The Caddie

by J. Michael Veron

  But there were ways to advance my way up the pecking order. Winning a tournament immediately put a player in the top group, and finishing in the top ten got you into the next week, no matter what. Moving up in the money standing also got you more favored treatment. It came down to this: If I played well, everything would take care of itself.

  Besides, as Stewart reminded me, our financial situation had improved immediately when I qualified for the Tour. Even the lowest of the rank-and-file on Tour make at least as much off the course as they do on it. By agreeing to wear this company’s visor, that one’s golf bag, and a third one’s shoes, we banked enough to have our travel for the year paid for before playing in our first tournament.

  We also knew that the best way for rookies to make money was to play in the early and late events of the year, before and after the big dogs came and went. So we planned to do just that. It meant we would be getting started in Hawaii, of all places, right after the year started with the Tournament of Champions, which was open only to tournament winners of the previous year. After the Hawaii tournament, we’d play the California and Arizona stops for a month or so. After that, the Tour moved to Florida, and things got tougher as the stars came out to get ready for the Players Championship and the Masters. Our plan then was just to hang around and hope to get into Doral, Honda, or Bay Hill if there was a last-minute withdrawal.

  No matter what, we were going to be playing a lot of golf, and we’d get our chances to make some noise. It was going to be a fun year.

  xiv

  IN THE SHORT time I had known Stewart, he had proved to be full of surprises. Getting us on at Augusta National, however, was a topper.

  “Consider it your reward for making the Tour,” he said nonchalantly as we motored east on Interstate 20 toward the home of the Masters. “It’s the best way I can think of to start the year.”

  No kidding, I thought. If you asked golfers to name the course they most wanted to play, nine out of ten would say the Augusta National Golf Club, and eight of the nine would eat monkey brains to get there.

  Unfortunately, it’s not the kind of place that gives out tee times to anyone who calls, no matter how badly you want to play. There are private clubs, and then there’s Augusta. It’s the Fort Knox of private clubs. Most of us have a better chance of winning the Power Ball than getting past the front gates at Augusta uninvited.

  It hasn’t been that long since a group of feminists learned that lesson the hard way. One of their leaders raised a stink about the club’s all-male membership, apparently thinking she could somehow force the club to admit women as members. Hootie Johnson, the club’s chairman—who once persuaded the University of South Carolina to name its business school after a woman—said not no but hell no. No one, he said, was going to force Augusta National to do anything it didn’t want to do.

  The club has been independent about other things, too. Augusta’s powers-that-be lengthened the golf course several times to compensate for the increased distances players were driving the ball with new high-tech equipment. When they began to run out of room, they announced that they might require players in future Masters to play with a reduced-distance ball, even though neither the USGA nor the R & A had ever imposed such a rule in any of their championships.

  I knew that the club allowed guests to play the course but only if they were accompanied at all times by a sponsoring member. I didn’t know any members, so I had no idea who could have invited us to play at the club. Unless we met a member at the front gate who was prepared to vouch for a couple of strangers—and I likened the chances of that happening to the aforementioned Power Ball—that was going to be as close as we got to the golf course.

  As usual, my friend-cum-guru dodged my questions about how we were going to scale the walls of golf’s most impregnable fortress. “It’s all been arranged,” is all he would say over and over.

  Stewart had never failed to do what he said he would do, but this was a place that had turned away President Clinton. If the commander-in-chief flying in on Air Force One didn’t impress Augusta’s ruling class, I didn’t see how two scraggly characters driving up in a Ford Explorer were gonna crash the place.

  For these reasons, the logical part of my brain told me this was a silly expedition with no chance of success. However, as we reached the outskirts of town, the idea of being so close to golf’s mecca was too tantalizing to dismiss altogether, and I felt myself becoming more and more hopeful that Stewart knew something I didn’t. Against all reason, I was going to be disappointed if we came this far and were turned away.

