Par for the Course

by Ray Blackston

  EPILOGUE

  “Aim at that tree,” I said to the Darwinist.

  He was a middle-aged golf beginner, a first-timer to my new range, and for twenty minutes he’d rejected my fundamental instructions on proper grip, stance, and alignment. Only now, after I’d presented him with clear evidence that I knew what I was talking about, did he start to cave.

  “Which tree?” he replied, his grip and stance evolving into something resembling a golfer’s.

  I pointed beyond the net at the end of my range, to a cypress that grew angled from the swamp. “The tree that the squirrel just ran up.”

  He squinted. “You mean the squirrel that formed from an amoeba four billion centuries ago?”

  “Yes, that very squirrel.”

  He addressed each ball with scientific precision and attempted three shots. Duff. Shank. Whiff.

  “I’m terrible at this!” he complained and plunged his 8-iron back into his golf bag.

  Out of nowhere Cack zoomed past us in his cart. “Just give it a few million years, dude!” he shouted through the bullhorn, loud enough to stir every hacker on my range. “By then golf will be extinct, and you’ll have the perfect excuse not to play the game.”

  The guy had no sense of humor, however, and after five more frustrating minutes he told me he’d either figure it out for himself or take Cack’s advice and quit.

  In much better moods at Hack’s Grand Opening were my longtime friends and clients, lined up on the hitting mats, swatting away, and begging to be insulted. There was Officer Cavin, hacking away next to Benny, who hacked away next to Mrs. Dupree, followed by Pauly Three Seeds, Mr. Roycroft, Tongue Depressuh, Jerry Schooler, Lin Givens, the Bubbas, the conservative teenagers who did not dress conservatively, and my most attractive client, Molly, who had flown down for the event. Past the adults, some four dozen kids fired away, all trying to wallop the loudmouth.

  Behind the mats stood a small wooden sign that read This Way to Misery Hill→. That was Cack’s term for the golf range, and the window in my new shop offered a grand view of it all. It wasn’t just any window, either. In keeping with Charleston’s coastal geography, my builder had installed a huge glassed porthole, some five feet in diameter, from which I could observe all the misery taking place on misery hill. And on this fifth day of March, the misery quotient ran high. Even without the eighty-foot-high netting at the end of the range, the reptiles cruising the swamp knew they were in little danger of getting hit.

  Bullhorn raised, Cack zeroed in on my girlfriend and made sure everyone could hear him. “Oh, look at Miss Politics on mat number nine! She’s so busy making goo-goo eyes at Chris, she whiffed the ball!” Molly blushed, then sought refuge with the teenagers and joined them in throwing handfuls of balls at Cack.

  He circled around the 100-yard marker and accelerated toward Pauly. “Pauly Three Seeds? What kind of a name is THAT?! Maybe he lives off bird seed. . . . He must, since his golf swing is so weak, he couldn’t break an egg.”

  Pauly too turned red and struck ball after ball, all of them flying wide of target.

  Cack, however, remained a bit wary of Lin. On his next pass she buzzed a shot right past his windshield. He raised the bullhorn again. “That’s the way to hit like a . . . like a . . . woman who practices a lot.”

  In the golf shop I thanked each friend and stranger who had come out. I also asked them—if they felt so inclined—to contribute a sentence to a new journal displayed on the counter for all to flip through and read. Everyone who contributed had to begin their sentence with the same phrase: Golf is hard because . . .

  The first page held four entries and portrayed well the diversity of opinion on the subject:

  Golf is hard because they put the hole too far away, plus you don’t get any do-overs.

  Golf is hard because it is unnatural, unlike childbirth, which seems to come so naturally for me that I now have six rug rats and a seventh on the way.

  Golf is hard because actually striking the ball and making it go where you want is ten times harder than it looks when you watch the pros on TV, and you just know those pros were all born at swanky country clubs and didn’t ever have to do chores like mow the grass or clean their rooms, they probably had maids do it all and so they spent their entire youth on a golf course and this is why golf is hard for anyone who wasn’t born to rich parents and did not win the gene pool of life.

