“See if ya’ can hit it like Big Jim Barnes used to,” he said as he handed me the driver.
“He played here, too?”
Moonlight just laughed. “You’re standin’ where he and Mr. Snead bashed drivers for three days once, tryin’ to prove who was the longest. Mr. Barnes kept swingin’ harder an’ harder, while Mr. Snead just kept that smooth tempo a’ his.” He seemed a little sad all of a sudden. “Mr. Barnes ended up winnin’ the money, but he lost his swing an’ never got it back.”
On that unhappy note, I pushed my drive to the right. The ball landed in the sandy dunes there. Because the brush began to thin out toward the bottom of the slope, I halfway hoped that I would still have a clear shot at the green.
Moonlight seemed to know exactly where my ball was. As usual, he kept his eyes trained on the spot as we walked from the tee, never turning his head even as we talked.
“We’ll have to pitch out. Can’t take a chance missin’ the green with a long second shot from there. Bad angle—bunker an’ trees come into play from here.” I didn’t need to be told twice to lay up. After all, I only had one ball, and I couldn’t afford to lose it.
The decision became even easier once we got to my ball. A solitary tree on that side of the hole blocked our path to the green.
Moonlight handed me a 7-iron. “Just punch it out into the fairway an’ let it run back to the right, ’bout a hundred yards down. That’ll leave us an easy wedge in.”
It was a low-risk shot, therefore easy to execute. The ball flew low for about 60 yards or so, and then ran along the center of the fairway before sliding back down the slope toward the right side. The shot wouldn’t have been possible in the denser grass that matted the fairways higher up on the slope toward the clubhouse, but it worked to perfection down where we were. It looked like the ball came to rest right at a hundred yards from the green.
“Well done,” said Moonlight.
When I got to the ball and was able to get a closer look at the eighth green, I saw the wisdom of Moonlight’s advice. Any attempt to reach the green with a long second shot from where we were was foolhardy. If we didn’t catch the large bunker defending the front left of the green, we might wind up in the sandy dunes to the right, which was an equally undesirable fate.
Moonlight spoke softly now, as if we were in church. “Time for another knockdown. Let’s keep it safe ag’in.” Handing me a pitching wedge, he reassured me. “This is just the club for the shot.”
I made solid contact, and the ball took off on a low trajectory. It landed in the front of the green, skipped once, and then spun toward the right, stopping quickly. It appeared to be no more than eight feet from the hole.
Moonlight was beaming. “Startin’ to like that little shot, ain’t ya’?”
I returned his delighted expression. “I wish I had learned it years ago. It’s like throwing darts.”
As we walked to the green and away from the shore, the roar of the surf began to recede in the distance. At the same time, I noticed that the wind had picked up. Then I looked up at the sky and saw charcoal clouds rolling toward us.
I turned to Moonlight, raising my voice to be heard above the rumbling that was growing closer, “Looks like bad weather coming our way.”
He didn’t say anything, but pulled his Hogan cap down around his ears. I became a little alarmed. While I hadn’t seen any lightning, I could hear thunder in the distance. I loved the game and what we were doing, but I wasn’t ready to die for it.
In an urgent voice, I asked Moonlight, “Don’t you think we should head in?”
Again, he didn’t speak; he just shook his head in disagreement and stooped to read the line for my putt. When he stood up, he held his thumb and forefinger about an inch and then pointed out toward the surf.
As I bent over the putt, a gust of wind threw me slightly off balance. I rushed the stroke and missed on the low side.
I was a little disappointed until Moonlight slapped me on the back as we walked from the green. “Ya’ just made par on what Mr. Jones called ‘the best short par 5 in the world.’”
For a moment I forgot about the threatening weather. “You mean he thought this was a better par 5 than either 13 or 15 at Augusta?”
Moonlight arched his eyebrows. “All I can tell ya’ is what he said. As best as I can recall, his near-exact words were that he knew a’ no par 5 presentin’ such a terrifyin’ challenge to a player who wanted an easy birdie.”
I was inclined to agree based upon what I had seen. “Even with a good drive, you gotta have pretty fair-sized coconuts to go for that green in two.”