  As we passed a sign indicating we were twelve miles from Augusta, I tried again to discover how Stewart expected to pull this off. “You know we can’t get in without a member. Who on earth invited us to play?”

  He remained unfazed by my obvious anxiety. “I’ve got some old friends there.”

  I tried to get details, but that was all he would say. I might as well have been talking to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. (Or Yogi Berra, for that matter.)

  Stewart was no bum, but I found it hard to believe that he had friends in high enough places for this. If Augusta National could turn away Bill Clinton and snub its nose at political correctness, how on earth, I wondered, could Stewart expect us to waltz down Magnolia Lane?

  Yet that’s exactly what we did.

  Washington Road is one of the first exits off the highway as you come to Augusta, Georgia. It’s a busy, four-lane road that sweeps through the town. Stewart quickly swung into the right lane after we got off I–20. We hadn’t gone far when a large hedge appeared on the right side of the road. Stewart slowed the car and turned into a small opening. I looked up and saw a guardhouse and a sign: AUGUSTA NATIONAL GOLF CLUB. PRIVATE.

  At that point, I expected to be turned away (and perhaps arrested to boot). Remarkably, though, the guard bent down and said to Stewart, “Are you Mr. Jones?”

  Stewart nodded.

  The guard smiled. “They’re waiting for you in the pro shop. Do you know where it is?”

  Stewart returned the smile. “Just take a right at the end of the road, right?”

  The guard nodded and waved us on.

  “The road,” as Stewart called it, was Magnolia Lane. It runs several hundred yards straight toward the front of the clubhouse. When we reached the end, I could see a small parking lot on the right. Stewart pulled in and parked.

  As we got out of the car, an attendant hurried up to us. Still nervous, I figured he might be coming to tell us to leave. Instead, he just stood there. Stewart nudged me. “I’ve unlocked the back. Give him your clubs.”

  This was all happening too quickly for me. The guard said they were expecting us in the pro shop. Who, I wondered, was expecting us? And this attendant, who was now holding my clubs, acted as if we were supposed to be there.

  Despite Stewart’s confidence, I felt out of place, like an intruder on the verge of being discovered and expelled. In fact, I was reluctant to let go of my clubs for fear I wouldn’t get them back. The attendant must have sensed my uneasiness, because he smiled and said, “I’ll put them right over there.” With that, he slung my bag over his shoulder and began walking toward the practice range on the other side of the parking lot.

  I stood and watched him for a moment, afraid to move. Then I heard Stewart call my name in an insistent voice. I turned, saw that he was walking toward the north wing of the clubhouse, and hurried to catch up.

  I followed Stewart through a door and found myself inside the club’s pro shop. It was surprisingly small. Then, again, I thought, they certainly don’t need anything big, do they?

  I was still uncomfortable about what was going on, but Stewart walked confidently over to the counter, where he was greeted like a long-lost friend by a tall, handsome man.

  “Stewart! Great to see you. It’s been a long time.”

  My caddie extended his hand. “George, how have you been?”

  “Great, just great.” The man looked over at me. “Is thi
s your new player?”

  Stewart took my elbow and pulled me over. “George, meet Bobby Reeves.”

  The fellow shook my hand enthusiastically. “Bobby, nice to meet you. I’ve heard all about you.”

  “Thanks,” I mumbled hesitantly, still afraid someone was going to pinch me awake.

  My new friend George pointed across to the opposite wall, which was lined with windows looking out onto the course. “You’ve picked a great day to play. Weather’s perfect.” He turned back to Stewart. “We had a few groups this morning, but that’s about it. You can go off any time you want.”

  Stewart smiled. “That’s great, George, thanks. We’ll get changed and be ready to go in about a half hour.”

  I think I murmured something in appreciation to our apparent host before I followed Stewart from the pro shop to the clubhouse, but I’m not certain. It was hard to think about manners at the time.

