On 8, Caldecker rolls in a downhill sixteen-footer for another birdie and Kearns comes right back to me. “When he arrived on Monday, Caldecker’s goals were modest,” I say, “to make his first PGA cut and earn a paycheck for his young family, his wife, Ronnelle, and their towheaded toddler, Casper, but with his fourth birdie of the day, Caldecker and his family get to see his name on a PGA leaderboard. After all he has been through, it has to be a thrilling moment for this courageous young man.” As I whisper into America’s ear, I keep seeing Kearns’s fist wringing his imaginary towel, and although I like to think I stay well short of that, I know it’s not by much.
Caldecker pars 9 and 10. After another solid drive on 11, his leg buckles on the follow-through. When he steps off the tee, his face is pale and his jaw clenched, and fifty yards later he’s limping badly again.
Kearns, who is monitoring the action from a production truck, responds to Caldecker’s distress like a shark smelling blood and within seconds is back in my headset: “The game is on,” he says. “Every time I come back to you I need an update on the leg. Is it getting worse? How much worse? From here on, it’s about pain and courage. And don’t let up.”
“Caldecker has a hundred and twenty-five yards to the green. On the walk from the tee, it was obvious that Caldecker is hurting.…Caldecker’s caddy slips two more Advils into his palm. Then hands him his wedge.…Caldecker grimaces on the follow-through but the strike is clean…it’s all over the flag…less than ten feet for birdie…he crouches gingerly behind the ball…pulls himself upright. One practice stroke…Yes! Hugo Caldecker is tied for the lead of the Honda Classic!”
On the last three holes, I keep reaching for the towel like a jockey going to the whip on the home stretch. “On every hole, Caldecker seems to be in more pain…at this point the only things getting him to the house are guts and painkillers…let me change that to guts alone, because there’s no evidence the painkillers are doing much good…those pars on sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen were anything but routine and his four-under sixty-eight is one of the most courageous rounds I’ve ever witnessed.”
Once again, Blundell and I position ourselves to intercept Caldecker coming off 18. Before we can subject him to another interview, a cart races up to the back of the green and whisks Caldecker away. “That Caldecker required a cart to travel the short distance between the eighteenth green and the scorers’ tent,” I say, “indicates just what kind of pain he is in.”
I’m relieved that Caldecker has eluded us. Kearns is furious and makes up for the lack of an interview by having Nantz take viewers through a hole-by-hole recap of Caldecker’s round. He intercuts video of Caldecker’s well-struck shots and holed putts with close-ups of his painful steps.
33
CALDECKER ISN’T THE ONLY one whose stock has risen overnight. When coverage resumes Sunday afternoon, Nantz introduces viewers “to Travis McKinley, the newest member of the CBS family.” Then Kearns puts me on camera, as I stand microphone in hand between the blue markers of the first tee. As he counts me down, “Five…four…three…two…one,” I remind myself that I don’t have to whisper.
“From the tips, TPC Heron plays seven thousand, three hundred yards. That’s four and a half miles as the crow flies. Golfers, however, don’t fly, and on the ground, it’s more like six miles. Each mile is two thousand steps. If Hugo Caldecker is going to have a chance to win his first golf tournament, he will have to take twelve thousand of them, and for Caldecker, who lost part of his right leg as a result of complications from a car accident in South America four years ago, each step is not only more difficult than that of his competitors, it’s harder than the one before it.”
On Friday and Saturday, Caldecker’s steps became labored and painful toward the end of each round. On Sunday he is limping badly off the second tee. At every opportunity, Caldecker takes the weight off his left leg. On the second tee, he avails himself of a nearby bench. On the third, with no bench in sight, he sits on his golf bag, and after tapping in for par on the 4th, he sits on the bank behind a green. As he hobbles up fairways, he uses his 2-iron as a cane, and in between shots, he lifts his left leg and balances himself against his bag or leans directly on his caddy, Samuel Montgomery.