  Golf is hard because it’s impossible! It’s like trying to swat a gnat from the air with a chopstick, only worse.

  Though today was the official grand opening, Hack’s had been open for weeks. I’d waited until we had a better chance of warm weather, and March did not disappoint. After much discussion with my groundskeeper, I’d also decided to concentrate a full sixty percent of the business on kids—elementary, high school, junior high, kindergarten, the entire circus train of youth. We contacted every school within a thirty mile radius, offering afternoon programs twice a week, plus discounts, whatever it took.

  Parents gushed that two hundred golf balls for six bucks was very cheap babysitting—and Cack, well, he knew how to make the experience fun.

  He’d already cut from full sheets of plywood a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a Darth Vader, and a King Kong, then painted them green, black, and dark brown, respectively, all with grimaces on their faces. These he stood upright out on the left side of the range, propped from behind with two-by-fours and spaced at distances of thirty, fifty, and seventy-five yards. Give them a target, an Astroturf hitting mat, and a large supply of golf balls, and kids will stay out there forever.

  Cack’s new customized cart was the bigger rage: In keeping with our new location and the creatures that lived beyond the fence, he’d fashioned a huge smiling gator face to the front. The protective cage still resembled a top hat, and this gave the gator a kind of formal appearance, as if it would rather munch you in tux and tails.

  The kids, of course, ate this up, especially when my groundskeeper employed his bullhorn: “All right, you kiddie hackers, if you can’t whack the Cack, you don’t earn your snack!”

  And he meant it. He would not give those children a drink unless they could hit his cart with a ball. It was a new form of motivation, and it did wonders for the kids’ abilities, not to mention their concentration. The more talented and hardworking kids would sometimes hit Cack at fifty or a hundred yards away . . . but then he would circle closer and closer, sometimes to just ten feet away, until every last child had hit the cart.

  We also used his cart for Saturday morning wildlife tours, cramming five or six youngsters inside with us and paralleling the swamp at the far end of the range, only a chain-link fence and our net to separate man from beast. On the way out across the grass, Cack built up a bit of fear in the kids by assuming the voice and comportment of a tour operator: “To your right you’ll notice the gigantic turtle known as an alligator snapper, with jaws strong enough to crush a golf ball or bite the tires off your mommy’s minivan.”

  Invariably, the youngsters reacted as one, “Whoooa.”

  I often wondered if Cack and I would make more money if we just went ahead and declared ourselves a day care.

  Parents picked up their kids at the front door and were greeted with lines that cracked me up. When asked by a mother or father, “Did you have fun?” the kids answered with lines like, “Yeah, I hit the loudmouth man with a ball and almost got to pet a crocodile.”

  The appeal of running a kid-centric business rather than an adult-centric one affected me in a surprising way. I no longer obsessed over money but instead concentrated on what I did best—teaching and encouraging the students. The income was steady and consistent, perhaps a slight upslope on the graph of revenue.

  More important to me, these kids had no self-serving agendas other than to enjoy themselves, to hang out with other kids, and to gain proficiency in the sport. They just hit ball after ball, frowning at the bad shots and celebrating the good. Hour after hour they fired at the targets, thrusting little fists in th
e air and whooping out loud whenever they hit one. Sometimes a ball would hit a spot on the painted plywood where the paint was not quite dry, and this left a visible mark. Kong himself grew polka-dotted.

  We even had kid-sized plastic chairs set out behind the mats to host the inevitable breaks for jungle juice and gummy bears. Cack told a gathering of youngsters that gummy bears were the most nonnutritious food since those orangy circus peanuts, this from a man whose chief dietary supplement was a six-pack of Mountain Dew.

  That evening, just before sunset and after most of the crowd had departed, Molly burst through the door and pointed back over her shoulder to the range. “Chris, you gotta see this. There’s a kid out there in dirty sneakers who is incredible . . . maybe even better than you!”

  I looked up from reading the latest journal entries. “Who? Show me.”

