The Caddie

by J. Michael Veron

  That was the way I was feeling right then, calm and focused, with the outside world at a distance. And it showed in my score. I breezed around the South Course on Saturday with a second straight 66 and suddenly found myself two shots back of Elkington and only one behind Fehr.

  The game was on for Sunday. The three of us would be playing together. And I was suddenly a big story again. Not that the questions were any different: Did I ever expect to be playing this well so quickly in my first year on Tour? Did I think it was possible to win two tournaments in my first month on Tour? Was I ready to prove that Phoenix was not a fluke?

  Stewart had already warned me to take every question seriously and to answer as if I had never been asked that question before. He especially cautioned me not to commit the mortal sin of laughing at a question or dismissing it as stupid. I had to remind him that I knew better than to pick a fight with anyone who bought ink by the barrel.

  When we were finally able to get away from the course, Stewart warned me that the prospect of a Tour rookie winning twice in his first four starts was going to attract a lot of media attention. He suggested, therefore, that we eat somewhere besides the sports bars that I preferred so that I wouldn’t see or hear the evening sportscasts. A quiet dinner somewhere, he said, followed by a movie, would be the perfect way to prepare for the next day’s festivities.

  I playfully suggested that we see if Caddyshack was playing anywhere, but he had already arranged our evening. After a pleasant meal at a neighborhood restaurant called Shaun’s, we watched one of the Star Wars movies at a nearby dollar cinema. Then it was back to the hotel, where I fell asleep within fifteen minutes.

  When I awoke the next morning, I felt well rested and hungry. Of course, Stewart was up before me and was sitting in a corner chair wiping down my clubs.

  “How long you been up?”

  He just smiled before saying, “Long enough to get in five miles at the beach.”

  I was still squinting as I tried to adjust my eyes to the sunlight streaming through the window. I noticed that Stewart had pulled back the curtains, no doubt deliberately to wake me up.

  Sensing that I had gotten my bearings, I looked over at my caddie and asked, “How about some breakfast?”

  He shrugged. “Already had some. But I’ll go with you if you like.”

  It took me about fifteen minutes to jump in and out of the shower, and then we headed downstairs to the coffee shop. We found a quiet table over in the corner. I had barely settled in when Mike Heinen, who would be playing a couple of groups ahead of me, came walking by. He stopped briefly, dropped a folded sports section from the Sunday San Diego Union-Tribune on my plate, and said with a smile, “Nice article. Good luck today.”

  I unfolded the paper. What I saw made me suck in so hard that I made a sound. Across the top of the page was a huge headline that read: REEVES NEW TOUR PHENOM? The byline for the article beneath it belonged to T. R. Reinman, the paper’s well-respected golf writer. Essentially, Reinman made a case for my being the next superstar on Tour. “Admittedly there isn’t sufficient evidence to reach a judgment with any confidence,” he wrote, “but those who have watched Bobby Reeves over the last two weeks don’t see any weaknesses in his game.”

  I was starting to read more when I felt Stewart’s hand across the table on my arm. “I was afraid you’d see that,” he said. “The best thing you can do is put it away.”

  I knew he was right. Without saying anything, I folded the paper and laid it on the floor beneath my chair.

  Stewart seemed to be studying me. Finally, he said, “Reading that stuff can’t do a thing for your game. It can only burden you with other people’s expectations.”

  “Well,” I sniffed, “they’ve got to find some angle for the tournament. They get tired of writing about Tiger, you know.”

  He nodded. “That’s fine, as long as you don’t take it seriously. Remember, today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s birdcage liner.”

  I laughed. “Kinda gives new meaning to the phrase ‘catching a lot of shit,’ doesn’t it?”

  Stewart wasn’t entertained by my attempt at humor. “Bobby, you’ve got to be prepared for the attention. Remember: Just open and close that window. We’ve got another chance to win, but we’ve got to avoid distractions.”

