“Who would be the players in my foursome?” I asked, making eye contact with Moq through the glass mirror above the bar.
“Simpson, Vowell, and Boone.”
“And yours?”
“Coach, Finger, and Mule.”
I smiled. Generally speaking, on the rare occasions when I played Big Team, I tried to avoid playing against the all-nickname group. It was bad for the bank account.
“You in or not, Clark?”
I drained the rest of the gin in one long sip and whirled around on the stool. I wondered why I hadn’t thought of this before. My last afternoon in this godforsaken world ought to be spent on the golf course. I felt a twinge of regret about missing the office party that Debbie was throwing for me, but she would understand.
Thanks, Darb, I thought. Then, hopping off the stool, I pierced Moq with a glare. “So, what’s the bet?”
4
I had never paid much attention to the gambling minutiae that made up the typical Big Team match. Simply put, it was a birdie game. One foursome played another and the group that made the most birdies won. Each group was made up of an A, B, C, and D player, and the designations were based on the golfer’s USGA handicap. If a player didn’t have an established handicap, then he normally wasn’t allowed in the match. Sandbaggers—players who said their handicap was higher than it actually was—were, at least in the eyes of the Twickenham Country Club Big Team, the lowest scum on the face of the earth.
I had a zero handicap, which meant I was a scratch golfer. Unfortunately, my game was steadier than some of the other A players, meaning I normally shot a good score with a lot of pars, but I didn’t make enough birdies to ever win much money. Perhaps it was the gin in my system or the fact that I had nothing to lose since I planned to jump off the Tennessee River Bridge in about eighteen hours, but I could do no wrong over the first nine holes of play. Abandoning my typical conservative brand of play, I went for every pin and hit driver off every tee box of the tight, tree-lined course. I birdied the first six holes and drained a twenty-five-foot snake of a putt on nine for a twenty-nine.
After about the fifth hole, even my own teammates stopped talking to me. I usually made conversation with the other players in my group, but today I had hardly acknowledged them. Bland Simpson was our B player, and he had actually birdied two of the holes that I hadn’t. Simpson was a developer who had a mean streak. When a new player had tried to break into the Big Team a few years back and had failed to bring enough money to cover what he owed, Simpson had clubbed the poor sap in his right kneecap with a seven iron. Suffice it to say, the guy never came back. The incident had gained Simpson a warning from the club brass that he’d be kicked out if anything like that happened again. But among the other men in the group, he became a legend.
“Course record is sixty-three,” Simpson whispered as I downed another gin and tonic in the nineteenth hole at the turn.
I peered at him while I threw back the gin. “You’re wrong,” I said. “The course record is fifty-seven.”
Simpson scratched his head and glared at me. “I’ve been a member here for fifteen years.” He paused. “You calling me a liar, Clark?” He leaned closer and I could smell Miller Lite on his breath. Simpson typically drank a twelve-pack of beer during each round.
“No, I’m not. The recorded course record is sixty-three.” I paused and drank the rest of my glass. “All I’m saying is that I watched someone shoot fifty-seven on this goat track five years ago. He didn’t tell the club because he would never take a member’s record.”
Simpson smirked. “And who is this Good Samaritan?”
“A dead man,” I said, winking at Bland and pushing off the stool.
* * *
—
My game lost some steam on the back nine. On eleven, a short par five that was one of the easiest holes on the course, I went for the green in two and hooked my ball into the green-side pond. I took a bogey, and Simpson wasn’t able to bail us out, only making par. The alcohol in my system had begun to slow my senses, and I started spraying tee shots left and right. Fortunately, the booze had loosened my nerves on the greens, and the putts were still falling. Despite my erratic ballstriking, I managed to scrounge up birdies on thirteen, fifteen, and sixteen.
As daylight began to fade, my emotions started to spill over. I kept envisioning Davis when she was eight years old, wearing a collared shirt over her bathing suit, her hair damp from swimming, and waving at me to have a putting contest with her on the practice green. So many summer nights, we had putted until the sun had almost vanished. Laughing, needling each other—Davis hated it when she thought I was letting her win—and enjoying each other’s company until Mary Alice would yell from the pool that it was time to go home. Thinking back on them now, those days were probably the happiest of my adult life.