  She grabbed my hand, and I followed her out the door. At the far end of the range I saw the kid by himself, a pile of balls beside him. Molly said, “He’s already knocked two teeth out of Tyrannosaurus Rex and clanged three balls off the side of Cack’s cart.”

  We had a long walk to reach him, and en route I watched him fire away, one ball after another, all of them landing in a tight dispersion around the 150-yard marker. He looked perhaps ten or eleven, of slender build and olive skin.

  I wandered over, offered the kid a wink, and introduced myself.

  He shook my hand and told me his name was Camilo and that he was indeed eleven.

  I stood behind him, watched him smash two more shots. “How did you get started in the game, Camilo?” I asked.

  Soft-spoken and a bit shy, he kept his gaze on the ground. “I used to hit balls into an old fishing net in my backyard, but I like it here better because I can see if the balls curve in the air or go straight.”

  Despite his shyness, he was as articulate in conversation as he was skilled with a golf club.

  “Has your dad or your mom helped you learn?” I inquired next, holding his golf bag upright and checking out his equipment—which was decent but in need of new grips.

  He only shook his head.

  “No one has instructed you?” I feigned shock at how any kid could hit a ball so precisely.

  He teed another ball and took a practice swing. “I just like to practice.”

  I pulled his 7-iron from his bag and handed it to him and asked him to hit a ball at Kong and make it curve left. This he did without comment. Molly’s mouth fell agape. I rolled another ball onto the grass near his feet and asked him to make this one start out at Darth Vader and then curve right. This too he did without hesitation. The kid was talent incarnate. Molly stood speechless.

  “How did you learn to do that?” I asked him. “You’re at least four levels ahead of everyone else. Maybe five levels.”

  Camilo shrugged and used his club to roll another ball in front of him. He adjusted his stance and said, “Well, I watch the pros on TV a lot, but what helps me most is five years of hitting at moving targets.”

  Molly cocked her head to me and said, “Moving targets?”

  Camilo burst into a grin, as if he could not hold our secret any longer. “We’re just teasing you, ma’am,” he said. “Chris has been my instructor ever since I was six years old. I was his first student.”

  Her playful slap to my shoulder was just what I deserved. Camilo exchanged a high five with me and returned to his practice session. He was my most dedicated junior player. Over the years he and I had pulled our little stunt at least a half dozen times.

  After everyone had left, after the lights were turned off and we’d bid Cack good night, Molly and I strolled out onto the darkened range and sat in two of the plastic kiddie chairs, our feet tapping at random moments. The night felt cool and crisp, not yet hinting at spring. My plan for weeks had been to propose to Molly on Easter weekend. But now I felt that was too far off, that I didn’t want to wait much longer, perhaps not past tomorrow night, when we’d booked a dinner cruise out of a local marina.

  I always enjoyed surprising her. And, as it turned out, she held a similar affection. At some hour short of midnight, we both had our heads tilted back, perusing the stars over Charleston, when she nudged my foot. “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  “I have some news. Some good news.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I’ve been offered a position with a Charleston TV station. It’s equal in pay, but with more vacation time.”

  Now it was my turn to be speechless.

  She nudged my foot a second time. “Since we’ve talked so often recently of our relationship moving toward permanence, I just thought I’d get a head start.”

  I sat up in my kiddie chair but still could not form words.

  “Go ahead, Chris,” she encouraged, “say what you’re thinking of saying. I want you to.”

  “But . . . of course I want to, it’s just that—”

  “Go ahead, say those little words. I need to hear you say it.”

  I gulped night air and exhaled slowly. “But, but how’d you know?”

  “I saw it in your eyes today, when our eyes locked from across your range. I want to hear it.”

  “You really think it’s time?”

  “Say it. I want to hear you say it.”

  “Okay . . . Good golly, Miss Molly!”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  A golf range is not called “misery hill” for nothing. In all of golf, there is perhaps no activity that induces more misery in the participant than beginners sweating on some range, trying their best to fix their golf swings, doing their best to strike with power and accuracy a white ball that sits motionless on green grass. It looks so easy.