  Stewart led me into the main clubhouse and down a hall into a locker room. On the way, we passed a large portrait of a handsome man who looked to be in his fifties. The engraved plate below the picture said: ROBERT T. JONES, JR.—CHAIRMAN IN PERPETUITY.

  I had seen other pictures of Bobby Jones, of course, but I guess I had never before paid particularly close attention to the man’s features. This time, though, I couldn’t help but notice that there was something very familiar about him. Whoever painted this portrait had Jones looking a lot like my caddie.

  Pointing to the painting, I nudged Stewart. “You two look a lot alike. Family resemblance?”

  Stewart just smiled. “There could be a connection somewhere, I suppose. You never know, do you?”

  I hadn’t been totally serious, but Stewart’s answer made me wonder. So did the reactions of folks inside the clubhouse. From the waiters to the few members who happened to be hanging around, they all looked at Stewart and smiled. It was as if there was something about him they liked without knowing why.

  I suppose I should have questioned Stewart more, not just about how he got us onto the course but also about his obvious familiarity with the club. He just seemed so … well, so comfortable there. Frankly, though, I was having too much fun to consider cross-examining him at the moment.

  We were soon back out at the range, where I rushed through my warm-up.

  Stewart noticed and tried to slow me down. “Take your time, Bobby.”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t come here to beat balls; I want to play.”

  He slipped the head cover back over my driver. “You’d better hit a few putts before we tee off. Here, it’s all about putting.”

  We walked around the pro shop toward the practice putting green. When we turned the corner, I got my first sight of the golf course, up close.

  It took my breath away. Like everyone else, I had seen lots of pictures of Augusta National, both in magazines and on TV while watching the Masters. Among other things, I knew that it was supposed to be the best-manicured golf course on the planet. But none of the pictures I had seen did it justice.

  I guess they don’t make cameras yet that can transfer the color of the course onto paper or a television screen. Augusta’s grass was a deeper, richer green than anything I’d ever seen. And it was so perfectly cut that it looked like an expensive emerald-green carpet.

  I put my hand on Stewart’s shoulder. “How do they get it to look like that?”

  He smiled. “What do you mean?”

  I rolled my eyes. “What do I mean? You know what I mean: How do they get it so perfect?”

  He shrugged. “Before they built the club, this place was a fruit orchard. Maybe there’s something in the soil.”

  “Well, something’s sure as hell different,” I sniffed.

  Stewart then guided me over to the practice putting green. Although I was anxious to start our round, I agreed to hit a few putts, if only to humor him. I dropped a couple of balls about fifteen feet from the nearest cup and gently stroked them toward the hole. Both ran about eight feet past. I knew Augusta’s greens were supposed to be fast, but it still caught me by surprise.

  I looked over at Stewart. “I thought the rest of the Tour had caught up with Augusta.”

  He just shrugged and said, “They’re closing the gap, but you still won’t see anything quite this fast, except maybe in a U.S. Open.”

  After a few more tries, I managed to get the speed down. I even made a couple, and the ones that missed finished within tap-in range. I looked at Stewart and cocked my head in the direction of the first tee. He smiled, nodded, and picked up my bag. I was about to play my first round at Augusta.

  I wish I could tell you that it was an unqualified success, but I remember more about the course than about my golf that day. According to the card Stewart kept (which I still have), I shot 71. It could have been much lower, though, especially since Stewart seemed to read every putt with papal infallibility. It wasn’t his fault that I often missed the line he pointed out.

  It gradually occurred to me that Stewart couldn’t have judged the subtle contours in Augusta’s greens, much less their speed, as well as he did without having spent time on the course. As we walked up to the fifteenth green, I asked him, “Just how many times have you been here before?”

  He looked around for a moment, as if he was recollecting past rounds. “I’ve been coming here a long time, Bobby.”

  That prompted me to ask a question I’d hinted at a number of times before. “Just how old are you, Stewart?”

  He sniffed. “Old enough, I hope, to help you … and young enough to be excited about doing it.”

