“I’m really grateful,” he said.
“I know you are,” I said.
He was going to try to make ten or fifteen birdies this coming week so that he could start chipping away at his credit card debt. On May 1, his visa expired, and he would have to leave America and Denise, the girl he loved. She called him while he was driving me back to the hotel. I could tell by the way he spoke to her that she believed in him. “That’s the truth,” he said. He recalled the first time he’d won some decent money, in an event on the Hooters Tour. “I’ll never forget how it felt when I called her and told her,” he said.
“It was one of those twenty days,” I said. “You felt real.”
“I guess that’s true,” he said.
I told him that he couldn’t stop now. “When you have someone who believes in you, you have to keep going even when you don’t believe in yourself.”
I’d had that with Colleen for all these years. And that was probably the only reason I hadn’t quit.
Back in the room Jack asked me to help him write a letter to Sherwin-Williams in Cleveland, where he and Jenna wanted to live so they could be near her family. Someone had told him about a management training program, and he wanted to try for it.
As evening came on, we worked on the letter while we watched golf on TV and I complained when CBS turned the tournament into the Tiger Woods Show again. He was in third place, but there was almost no coverage of the two golfers who were ahead of him because CBS knew that America wanted to see only Tiger. “How can he even show his face in public after what he did to his wife and kids?” I yelled at the screen. “And not only that, Jack. Take a look at the big-shot bankers who get invited to play. They’re the same morons who fucked up the economy and cost your grandfather every penny he worked all his life for. No one bailed him out when he lost everything. But look at these guys, they’re back on top, playing golf on TV again.” Jack turned it off and got up. He grabbed the putters, and I followed him out into the hallway. “Let’s go,” he said.
FEBRUARY 13, 2012
We are scraping the bottom of the barrel now, and so, after playing a practice round at half speed yesterday afternoon to rest Jack’s back, we swung by Walmart and loaded up on enough fifty-cent chicken pies to get through our final five days. I’ve been awake for hours listening to the rain this morning and thinking about the road through Q school for the PGA Tour. You pay your $4,600, and then, with the prequalifying and qualifying stages, you basically have to shoot sixteen rounds of under-par golf under extreme pressure to have a chance. It’s like someone saying to F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Okay, you’re a great writer, but in order to earn the chance to become a real writer, first you have to stand up on a stage under a spotlight and correctly spell every single word in the dictionary.”
Fine, I thought. Bring it on.
Then Jack’s phone rang with word that we were on a four-hour delay for round one of the Lakes Classic, waiting for heavy thunderstorms to pass through Houston. “Are you going back to sleep?” I called to him across the dark room.
“I guess so,” he said.
“I hope you get the job at Sherwin-Williams,” I said.
“We’ll see,” he said.
“And if you decide in a year or two that you want to give golf another run, I’ll do what I can to help you.”
“Thanks,” he said.
“You never know,” I said.
“That’s true,” he said.
I wanted to raise the stakes a little, maybe say, “If you shoot a round under par in one of our final two tournaments this week and win some money, then you were meant to make a run for the PGA Tour.” But I didn’t.
We were set for a 1:30 shotgun start after the rain fell off this afternoon. But the course was too wet, so we were sent home and will now play both rounds tomorrow. The ground will be so wet that balls will disappear in the fairways, and I am planning to go out ahead to watch Jack’s shots land. If you lose a ball, it’s a stroke penalty plus distance, and we can’t afford that. There is one ruling that could make things easier tomorrow. It is rule 25-1, “Abnormal Ground Conditions,” which stipulates that if a ball disappears under these conditions, the golfer gets relief and can drop a ball, no closer to the hole, at the outermost limits where it entered the abnormal ground. I will have to speak with the tournament director about this before we tee off.
FEBRUARY 14, 2012
I got a text from Colleen early this morning wishing me a happy Valentine’s Day and telling me she loved me. You can’t ask for more than that. Well, you can ask, I suppose. But I’ll take it with gratitude.