  My own time on misery hill grew far less frustrating when, at the age of fifteen, my family moved west and I met a top junior golfer in Texarkana, Texas. We were the same age, and we introduced ourselves beside a pond bisecting the third hole of Northridge Country Club—where we both had the same idea of using a summer afternoon to dive into the pond to collect free golf balls. Throughout high school and into our college years, we practiced together and competed in tournaments, until I moved back across the country to South Carolina. My friend is Geoff Jones, owner and operator of the Texarkana Golf Learning Center, father of two, husband of one, and an expert at teaching the intricacies of the golf swing. His clients include junior champions, professionals, and several NCAA All-Americans. This book is dedicated to Geoff, and to our fellow members of the Texas High Golf Team.

  Those were the days. . . .

  READING GROUP GUIDE

  CHRIS’S QUESTIONS:

  1. In the midst of my initial crush on Molly, I did and said things that were out of character, just to impress her. Whom do you know who has acted out of character when in the midst of a crush? Did the crush turn into “twu wuv”? Engagement? “Mawage”?

  2. President Bush has become quite a controversial public figure. How did you feel about Dubya stopping by my driving range? Also, if a President shanks a golf ball and it breaks a spectator’s bifocals, is the ball then deemed a weapon of glass destruction?

  3. After my business was destroyed, I had to get away one afternoon, be by myself. So I paddled my johnboat into a saltwater estuary, where I felt alone with nature and with God. Do you have a special place you go when life throws up a stumbling block? Do you view God as being everywhere in your surroundings, or do you view him as a kind of invisible man, of average height and weight, who only shows up when you are alone in your special place?

  MOLLY’S QUESTIONS:

  1. As a political correspondent, I found that many people stereotyped me as a hard-charging, climb-the-corporate-ladder female. Now I find that many of my friends were shocked that I would leave the political environment to work closer to Chris. Have you ever left a vocational pursuit to pursue love? “Twu wuv,” or just “puppy wuv”?

  2. Would you take up golf if you really liked a guy?

  3. Do you have all of the U.S. presidents memorized? Why not?
r />   4. Do you think any of Calvin Coolidge’s staff called him “Coolio”?

  CACK’S QUESTIONS:

  1. Driving ranges are a study in human behavior—each person alone with his or her bucket of golf balls, with little or no interaction with anyone else. Do you think driving ranges would be livelier and more fun if someone drove around the range in a golf cart and insulted the customers through a bullhorn? Would you man the bullhorn? Who would you like to insult?

  2. Have you ever gone on a date to a driving range?

  3. Do you consider Mountain Dew a health drink?

  PAULY THREE SEEDS’S QUESTIONS:

  1. Most people think accountants are boring number-crunchers, with little personality. The majority of my friends think that I am a boring number-cruncher, with little personality. But sometimes late at night, in the quiet of my kitchen, I moonwalk across the linoleum. What do you do for fun when no one is looking?

  2. Will there be any boring people in heaven? Will those that get there have to walk around like conformist robots, or will there be jumping and dancing and running just for the fun of it?

  3. If I were to write a book on what heaven might be like, would a good title be Moonwalking on Streets of Gold?

  4. How does one get to heaven?

  GLOSSARY

  Blue tees: The back tees, sometimes referred to as the “men’s tees,” which is a totally sexist concept and also degrades any woman who can really play the game.

  *Contributed by Lin Givens, 3-handicapper currently residing in San Francisco.

  Bogey: When a single male golf instructor allows a potential date to think he gambles with his students.

  *Contributed by Chris Hackett, scratch golfer currently residing in Charleston.

  Double bogey: Jumping to conclusions when your single male golf instructor tells you he made a wager with a woman.

  *Contributed by Molly Cusack, terrible golfer currently residing in Charleston.

  Fader: A date who eats too much and falls asleep in the movie theatre. Also, a golfer whose shots curve slightly to the right.