  I had a feeling that was going to be harder now than ever before.

  xxiv

  REINMAN’S ARTICLE WAS just a prelude for what lay ahead at the course. There were a couple of reporters already waiting for us when we pulled into the players’ lot. I wasn’t out of the car before they were firing questions at me. Stewart had already warned me to hustle as fast as I could to the locker room. He said he would wait for me on the range.

  I answered their questions as nicely as I could, but I kept moving the entire time until I was safely inside. After I changed my shoes, I discovered even more of them waiting for me when I emerged from the clubhouse. It was the same thing from there to the practice tee, only I had to sign autographs as well as answer questions.

  Stewart had set up at the far end of the range and was waiting for me there. I couldn’t tell from the expression on his face whether he was amused or concerned as a result of the media siege we had encountered. He certainly wasn’t letting on how he felt. Instead, he immediately got down to business, handing me my wedge so that I could start working my way through my bag.

  I didn’t miss a shot on the range. Everything felt good as we walked to the practice green some twenty-five minutes before we were due to tee off. Rick Fehr was already there, and Steve Elkington arrived just a few minutes later.

  We shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. I heard Fehr ask Elkington about duck hunting, which was one of the Australian’s new hobbies. Both men appeared to be unaffected by the fact that we were about to compete against one another for the tournament title. I remember being impressed at how comfortable they were in one another’s presence, but I suppose I should have expected as much considering how long both of them had been competing on the Tour.

  It wasn’t long before we were called to the tee. There we were reminded of certain local rules regarding drop areas, informed of the order of play, and instructed to play away. After wishing one another luck, the three of us teed off and were soon headed down the first fairway.

  I turned the front in 34. It could have been better. I can’t recall a single shot I misplayed. In fact, I had a decent shot at birdie on all but one hole. Stewart gave me good reads, but the putts just didn’t fall.

  The other guys were playing well, too. Fehr took 35 strokes to play the first nine holes, and Elkington matched my 34. That left Fehr and me even, both two shots back of Elkington.

  The back nine of the South Course at Torrey Pines is difficult. It measures over 3,500 yards long and offers few opportunities for birdies. As a result, Elkington’s two-stroke advantage loomed especially large.

  It’s a cliché in sports to say that he who makes the fewest mistakes usually wins. That would be true here, I felt. Unless I found a way to make a few birdies on the remaining nine holes, it was the leader’s tournament to lose. That meant that Elkington would have to mess up somewhere if I was going to have a chance to win.

  I didn’t have much hope of that happening, because it was hard to imagine Elkington making bad swings. Of all the pros on Tour, he possessed perhaps the least complicated swing of all. It was a simple and elegant action, back and through, that seemed to trace and retrace its path in the exact same plane. He just seemed to turn away from the ball and then back through to the target. There just weren’t many moving parts to his swing, so its sequence and timing were difficult to upset.

  Everyone played close to form for the first several holes on the back nine, trading pars. Thus, we reached the fourteenth hole in the same positions we had occupied at the turn, with Elkington leading the two of us by a couple of shots. The fourteenth plays back toward the ocean, with a canyon beyond the green and to its left. The pin was tucked just behind the bun
ker that fronted the left side of the green.

  That’s when I got my first break. Just as Elkington’s second shot to the par four was in the air, the wind came up from the ocean and knocked his ball down into the front bunker. Worse still, it plugged in the lip. He was left with a dangerous shot: In trying to blast out of a buried lie like that, I had seen many players drive the ball even deeper into the bank of the hazard.

  For that reason, I wasn’t surprised to overhear him and his caddie briefly discuss declaring that the ball was in an unplayable lie, which would have allowed him to lift and drop the ball in the hazard at the cost of a penalty stroke. Ultimately, though, they decided to take their chances with the buried lie. The degree of difficulty of the shot was such that Elkington’s first effort to escape the bunker from an awkward stance (one foot was outside the bunker) failed. Fortunately for him, the ball rolled back down to the bottom of the hazard and settled into a decent lie. Now he lay three and needed to get up and down to save bogey. His explosion from the sand was a little strong, however, and the ball ran almost six feet past the hole. Making five was going to be tough.