He also takes strength from his huge gallery. The attention given to Caldecker and his handicap, the bulk of it piped into American homes through my microphone, has won him a legion of new fans who roar his every shot and chant his name. At times it’s difficult to watch, yet somehow Caldecker gets through the first five holes without surrendering a bogey or his share of the lead.
“You can just imagine what a win would mean to this young man,” I whisper as Caldecker limps off the fifth tee. “The big paycheck, the two-year exemption, the invitation to the Masters and the trip to Hawaii for the Tournament of Champions, as well as tangible proof that all his hard work has not been in vain. For now, though, he has to find a way to put aside all thoughts of what a win would mean and focus on playing one shot at a time and putting one foot in front of the other.”
In my headset, Kearns barks his approval: “One foot in front of the other—love it—and don’t let up.” After Caldecker pars three more holes, Kearns unveils a graphic that he runs at the bottom of the screen whenever Caldecker is on camera and tabulates live every additional step, and Nantz updates viewers when he reaches 2,000, 3,000, 4,000. Caldecker grinds out another par to finish the front nine in even par 36. “In sports, we like to think the playing field is level, but for the first nine holes, Caldecker has been playing uphill. Nevertheless, he is halfway home.”
By the start of the back nine, Caldecker can barely put any weight on the left leg even when he is swinging. Unable to make a full follow-through, he loses a third of his distance and his driver barely carries two hundred yards. Where the co-leader Dudley Hart is hitting wedges and short irons to the green, Caldecker is hitting fairway woods. Yet by missing his approach shots in the right places, he keeps finding ways to salvage par, and when Hart three-putts the 16th hole, Caldecker has the lead to himself.
“This is not just one of the bravest rounds I’ve ever seen, it’s one of the smartest and most disciplined. He and Montgomery have obviously done a great deal of thinking about this round in advance, and again and again Caldecker has left himself uphill chips and putts. With only two holes to go, Caldecker leads the Honda Classic. He’s almost home. Can he hang on?”
On the short par-four 17th, Caldecker bunts his driver 180 yards into the middle of the fairway and limps after it. “He’s got one hundred eighty-eight yards to the green,” I say, and Montgomery has given him a 3-wood. Once again, he’s just trying to get this somewhere in front of the green. Two holes ago, Caldecker stopped taking practice swings, but this time he takes one and then another and then puts the club back in the bag and reaches out for Montgomery, who gently lowers him to the ground. He is sitting on the grass when a PGA tour official pulls up beside him in a golf cart. The official says something into his walkie-talkie and seconds later two more carts arrive. After a short discussion, Caldecker climbs onto one cart, the caddy onto another, and the two carts speed off toward the clubhouse.
“It’s heartbreaking,” I say. “With little less than five hundred yards to the clubhouse and what could have been his first win on the PGA Tour, Hugo Caldecker could not take another step.”
34
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Kearns barks through my headset. “You’re letting him get away! We’re not done yet. We need an interview with him right now.”
“You want me to ask him how he feels?”
“That’s exactly what I want you to ask him.”
Everyone who has been watching already knows how he feels, I think. He’s devastated. And in excruciating pain. “Can’t we leave the guy alone for a few minutes?”
“No. It’s unpleasant but you have to do it. That’s why it’s called a job.”
I wave over a tour official and Blundell and I commandeer his cart. The only reason Ca
ldecker is still in sight is because his cart stopped to pick up his wife and son, and from behind I can see them collapsed into each other. Unfortunately, there is no longer any need for Caldecker to sign his card. By not completing the round, Caldecker, who was leading after seventy holes, will automatically finish last in the field, and earn the same amount as if he had withdrawn Friday night.
We follow his cart past the scorers’ tent and then to the clubhouse, where he pulls onto a large, nearly empty patio. When we catch up to them, the family is sitting at a small table at the far end. He and his wife are sobbing as their four-year-old son looks on, distressed and bewildered.
Kearns is back in my headset: “Travis, where are you?…You find him?”
For a second, I don’t answer, and I wish I hadn’t. “Yes.”