As my par putt on seventeen found the bottom of the cup, I felt tears forming in my eyes.
My life is over.
* * *
—
The eighteenth hole of the Twickenham Country Club is a dogleg-right par four. Along the entire right side of the hole is a fence, behind which is Memorial Parkway, the main thoroughfare of Huntsville, Alabama. The tee box sits a few feet from the highway, and, over the years, many a swing had been ruined by a passerby yelling “Fore!” or some other pleasantry or obscenity out of his or her car window. The hole is short and, like most of the holes at Twickenham, tight. The proper play is to lace a fairway wood or a long iron down the middle of the fairway, making sure to keep the ball in play. Such a safe shot would leave about 140 yards for the player’s second. If a good player were to hit driver off the tee, he would likely go through the fairway and his ball might hit the clubhouse. Of course, missing left, though not ideal, was better than the alternative. If the tee shot went too far right, then the ball would end up on the parkway.
“We need a birdie here to seal the deal,” Simpson snapped as I put my ball in the ground. The other two members of the group—Pat Vowell, an automobile dealership owner who played C, and J. P. Boone, a real estate attorney who was our D—both nodded their encouragement. The beauty of Big Team was that even the C and D players typically contributed at least one birdie a round, and Pat and J.P. had already done their part.
Eighteen wasn’t a birdie hole, and many a good round was lost on it. However, a birdie on nine or eighteen was worth double the points. The entire match could flip with one score.
After placing my ball on the tee, I gazed down the fairway. As was my routine on eighteen, I’d chosen my trusty MacGregor persimmon-headed four wood. I hit the club about 210 yards, which was the perfect distance to maximize the length of the fairway without going too far. I took a practice swing and gazed out at the four-lane parkway. At five p.m., cars buzzed past every few seconds.
Then I thought of Darby. Two years ago, a few weeks after retiring from the PGA Tour, Darby had come for a short visit. He had a house on the lake in Rogersville, and he was going to treat me to a round at Turtle Point, one of the finest golf courses in the state. But, at my request, he indulged me with a round at Twickenham. I had wanted to invite a few of the Big Team out to watch, but Darby insisted he didn’t want any fuss made.
As he was about to hit his shot off the first tee, he had casually asked me what the course record happened to be. When I told him, “Sixty-three,” Darby had smiled and then roped a beautiful draw three hundred yards down the middle of the fairway. He had shot twenty-eight on the inward nine, one better than my score today. Eight birdies and one par. The back, while not quite as spectacular, was still amazing. When he came to the eighteenth hole, all he needed was a par to shoot fifty-eight. To my knowledge, fifty-nine was the greatest round in golf history on any course, and my friend was about to break it.
Darby hadn’t been nearly as impressed as me. He had looked out at the finishing hole, which confounded the club’s members with its
tightness and trouble, and laughed. “Randolph, I bet the members love this booby trap.” Then, taking his driver, he lined up his body as if he were going to hit a shot directly into the oncoming traffic on Memorial Parkway.
“Darb, what the hell are you doing?”
“Taking the aggressive route,” he said. Before I could stop him, he’d launched his shot into the late-afternoon sky. The ball had started on a beeline for the right-hand lane of the highway and then begun a sweeping draw back across the fence and onto the course. When it came to rest, the ball was on the front of the green twenty feet from the cup.
I hadn’t known what to say. It was an even gutsier shot than I had seen Darby hit at Augusta, and if he hadn’t pulled it off, he would have blown his record round. Instead, he two-putted for fifty-seven and made me promise to never tell a soul.
“You gonna hit the ball, Clark, or just watch traffic?” Simpson yelled from his cart. Gritting my teeth, I tried to ignore him. Guys like Bland Simpson gave the game of golf a bad name. If he were given a lie detector test, Simpson wouldn’t care whether I made birdie or not. If I did, then he would make money. If I didn’t, he’d get to see me choke. That was a win-win proposition to Bland, who seemed to care for no one other than himself.