Moonlight laughed at my use of slang. “Well, Mr. Hogan was the best at workin’ the course to his advantage, an’ he said the play on the second shot was to the area in front a’ the green. From there ya’ had an easy pitch, an’ ya’ made either four or five. Anyone hittin’ directly at the green risked six or worse.” He winked at me. “He’d have liked the way we played the hole. Kinda reminded me a’ the way he parred the hole the first time he played here.”
“Really?” I had never heard my game and Hogan’s mentioned in the same breath.
“Yeah. Hit his second shot to the bail-out area, chipped ’bout four feet past, an’ lipped out.” He paused. “I know, ’cause I was there.”
“You caddied for Hogan?”
“Nah,” he said. “I was on another bag. Mr. Jones was there, too, ridin’ in a cart an’ watchin’ the play.”
“I don’t suppose Hogan let you in on the ‘secret’ that he supposedly had about the golf swing.”
I had meant to be facetious, but Moonlight shook his head. “He didn’t tell me anythin’ except ’bout rakin’ a bunker, but I heard him say somethin’ to Mr. Jones that was interestin’.”
“What’s that?”
“He said that the one thing he worked on the most was keepin’ his right knee from movin’ durin’ the swing.”
As we came to the ninth tee, the weather calmed down almost as rapidly as it had flared up. I said something to Moonlight about how quickly it was clearing.
He laughed. “That’s the way it is here, lad. You’ll see a week’s worth of weather changes in one afternoon. That’s why I didn’t say nothin’ before.”
Moonlight then explained how the ninth hole continued to move away from the clubhouse and that it would seem every bit as long as the 447 yards listed on the scorecard. Looking out from the tee, I saw that the fairway started left and then turned slightly right toward the green. Perry Maxwell had again strategically placed a bunker at the inside edge of the dogleg to challenge those players who tried to cheat the hole of its full distance.
I hit a terrible drive that went low and left into the trees. When we got to the ball, I saw that I had advanced it a mere 200 yards or so, leaving me a virtual cannon shot away from the green. Moonlight didn’t say much, apparently subscribing to my mother’s favorite rule that, if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.
At first I was concerned about finding the ball, because I hadn’t seen it land after it disappeared into the trees. Once again, Moonlight’s certain stride indicated that he had a bead on its location. Sure enough, he walked right to the ball.
I also couldn’t resist a dig about his ball-finding skills. “You got a beagle in your family tree?”
He just grunted. “If I ain’t surprised that ya’ can draft them contracts ya’ lawyers are so famous for, why should ya’ be surprised that I can find a golf ball? Caddies find balls. It’s what we do, ya’ know.”
Even as he spoke, he started looking around for some fixture from which to reckon our yardage to the green. It took him longer than usual to come up with a number for this shot. Finally, he pulled out my 3-wood, and said, “It’s all of 235, uphill all the way. Give it a crack. Anywhere in front a’ the green’ll work.”
I was surprised that he hadn’t recommended a more conservative play. There was a large bunker protecting the right front of the green and a
smaller pot bunker about ten yards in front of the left edge. All I could figure was that Maxwell was having a bad day when he designed this hole and wanted to take it out on somebody.
I wondered if there was something to this shot Moonlight wasn’t telling me. “You don’t think I should lay up?”
He made a face. “Nah. Ya’ can get close enough with this club to have an easy pitch. There’s nothin’ to fear up there with those bunkers. It’s worth a chance to save your four.”
I looked at the faraway green and saw that the flag appeared to be toward the left rear. I doubted that I could reach the green, but I figured that Moonlight wouldn’t have given me the 3-wood if it could cost me strokes, so I decided to let her rip.
I didn’t hit it as well as I wanted. The ball popped up on me, probably because I was swinging into an uphill lie. It took distance off the shot that I couldn’t afford to lose. The ball dropped a good 50 yards in front of the green, the distance of the dreaded half-wedge.
Moonlight didn’t seem that disappointed. Without saying anything, he put my 3-wood back in my bag and started walking. I guess I felt some comment was necessary, so I said something about putting myself in the position that he had been telling me to avoid—that of making a touch shot with a half-swing.