“Excellent. We’re going to a commercial and then back to you.”
Two minutes later, he counts me off.
“Hugo, very sorry to bother you right now. I hope you realize how much what you did these past four days has meant to people, how much your courage and determination will continue to mean to them.” When Caldecker doesn’t answer, I continue: “When did you realize you weren’t going to be able to finish the round?”
“The first step I took when I got out of bed.”
“When you waved over the official on seventeen, you were so close to the finish line. What did you tell him?”
“I told him I was going to pass out. I really didn’t want to do that in front of my wife and son. Not to mention my friends and parents watching on TV. The hell with that.”
“Hugo, I know it may not seem like it now, but you accomplished a great deal this weekend. You came within two holes of winning on the PGA tour. I’m sure other sponsors will be offering you exemptions. Will you try again?”
“What’s the point?”
“Maybe you can make some adjustments that will make walking less painful.”
Caldecker flashes a look of disgust. “You don’t think we’ve been trying that for the last year?”
The left leg of Caldecker’s slacks flaps at the bottom, and scanning the table, I see his prosthetic with his golf shoe still attached to it sitting on the wrought-iron chair. Both the prosthetic and the white shoe are covered in blood, and they are dripping into a red puddle beneath the chair.
“You got your little interview,” says Caldecker, “could you please give us some time alone?”
The seven-second delay enables Kearns to cut away before Caldecker’s request for privacy. That evening ESPN ends their telecast with Blundell’s video of blood dripping off the shoe onto the patio. Blundell captured audio, too, and you can hear the drops hit the cement. I’m in my hotel room sipping a beer when Kearns calls.
“Travis, you did some incredible work this weekend. Our ratings for the tournament were only two points less than the average when Tiger is in the field. I had my doubts but you proved me wrong. You’ve got a real future in this business.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Trust me on this one, Travis. You’re a natural.”
“I hope you’re wrong about that, Burt. In any case it doesn’t matter. Because I quit.”
35
HOME, HOME ON THE range, where the ex-pro and the assistant pro play.
On a perfect morning in late June, the kind that makes Chicagoans forget the endless winter, Louie and I are set up in our usual spot in the far rear corner of the Creekview Country Club driving range. We’ve spent much of the last two and a half months here, me pounding balls and practicing my short game, and Louie chasing crows and hedgehogs and sleeping in the sun. I can’t speak for Louie, but I feel like I still have a little game left, although to be honest it’s starting to feel a bit hypothetical, since I don’t know when, if ever, I’ll get a chance to play it again.
One reason I’m feeling hopeful despite my unemployment status is the encouragement I received from my driving range neighbor in Encino. Yeah, he was rocking a green Speedo, but he also sported one of the best swings I’ve ever seen on either tour, and I’d rather get an endorsement from a maniac who knows what he’s talking about than from someone of unquestioned mental stability who doesn’t, although I concede that ideally, you’re looking for both.
“Go back to the beginning,” he advised, and since returning to Winnetka I’ve often pondered what he meant. On the chance that he was referring to technique, I’ve refocused on the fundamentals handed down to me over forty years ago by my late grandfather. Every morning before I hit a single ball, I re-create Pop’s earliest lessons about setup, alignment, posture, and grip. But perhaps he had something else in mind. Maybe he was trying to steer me toward a psychological or emotional beginning. A fresh start, a blank page? In any case, my searching has done me no harm, and although I can’t point to a dramatic breakthrough, my game feels as sharp as ever, and I’m hitting the ball as long and well as any fifty-four-year-old has a right to.
Unfortunately, the only chances I’ve had to brandish my game are in my twice-weekly money matches with assistant pro Cameron Booth and his long-hitting college golf pal Jonah Cooper. Do I feel bad fleecing twentysomethings barely earning minimum wage for $200 and $300 a pop? Not really, particularly since I’m giving them thirty years and a stroke a side. Still, the sharp edge of my game feels underutilized, like I’m all dressed up with nowhere to go.