  He then changed the subject, which he was very good at doing. Looking around, he said, “It’s a special place, don’t you think?”

  “Very special,” I said. “I don’t know how you pulled this off, but I’m very grateful that you did.”

  He smiled again. “We’ll make it back.”

  “You think so?”

  He nodded. “I know so. There’s a nice little tournament they play here every April.”

  I shuddered at the thought of teeing it up in the Masters. “You really think I’ve got what it takes?”

  Stewart shook his head. “We’ll get here when you think you’ve got what it takes.”

  After I putted out for a par (although the green on this par five is reachable in two, I had blocked my drive to the right and had to lay up), we walked off the back-left corner of the green and headed toward the sixteenth tee. As we walked along, I said to him, “You said you’ve been coming here a long time. Is that why you knew the guy in the pro shop so well?”

  Stewart nodded. “I’ve known George ever since he came here. And I knew the two fellas who were here before him.”

  “A lot of folks in the clubhouse seemed to recognize you.”

  He shrugged. “Well, they’ve seen me around often enough.”

  After we finished, we sat on the famous veranda outside, under the oaks, and enjoyed the sunset while having iced tea.

  Looking out over the course, I said, “This is one of the best-designed golf courses I’ve ever played. Every hole seems to fit perfectly. And that back nine is a great way to complete the round.”

  Stewart smiled. “It used to be the front nine.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When Jones and Alistair Mackenzie designed the course, the nines were reversed. The tenth hole over there,” he gestured toward our left, “was originally the first hole.”

  I shook my head. Referring to the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth holes, I said, “It’s hard to imagine ‘Amen Corner’ being on the front nine.”

  Stewart then pointed to an open area between the ninth and eighteenth holes and said, “Not only that, but the original plans called for a nineteenth hole right there.”

  I squinched my eyebrows together. “Huh?”

  “To settle bets,” he continued. “The idea was that, if all bets were even at the end of the round and the players didn’t want to finish in a tie, they could play a short par thre
e to the back porch of the clubhouse to declare a winner.”

  “Why wasn’t it built?”

  Stewart shook his head slowly. “Didn’t want to cut down any of these beautiful trees, I suppose.”

  We sat quietly for a few minutes. I tried to soak up the magic of the place, as if I could take some of it with me. I was suddenly very glad that the club did things its own way, because only those who best knew the place truly understood what made it unique.

  Stewart seemed to know what I was thinking. “This was a special place from the very beginning. After Bobby Jones won it all in 1930, he had no worlds left to conquer. Besides that, the pressure on him had been incredible. Everybody expected him to win every time out, even though he was a lifelong amateur who only played a few months out of the year. The weight of all those expectations made him sick, literally. He used to vomit before every match. After he won the two Opens and the two Amateurs in one year, he had had enough, and he retired.”

  He paused. “Anyway, even when he quit playing tournaments, he still couldn’t play anywhere, even casually, without drawing a crowd. For instance, several years after he retired, Jones traveled to Europe for a vacation and went to St. Andrews to play a round of golf. Word quickly spread through the town that Jones was on the Old Course, and there were several thousand spectators watching him by the time he reached the turn.”

  I whistled softly.

  Stewart continued. “You have to understand, he and Babe Ruth were the two most famous athletes of their time. But unlike other athletes, golfers continue to play their game long after retirement. Jones had to find a place where he could play without being on display, where he could relax with friends, drink a little—cuss a little, too, which he was wont to do on occasion. That’s how he came up with the idea of this club.”

  I put my drink down. “How do you know so much about this?”

  Stewart took a deep breath and exhaled. Looking up into the trees that shaded us, he spoke softly. “No one else in the history of this game has done what he did. Not just winning tournaments but writing books about golf—books he actually wrote, without some ghostwriter helping him—and starting this club and the Masters. Anyone who cares about golf knows about Bobby Jones.”