As we were driving to the course today, I told Jack about Barry’s father, who had worked most of his life as a glassblower at Waterford Crystal only to have the company go belly-up before he could retire and claim the pension he’d paid into for four decades. “I guess that’s why I was never able to hold down a real job,” I said. “I must have lacked the faith or something. Maybe I just never believed in the system, I don’t know. But I always had the greatest respect for people who just wake up each morning and go to work. They’re the people who keep this world held together. Your mother will tell you how I always said I wished I could be a mailman who carried his work in a sack each day. When the sack was empty, he could go home and feel good about himself. I just never had what it takes. I never had what Barry’s father had.”
Jack didn’t say anything for a while. Then, as we pulled in to the parking lot, he said, “When this is over, you need to finish your mom’s screenplay and get that movie made, man. That’s your Q school.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I suppose that is my Q school.”
All the brilliant young boys on this tour looked weary this morning after being sent home in the rain the last two rounds. I was hoping that Jack would find some inspiration and jump out to a lead while the rest of the players were trying to find their legs.
As we made our way to the 1st tee, I called to him. “Jack, I was thinking early this morning about your philosophy: ‘It is what it is.’ I’ve never agreed with that, but I never really knew why until just now. I don’t think in this life it is what it is. I think it is what you make it. So why don’t we try to make this a special day for your mother.”
“All right, man,” he said.
I am going to write down every shot today and send it to Colleen for Valentine’s Day.
Jack has the honors, and he rips a three-wood up the left side of the fairway into perfect position. A hundred and forty yards left on this 414-yard par-4. If his back is sore at all, he won’t tell me, but it will show eventually. He hits a lovely wedge that lands softly six feet from the hole. A great birdie chance. We both see the same break, one cup right to left. But the green is wet, and the ball doesn’t break at all. It’s a tap-in par.
Hole 2. This 521-yard par-5 requires a perfect drive through a narrow opening between the trees to reach the right side of the fairway so you can fly the corner of the dogleg on the second shot. We’re up the left side instead with 240 yards to reach the green. It’s an impossible second shot, and I’m hoping Jack will lay up and go at the green in three to try to make a birdie. But with only 240 yards left, he won’t hold back. He nails a three-wood and is calling for it to draw as it races across the sky. It falls short about forty paces from the green. We need a good wedge here to set up the birdie putt. And he hits one. Six feet left. It’s an uphill putt. The ball drops into the center of the cup for a birdie. One under par after two holes.
Number 3 is a narrow 414-yard par-4. Uncharacteristically, Jack’s drive bleeds right into trees. He can only punch out from there and scrap together a bogey. We are even after three holes. “We’ve had worse starts,” I tell him as we walk to the next tee.
“I have to play better,” he says.
Number 4. A 212-yard par-3, all carry over a small lake. He lands a six-iron twelve feet from the hole, and after his birdie putt falls short by three inches, it’s a tap-in par. Even after four
holes.
Number 5. A 545-yard par-5. The course opens up here, and it’s “bombs away” from the tee. A lovely big drive up the left side. The sun is finally out now, a good sign after all the rain. It’s 11:45 and I hand Jack his first peanut butter and jelly sandwich for the day. We have another six and a half hours out here today before dusk, and I’ve packed him four sandwiches. After the big drive he has only 220 yards left, but he puts a poor swing on it, and he’s short of the green. From there he hits a nice wedge to set up a five-foot birdie putt. He wants this one. He’s fought for it. But the ball stops one revolution short of the hole for another tap-in par. “How do you leave a five-foot birdie putt short?” he says when he hands me his putter. “Patience,” I tell him. “We’ll have our chances.” Even after five holes.
We are both still fooled by the greens on numbers 6 and 7, where we missed birdie putts from five feet and fifteen feet for two more tap-in pars. He is shaking his head now, and all I can do is remind him that we have plenty of holes left to make our birdies.