36
ON THE OTHER HAND, after four years on the road, having nowhere to go is kind of the point. Before I head to the range, I drop off Noah at his day camp and, before I pick him up, gather the ingredients for dinner. Three or four nights a week, I do the cooking as well, and tonight after serving my signature SFM, simple fish meal—roast salmon, sautéed vegetables, potatoes dauphinoise—we decide to extend our evening by going into town for ice cream at our beloved Dairy Queen.
On these mild summer evenings, I’m often struck by the civic harmony and goodwill in ice cream lines. People exercising their right to vote for the ice cream or frozen milk of their choice may be the most hopeful example of democracy we have left. There is no other place where the various segments of our population smile at each other as openly, or tolerate each other’s unruly kids as patiently. At DQ, it’s pretty obvious that at the end of the day we all want the same thing, which is to get our chocolate-dipped cones from the order window and into our mouths before they melt all over us.
Our calories consumed, we burn off a fraction immediately by walking the half dozen blocks to the shopping district and extend our municipal experience inside the cavernous Blockbuster. Crossing the threshold of a Blockbuster on a whim, without a list negotiated and agreed upon in advance, is a dangerous game. There are too many choices and so many of them suck and when it comes to entertainment, common ground between a man, a woman, and a nine-year-old boy is elusive. After fifteen minutes, I’m just going through the motions, placing one foot in front of the other and tossing out a title, which I know will be rejected by one or both, and not always nicely.
I’m getting a steady diet of “no way,” “you got to be kidding,” and “you couldn’t pay me enough to sit through that,” and my gloom as I squint at the alphabetically arranged DVDs reminds me of weaving through thick woods looking for an errant tee shot. If you stumble on the ball, it’s a minor miracle, and that’s the way I feel when I cross the border between “action” and “comedy” and spot at the bottom of a skinny black spine the tiny snapshots of Derek Smalls, David St. Hubbins, and Nigel Tufnel, each looking more smug and clueless than the other, and above them the cheesy 3-D typeface with the gratuitous umlaut over a consonant.
“Sarah, I think Noah is ready.”
“For what?”
“Spinal Tap.”
37
MINUTES AFTER INSERTING THE DVD, I realize I’m wrong. This Is Spinal Tap is a fictional documentary about the ill-fated American tour of a particularly moronic heavy metal band. Spinal Tap is wildly inappropriate for a nine-year-old. Sarah and I are lucky a representative
from Children’s Services doesn’t barge in in the middle of their anthem “Big Bottom,” sample lyric “My baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo / I’m going to sink her with my pink torpedo.” But in spite of the occasional eye roll and “Really, Travis?” from Sarah, everyone, including her, is laughing so uproariously, I don’t have the heart or the mandate to pull the plug.
At this point it’s too late anyway. A better strategy, I decide, is to act like it’s no big deal, and of course it isn’t. And as I rationalize to myself, if you’re going to expose your third grader to one hour and twenty-two minutes of Advanced Placement sex ed, it might as well arrive in the form of a comic masterpiece.
What I wasn’t quite prepared for was how quickly he would absorb every skit, lyric, and scrap of dialogue and how completely it would colonize every cranny of his brain. “You can’t really dust for vomit” becomes an all-purpose motto, repeated ad nauseam and apropos of nothing, and he asks for his bread to be toasted to 11, and when I drop him at camp, “Love you, have a good day” is replaced by “But enough yakking, let’s boogie.”
On the plus side, the band’s disastrous live performance of “Stonehenge,” at which an eighteen-inch rather than eighteen-foot model of the monument is lowered to the stage, inspires him to take out a library book on the prehistoric landmark, and the next weekend at breakfast, he corrects a piece of misinformation from the movie. “Druids had nothing to do with the construction of Stonehenge,” he informs us. “Druids didn’t arrive until a thousand years after they were built.” See, it all turned out fine in the end, and I’m a wonderful parent, and as I flip pancakes and Noah reads about “trilithons” and Sarah pores over her Tribune, a wave of domestic well-being washes over me.
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