  In the meantime, both Fehr and I were safely on in regulation, each between fifteen and twenty feet from the hole. If either of us made our putts, we’d be tied for the lead even if Elkington made his putt for bogey. Of course, if he missed, whoever made birdie would then have the lead.

  One of the professional golfer’s mantras is that every stroke counts the same. It’s the Tour player’s way of maintaining his golfing equilibrium and avoiding the emotional swings that are such an intimate part of the game. And so virtually every pro recites the mantra like Catholics make the sign of the cross.

  As one fellow said, though, “Sayin’ it and believin’ it ain’t the same thing.” As Stewart and I looked at the line of my putt, both of us knew without saying it that this stroke—and Elkington’s upcoming six-footer—counted a whole lot more than anything that preceded it. There are critical points in almost every golf tournament, events that decide the outcome, and we both knew that this could be one of them. Simply put, it was my best chance yet to win.

  Stewart read the putt to break two balls left. So did I. I remembered Ben Crenshaw’s two cardinal rules of putting: Keep your head still and hit the putt solid. I thought I did both and liked the putt the moment it left the putter. It looked in all the way. I started walking after it before it even got to the hole, convinced it was going in. But it lost speed more quickly than I anticipated and fell more sharply to the left.

  The ball couldn’t have missed the left edge by more than a half inch. I almost went to my knees when it stayed out of the hole. Even Stewart reacted visibly, which was unusual for him. There was nothing to do but tap in and let Fehr and Elkington fight it out.

  I thought Fehr had made his, too, but it spun out, and he had to settle for par as well. It came down to whether Elkington could nurse his six-footer home to stay on top by a single shot. That’s when I saw why the guy won the PGA Championship at Riviera on the worst putting greens ever seen in a major championship. He didn’t look twice and stroked it firmly in the hole.

  I tried to remain upbeat as we walked to the fifteenth tee, but I knew that I had missed an important opportunity. With only four holes left, I was afraid I had blown my last chance to win. I cautioned myself about thinking negatively. Instead, I thought, the four remaining holes give me four more chances to win.

  Stewart must have sensed the need to loosen me up. As we stood on the tee of the short but adventurous par-four fifteenth hole and took in the magnificent view, he leaned over and whispered, “No matter what happens, Bobby, remember that we’re a long way from where I met you.”

  It was the first time I had thought about my brief stint in jail in quite awhile. As usual, though, it was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. Perhaps I had been taking for granted how far we had come. If so, Stewart’s remark gave me a renewed sense of perspective about the whole thing. I suddenly found new energy and a new resolve to win.

  That’s probably why I birdied the hole. So did Elkington, though. Fehr made four. Now we were staggered across the leader-board, with Elkington leading me by one and Fehr by two. The game was still on.

  The sixteenth hole is a 200-yard par three heading straight out to the Pacific Ocean. Needless to say, it is not normally thought of as a birdie hole. Not only is the hole long, but it’s heavily bunkered around the green. A stand of trees behind the green sometimes masks the wind coming off the ocean, which then makes club selection more a matter of luck than anything else.

  It must have been my day to be lucky. I hit one of the best three-irons of my life to the middle of the green. The ball finished no more than twelve feet from the hole. The putt had only a slight break toward the water, and I creased the middle of the cup for another birdie. Elkington and Fehr had to settle for par. I had tied Elkington for the lead with two holes to play. Fehr remained two shots back and had run out of holes.

  The tournament was now down to two of us.

  The seventeenth hole is a man-size par four, about 430 yards long. As we stood on the tee, Stewart reminded me to favor the left side of the fairway for a better angle to the pin, which was situated toward the right side of the green behind a bunker. I came off the shot slightly and pushed my tee shot to the right. It finished in the fairway, but I would not have a clear shot at the flag.