Even par after seven holes.
Hole number 8 is a simple 182-yard par-3, but Jack makes a poor swing here, and his ball is short of the green in a bunker. His first sand shot of the day is perfect. The ball stops eighteen inches from the hole, and it’s another par. Even after eight holes.
On the 402-yard par-4 9th hole he hits another poor wedge from a solid drive, and he has to save par from another bunker to stay at even par after the first nine holes today. He does.
Hole 10. This is a wicked hole. A 546-yard par-5 bending sharply left around a lake, with trees blocking the path to cut across the elbow of the dogleg. I want to play safe here after he strikes a good drive up the right side, but with only 203 yards left, Jack isn’t hearing any of it. He bombs a five-iron at the trees. It climbs high and then higher, but it gets caught in the top branches and falls right behind a big tree. From there he scrambles and saves a par. But that was a hole he could have birdied if he had played it a wee bit smarter. Even after ten holes.
That last hole unnerved Jack. He knows he made a bad mental error there. And on the 440-yard par-4 11th hole, he is in trouble right from the tee. The ball sails up the right side of a very narrow fairway into the trees. All he can do from there is hack it out into the fairway, hit a nice wedge, and make a two-putt bogey.
One over par after eleven holes.
Hole 12 is a 372-yard par-4. A dangerous, very narrow fairway to a landing area that isn’t more than 30 yards wide. Jack nails a perfect three-wood and has 90 yards left. He hits a high wedge that drops and stops dead four feet from the hole. He jars the birdie. Back to even par after twelve holes.
Jack cruises through numbers 13, 14, and 15 with relatively easy pars, landing the greens in regulation and just missing birdies on 13 and 15. “Disturbing,” he says to me when the birdie putt on 15 stops just an inch from the hole. I change the subject and tell him that his mother and I are thinking about getting a pup when Teddy turns ten next year. “That would be great,” he says.
Even par after fifteen holes.
Hole 16. A 430-yard par-4. I’m not going to tell him again to be patient. I’ve said that enough. He hits his drive here too far left, and it clips the branch of the only tree on that side of the fairway. The ball falls straight to the ground, and we’re miles from the green. “How far?” I ask him. “Two hundred and forty-seven yards,” he says. He takes his hybrid and hits it right into the mayor’s office. The ball never leaves the flag the whole way. “That was a golf shot,” he says. It sure was. From where we’re standing, we can’t see how close we are. But it’s only five feet from the hole. And it’s another missed birdie. Another tap-in par. Silence this time. On to the next hole. I wanted that one for Colleen. Even par after sixteen holes.
———
Hole 17. A 447-yard par-4. A great drive, but a poor second shot, and then our first chunked wedge in the Bermuda rough, and it’s a two-putt bogey. Jack is not a happy camper. I start talking to him about Teddy again: “Maybe we’ll get a yellow Lab to keep him company, what do you think?”
“Yeah” is all he says.
One over par after seventeen holes.
“I need to make birdie here,” he tells me as we walk onto the 18th tee of this 532-yard par-5, another dogleg left over water on the second shot. He hits his best drive of the day and then nails a three-wood that lands softly on the green. We have a forty-two-foot putt for eagle here, and somehow after that putt falls three feet short, it takes two more putts to finish the hole. Another tap-in par. Should have had an easy birdie.
We finish the first round at one over par. Could have been better. Could have been worse, I am thinking. There’s no time to look back. We are heading right to the 1st tee to get in as many holes on round two as we can before the sun sets.
“I feel like we’ve been here before,” I say to Jack on the 1st tee. He nails a three-wood to perfect position but somehow airmails the green with his wedge and has to settle for a bogey. One over par after one hole in round two.
He fights back from the bogey by landing the par-5 2nd hole in two and dropping the birdie putt into the center of the hole. Even after two holes. He misses a six-foot birdie putt on 3 but taps in for a par, then drains a twenty-foot birdie putt on 4, and just misses a thirteen-foot eagle putt on 5 for a tap-in birdie.