“Why don’t you drink another diet beer and shut your mouth,” I said, walking back to the cart and replacing my four wood with a driver.
“What are you doing, boy? Throwing the match?” Simpson asked, but I ignored him.
“Hey, I’m talking to you.” His voice had started to slur a little from the beer, and I smiled over my shoulder at him, thinking of what Darby had said to me at Augusta.
“Get your camera ready.” Then, taking my stance and not giving myself any time to think about it, I aligned my body with Memorial Parkway. “This one’s for you, Darb,” I whispered, before starting my swing.
I caught the ball flush and saw it take off over the parkway. At its apex, the ball started to curve left and I grinned.
“Well, I’ll be dipped in horse manure,” Simpson said.
Though we couldn’t see where the ball came to rest from the tee box, it was obvious that if it wasn’t on the green, then it was very close.
“Great shot, Clark,” J.P. said, slapping me on the back. Pat Vowell, who was sharing my cart with me, leaned close when I sat down and whispered, “The old draw over the parkway, huh?” Pat had a dry sense of humor that I enjoyed.
“It seemed like the thing to do,” I said, but I felt heat behind my eyes and heard the crack in my voice on the last word.
“Randy, are you okay?” Pat asked, as I put my foot on the gas and the cart left the tee box.
I looked at him and raised my eyebrows. I had never had another player on the Big Team ever appear even the slightest bit concerned about my well-being. There was almost a code among the players to only discuss business, golf, or other superficial matters.
“Fine, Pat,” I managed, but I had tears in my eyes now and wiped them. “It’s my fortieth birthday. Guess I’m feeling a little nostalgic.”
I could feel that he was still watching me, but I didn’t say anything else. Finally, he said, “Well, happy birthday. That was the greatest dadgum shot I’ve ever seen.”
The ball ended up a foot off the green. Not quite up to you, Darb, I thought, knowing that the result was perfect. I’d often felt that my life paled in comparison to Darby Hays’s. But, gazing at my white ball with the word Titleist imprinted across the front of it, I didn’t feel the usual bitterness at coming up short. I didn’t feel anything at all.
Without even bothering to line my shot up, I went up to the ball with my putter. Since there was nothing between my ball and the green but fairway, I decided to putt and take the risk of flubbing a chip out of play. In golfing circles, the shot was known as a “Texas wedge,” because players in Texas used it all the time on their tight, flat fairways. I was about fifty feet from the pin, and my playing partners had surrounded the green. They had all played their shots and now it was my turn. I stepped up to the ball and stroked my putt toward the hole.
The ball never veered and dropped solidly into the cup for an eagle two.
J. P. Boone threw his putter up in the air and ran toward me, picking me up into a big bear hug. Behind him, Pat Vowell held his hand out and I slapped him five. “Incredible,” he said.
Still standing by the hole, Bland Simpson reached down and picked the ball out of the cup. I walked toward him, and he flung the Titleist toward me. “Heck of a shot, Clark. You just made us all a boatload of money.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, knowing that the payoff wouldn’t even make a dent in the pile of debt that loomed over my family. Shaking my head at the thought, I looked beyond the flag to Memorial Parkway and wondered if Darby Hays had had anything to do with my ball finding the cup.
5
I didn’t get home until ten that night. I felt guilty missing my birthday dinner with Mary Alice and Davis, but I couldn’t bring myself to go home. For a few fleeting hours, I had escaped the demons of debt and loss that had pounded me into submission these last three years.
After the round had ended, we counted our winnings, which turned out to be five hundred dollars apiece. Less than a dent, I had thought, snorting as I put the bills in my pocket. Moq, Mule, Coach, and Finger, who were Big Team staples and had never been taken to the cleaners so bad, stuck around and enjoyed drinks on us. With the eagle on the last, I ended up shooting thirty-four on the back, which, together with my twenty-nine on the front, meant I had tied the course record of sixty-three. According to Bland Simpson, that meant I had to buy all of them a shot of Jack Daniel’s, which I did with my winnings.