  Elkington was closer to the middle of the fairway, but his approach wouldn’t be any bargain, either. He was away and clearly chose to play it safe by hitting his second shot to the middle of the green, about thirty feet from the hole. He obviously wanted to force me into a mistake instead of making one himself.

  Stewart leaned over to me as he handed me my six-iron. I knew what he was going to say before he spoke. Waving my hand at him, I said, “I know, middle of the green.” He just smiled, picked up my bag, and backed away to give me room.

  I hit it as solid as any iron shot I had played all day, and the ball finished just a few feet inside Elkington’s. Although we weren’t on quite the same line, I would learn something from watching his putt. As we walked to the green, I felt I had a slight advantage.

  Once I got to the green, I saw that neither putt would be easy. Both were left-to-right breakers, which I never liked and hoped Elkington didn’t either. To make things worse, there was a slight ridge cutting across the green on a diagonal, and I had to figure out how far it would throw the ball as it climbed up one side and slid down the other. The longer I looked at it, the more confused I became.

  Finally, I looked up at Stewart, who had been standing behind me as I crouched down trying to find the line of the putt. “This is harder to read than a New Orleans street map.” He just continued to stare at the line as if he could force it to reveal itself through sheer willpower.

  Elkington and his caddie weren’t doing much better. They both circled their putt and then engaged in pretty animated conversation with one another. From the sound of it, they were having trouble agreeing on the line, too. I was glad they had to putt first. At least I’d get some idea of how the putt broke, as well as its speed.

  Given their uncertainty, I was surprised when he damned near made it. In fact, I still don’t know how the ball stayed out of the hole; it looked in all the way. But it turned away from the hole at the very last instant, leaving the Australian with a tap-in for his four.

  From where we stood, it looked like the ridge had thrown Elkington’s putt to the right about four inches or so. We didn’t quite have the same angle, so we couldn’t be sure our putt would react the same way. I could tell the putt wasn’t going to get any easier, though, and finally said to Stewart, “I got it two cups left. What do you think?”

  I don’t know if he agreed with my read or just wanted to reinforce my confidence. All he said was, “That’s it. Hit it there, and you’ll make it.”

  I remembered to keep my hands soft on the putter, which forced me to make the shoulder stroke that is so essen
tial to putting well. I picked a small spot on the line, set the putter, and sent the ball down the line. It looked every bit as good as Elkington’s earlier effort, and the ball appeared to be hunting the hole as it crossed the ridge. But it stopped turning right as it came down the other side, and suddenly I realized that it might miss on the left. And that’s exactly what happened, which left me with an eighteen-inch putt for my four. We went to the eighteenth hole still tied.

  The finishing hole at the South Course is a good one. It’s a par five that can be reached in two shots, but they’d better be two good ones. At 501 yards with a pond in front of the green, the eighteenth hole is all carry on the second shot.

  As we stood on the tee, Stewart reminded me that our play was down the right side of the fairway. We could carry the bunker there, while the one on the left side was some twenty-five yards farther out and would gather in any drive pulled to that side.

  I caught my drive out on the toe of the club, and it probably would’ve caught the right bunker, but it drew back toward the middle of the fairway at the last moment. I knew from previous rounds that I had not quite reached Stewart’s imaginary “go versus no-go” line to determine whether to play for the green on the second shot. Since Elkington had outdriven me by ten yards or so, we were away. That meant that we would have to make that strategic decision first.

  As we arrived at the ball, I watched Stewart make some quick calculations before informing me that we were 240 yards from the middle of the green. “We can lay up with a seven, and it’ll leave you ninety to the pin, perfect sand wedge distance.”

  I looked longingly at my three-wood and said, “What do you think it would take to get there in two?”

  He snorted. “A rosary.”