So here we are on round two—two under after five holes, with three birdies that will make Jack’s mother happy.
We take a stupid three-putt bogey on 6 and then settle down for a par on 7 and are one under after seven holes.
On the simple 182-yard par-3 8th hole, Jack and his two player partners take a total of nine putts. “Just stupid,” Jack says to me. He’s right. We gave away a stroke there and are now at even par through eight holes. Everyone is running out of gas.
It is getting dark now as we finish the 9th hole with a solid par and head to the tricky par-5 10th with that second shot bending left around the lake. We’ve been out on the course seven hours now, and after Jack hits a great tee shot, I am arguing for a lay-up. No way. And Jack hits the trees for the second time today, and he’s in trouble. It’s a dumb bogey. One over after ten holes.
There is just enough light left to record a stupid three-putt bogey on the 11th hole.
Two over par through eleven. Tomorrow is another day.
We have an 8:00 a.m. tee time to finish the round tomorrow, and so we were in bed early. “We’re three over for the tournament,” I said just before I fell asleep. “You played some good golf today, Jackie.”
“Decent,” I heard him say.
FEBRUARY 15, 2012
We left the hotel in darkness and fog. Standing on the 12th tee, I told Jack that if he finished the final seven holes of round two under par, I would buy him a steak dinner. He looked tired, and I thought this might give him a jump start. He didn’t need it. He played the best golf I’ve ever seen him play. Every single shot he took never left the flag by more than a yard or two. “I’m dialed in,” he kept saying to me, “and I’m still not making birdies.” True. He played the last seven holes with five tap-in pars, one birdie, and one bogey, finishing the second round at two over par and the tournament at three over par. His best finish on the tour.
Whenever you play a really good round of golf, you can look back and count three or four strokes out on the course that could have made it a terrific round. Three of those birdie putts could have dropped into the cup instead of burning the edge. But it was still fine golf, and I was elated. Jack disappeared at the clubhouse, and I sat outside in the rain that had returned, thinking to myself, One more year. Give Jack one more year on this tour, and he will be ready to make his run at Q school. I could feel it all drawing close, and I wanted to say something to Jack when he met up with me on the 1st tee of the Forest Course to play a practice round in preparation for tomorrow’s event there. I really wanted to say something, but I didn’t. We were on the 2nd tee when he said very casually, “I had a call from Sherwin-W
illiams. I have an interview next Wednesday.”
It sort of took my breath away. “A week from today,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s good, right?”
“I hope so,” he said.
I watched him murder another tee shot. Here I am, I thought, in a world of dreams, and here’s my son in another world. His own world.
FEBRUARY 16, 2012
Five a.m. We are down to our last two days together here in Texas and our final tournament. Tomorrow after we walk off the 18th green, we will get into Jack’s truck and start the long drive north straight from the Forest Course at Kingwood, where he rolls his last putt. I have been thinking about dreams this morning while Jack sleeps across this room that we have shared since late October. His dream, my dream. And for some reason, the American dream. I think most intelligent people recognize that the American dream died quite some time ago in an economy that required both parents to work full-time instead of raising their children, that forced people to hold down awful jobs at poverty wages simply for health insurance, and that strangled college students with debt. I suppose the American dream was laid to waste by money. I’ve always thought that the greatest writing ever done about this American dream was Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, a play I must have taught at five universities to perhaps eight hundred young students. Hundreds of scholars have written hundreds of books contending that poor Willy Loman is killed by the American dream. I never bought that. Yes, there is the stunning portrait of poor Willy Loman, who buys into the same business world that crushes him with its sickening superficiality and breathtaking indifference. But I always argued that Willy, despite his failure in the business world, is already living the dream because he has a wife who is devoted to him and respects him, and two sons who admire and love him. I used to tell my students: Make that your dream. Not some dream that is measured in material wealth.
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