers and dropped in for breakfast on his way down there from Boston.”
Dodson shook hands, introduced himself, and added, “Why does Brandel always criticize Tiger the way he does?”
Forman shrugged. “Maybe because he thinks he deserves it.”
“Well, I just think it’s wrong for someone who isn’t close to the player Tiger was to criticize him,” Dodson continued.
Frank could tell by the look on Forman’s face that he dealt with this sort of thing pretty regularly.
“If that were the case, then no one would be allowed to criticize Tiger,” Forman said. “Except maybe Jack Nicklaus.”
“I met Jack once—” Dodson started to say.
Mercifully, Slugger cut him off. “Bob, Keith’s got to get down the road to Hartford here pretty soon, so…”
“Oh yeah, sure,” Dodson said. “You go right ahead. Sorry to interrupt.”
He half walked, half stalked away.
“They’re never sorry to interrupt,” Forman said. “If they were, they wouldn’t interrupt.”
Frank liked that line—especially since it was true.
A moment later, Ted O’Hara, a real slimeball who had lost the club championship match to Frank two years earlier, also stopped by uninvited.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said.
Frank couldn’t resist. “If you’re sorry, Mr. O’Hara, why are you interrupting?”
Frank couldn’t stand Ted O’Hara and didn’t care if he knew it.
O’Hara stared at him for a second, then continued. “Mr. Forman,” he said, reaching across Frank and Slugger to shake Forman’s hand. “I’m Ted O’Hara. I’m club champion here.”
The Prodigy Page 2