He dismissed my concerns with a wave of his hand. “There’s no water up there, lad. An’ you’re pitchin’ uphill. We’ll be alright. Besides, ya’ won’t be hittin’ the sand wedge. We’re gonna bump an’ run the ball with a 9-iron.”
As we stood at my ball, he explained that a pitch with the sand wedge would have to be struck almost perfectly in order to finish near the hole. We could get just as close, he said, by taking a 9-iron and running it up to the hole.
I pitched the ball to within ten yards or so of the front of the green. It bounced up the generous alley between the bunkers and rolled toward the back where the hole was situated. The ball missed the flagstick by a matter of inches, but continued to roll a good ten feet past.
Moonlight seemed satisfied with my effort. “We got a shot at it. That’s all we can ask for.”
Although I took my time studying the putt, I knew I would follow whatever line he read. He read it right edge and cautioned me that the putt was slightly downhill and would be a little fast.
So of course I left the putt a foot short.
Chapter 19
MOONLIGHT SUGGESTED A short break before starting the back nine. We had taken barely 90 minutes to play the first nine holes, so the afternoon sun was still bright. As he sat down on a nearby bench, Moonlight seemed almost apologetic about taking a break.
“Hilly course. Just gimme a minute an’ I’ll be good as new.”
I took advantage of the recess to use a rustic water closet just beyond the ninth green. It didn’t strike me as odd until we were headed back outside that the urinal had flushed. How many of these places still had running water, I wondered, after being closed for 30-plus years?
As we made our way to the tenth tee, I asked Moonlight about some of the more interesting matches he had witnessed at Bragg’s Point.
“There’re so many to talk ’bout, lad. So many great players loved to come here. They’d play four-ball matches, an’ the standard bet was a hundred bucks for the front, another hundred for the back, an’ two hundred for the 18. Automatic presses at two down, with each hole countin’ as a new bet.”
I wasn’t familiar with that kind of bet. “How did that work?”
“Let’s say you’re two down for the back at the 16th hole. That makes a press automatic, an’ that hole is worth $100, which is the amount a’ the back nine bet. If the team that presses wins the hole, there is no press on the next hole ’cause they’re only one down. But they’ve won $100 in the meantime.”
“What if they don’t win the hole?”
“If they lose the hole, they’re out $100, an’ the press continues on the next hole ’cause they’re three down. If they halve the hole, no money changes hands, but the press applies at the next hole ’cause they’re still two down. Either way, the next hole is a $100 hole.”
“That could get expensive.”
Moonlight nodded. “Sure. Presses for the 18-hole bet kick in when you’re two down for the round, too. That’s $200 a hole. I saw over $1,000 change hands more’n once, an’ that was back in the days when winning a four-day tournament on tour didn’t pay much more’n that.”
I wanted to know more.
“Who played here the most often?”
“Mr. Hogan, Mr. Demaret, Mr. Nelson, Mr. Snead, Jackie Burke, guys who had won the Masters. Mr. Palmer, too, a’ course. An’ Mr. Jones’s close friends, like General, then President, Eisenhower. Not many foreigners. Mr. Jones an’ Mr. Roberts worried ’bout keepin’ this a secret, an’ Mr. Roberts didn’t trust many foreigners.”
I knew that Cliff Roberts had been a man who was said to harbor many prejudices, so what Moonlight said didn’t surprise me. What he said next did take me aback, however.
“He made an exception once, an’ it was quite a deal. Back in the early part a’ 1941, someone from Washington approached Mr. Jones ’bout havin’ a team competition with the Japanese as a gesture a’ goodwill. The Japs had been makin’ noises throughout Asia, an’ Washington had finally realized they were a real threat to peace. The president had just imposed a trade embargo, which apparently made ’em madder’n hell.”
I knew a little bit about World War II history, particularly the controversy about our readiness for the attack on Pearl Harbor. I was also aware that, as recently as 1995, relatives of the two top-ranked military officers at Pearl Harbor had petitioned the government to clear them of responsibility for our apparent unpreparedness for the Japanese sneak attack.