After golf and drinks was the card game, which sometimes was even more competitive than the golf. But, given all the gin and now whiskey I had consumed, I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open. I said my good-byes after the third hour of poker and trudged to my car, noticing that the full moon above had shone its light over the first fairway. I paused for a moment, marveling at the beauty of the scene, and thought I saw a shadow of a man in the area spotlighted by the moon. I blinked, and the image was gone, but, in my mind’s eye, I could still see it. About three hundred yards from the tee, hitting a punch shot toward the green. Was it Darby or am I just drunk? I wondered.
As I climbed into the car, my eyes held on the practice green, which was also illuminated by the moon. I pictured my daughter’s wet hair and the fierce determination in her eyes as she prepared to putt for the win. And then . . . the sheer joy in her squeal when her ball dropped in the hole.
Daddy, I beat you!
I nodded at the green and put the vehicle in gear.
* * *
—
I had no business driving home, but, making sure to stay under the speed limit, I navigated the five miles to our house in the Blossomwood area of Huntsville. We lived in a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house on Locust Avenue. At 2,200 square feet, the home was plenty big enough for the three of us. Once, there had been hopes for at least three kids, a huge house, and perhaps even a lake home or beach condo down the line.
As I pulled into the carport, I could hear the sound of my teeth grinding. Life . . . and my father . . . had suffocated our hopes and dreams. After Davis’s birth, it had taken us seven years to get pregnant with Graham. When we finally did, Mary Alice had to have a C-section during delivery and there had been complications. Our son survived his birth, but my wife couldn’t have any more children.
And then Graham . . .
I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead on the steering wheel. In my mind, I saw him on Christmas morning three and a half years ago, opening his box of Hot Wheels toy cars and wearing out the rug in the den playing with them all day until he finally fell asleep in his pajamas under the tree. He had been four years old. Dirty-blond hair, brown eyes like his mother, and strong and athletic
for his age. He could already throw and catch a baseball and he loved to swing his sister’s hand-me-down golf clubs in the backyard. My plan had been to start taking him to the course that summer.
But two weeks after Christmas, he was diagnosed with leukemia. And three months after that, on March 3, just a couple of weeks after his fifth birthday, he was dead.
I squeezed my eyes shut tight, but the tears came all the same. It was thirty-seven months and six days since my son’s death. But the pain was still fresh.
A wound that never heals. Ever . . .
Finally, I sighed and opened my eyes. I leaned back in the seat and swiped at the moisture that had formed on my cheek. At one point, a year after Graham died, Mary Alice and I had talked of adoption, but neither of us could ever get serious about the proposition.
As for the bigger house and lake property, it was a pipe dream for an insurance defense lawyer. About four years ago, before Graham got sick, I had entertained an offer to join a plaintiff’s firm, which offered the possibility of a huge contingency fee, but Dad talked me out of it. Too much risk for too little reward. For every one winner, there are probably ten guys that lose their butt. It’s not worth it, Randy. You have responsibilities . . .
Though he hadn’t said it, I had also heard Dad’s general theme when it came to my future: There comes a point in every man’s life when he realizes that he’s not going to be Joe Namath.
So, I had let it go. Then Graham had gotten sick. My health insurance hadn’t covered all the bills, and I lost my butt anyway.
Finally, tired of the tortuous trip down memory lane, I stumbled out of my car.
As I entered the home I’d lived in for the past twelve years, I smelled the vague scent of roast beef coming from the kitchen. The only light on in the house came from the television in the den, and I walked toward it. Guilt came back full force. The glow from the tube illuminated the kitchen table, and I saw a birthday cake with forty candles. Next to it was a plate of food that had been covered by a paper towel. I removed the towel and saw my favorite meal. Prime rib and baked potato from Boots’ Steakhouse. She must have gotten it to go . . . Chagrined, I poured myself a glass of water and walked into the den.
The Golfer's Carol Page 2