Moonlight continued. “According to American intelligence, one a’ the big Jap ministers, some guy named Nakimura, was a golf nut. The idea was to invite him over an’ have him bring a team a’ golfers with him. We’d send agents to try to talk with Nakimura while he was here.”
I was intrigued at the thought of Jones trying to head off World War II. “So, did the match ever occur?”
“Yeah. It only served to prove that the government shouldn’t mess with golf. Damned near started a war instead of avoidin’ one.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Nakimura went for it. Then, the bureaucrats started worryin’ ’bout how it would look for Americans an’ Japs to be playin’ golf at a time like this. What if we beat the pants off ’em? That could only make things worse. An’ what if we lost? That might hurt morale. What started out as a great idea suddenly became a big problem. So they asked Mr. Jones if they could keep the matches a secret. Mr. Jones an’ Mr. Roberts eventually decided to play the matches here, ’cause it was the only way to keep the whole thing quiet.”
“But wouldn’t that destroy Jones’s secret?”
“I reckon Mr. Jones thought it was worth it to avoid a war. Besides, it wasn’t like the Japs were gonna tell a whole bunch of Americans ’bout the place, especially if they lost.”
“Tell me about the matches.”
Moonlight set my bag down. “They ran it like the Ryder Cup. Each team had ’round ten players or so. Our team was a bunch a’ real all-stars: Mr. Hogan, Mr. Snead, Mr. Nelson, Ralph Guldahl, Horton Smith, Sarazen, Demaret.” He paused a minute. “Hell, I can’t remember everyone.”
“When did they play?”
“I guess it was ’round the early summer of 1941. It was gonna be a two-day competition, four-balls an’ alternatin’ shots the first day an’ singles the second. They had a banquet for everyone the night before at the officers’ club at the base. I guess they wanted to impress the Japs with our military facilities.”
So far, everything I heard sounded like typical government psychology.
“Anyway, they almost didn’t get to play ’cause a’ what happened at the banquet. The players sat across from one another at a long table. Before they were seated, the Japanese players bowed to the America
n players. Our guys had been briefed on how to return the bow.”
Moonlight laughed as he recalled the story. “Only Mr. Hogan refused to bow. Said he wasn’t there to dance with ’em, just to beat the crap out of ’em on the golf course. He stood there, ramrod straight. Everyone noticed that he wouldn’t move an inch. This is apparently a great insult in Japan. The way I heard it, Mr. Nelson leaned over an’ said in Mr. Hogan’s ear, ‘Ben, you’re the only one who hasn’t bowed.’ Mr. Hogan supposedly looked at Mr. Nelson an’ said in a fairly loud voice, ‘These bastards are damned lucky I’m willing to eat with ’em.’”
“So what happened?”
“Mr. Hogan never bowed. The Japs got upset. Mr. Jones was called in to mediate the dispute. He assured the Japanese delegation that Mr. Hogan, like most Americans, was unfamiliar with Japanese ways an’ didn’t understand the significance of the bow. So the matches went on the next day.”
“How did the Americans do?”
Moonlight grinned. “If the American navy had been that good, the war wouldn’t’ve lasted a month. Mr. Hogan won every match he played, without breakin’ a sweat. So did Mr. Nelson, Mr. Demaret, an’ Mr. Snead. I think the Japs only won one match an’ tied three others. A lotta them were makin’ long walks in.”
I understood that to mean the matches ended early, forcing the players to walk in from holes that were a good distance from the clubhouse. “Doesn’t sound like we were very gracious hosts.”
“Nah. But American bigwigs met with Nakimura durin’ the tournament. He was supposed to be sympathetic. But he didn’t have enough say back in Japan. Yamamoto an’ others had the Emperor convinced it was his destiny to rule most of Asia an’ Australia, not to mention every island in the Pacific clear to Hawaii. Ya’ know the rest a’ the story.”
“Wouldn’t it have been something if golf could have enabled us to avoid the war?”
“Yeah, but they didn’t understand the game.”
The Greatest Course That Never Was Page 13