by Dan Jenkins
My stupid hook had hit a tree or something that Kept it in bounds. Whatever the case, it was a pure Lucille.
Standing there, I took a silent moment to thank the Skipper for looking after me. Told the Big Guy if he’d come down here and play a round with me sometime he could have a mulligan on every hole, he could use titanium, I’d use hickory, he could hit a Pro V1, I’d hit a gutty, he could have Ben Hogan for a partner, I’d take Glenn Ford or Anne Baxter. All that was the least I could do to return the favor.
Tricia Hurt’s voice interrupted my thoughts.
“I’m calling a ruling on you, Bobby Joe.”
“Excuse me—?”
Had I heard the child correctly?
She said, “I’m afraid I’m going to insist you play the second ball. You lie three, playing four.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about a violation of the rules.”
“I violated a rule?”
“Yes.”
“What rule did I violate?”
“It comes under rule twenty-seven. You committed a verbal.”
“I did what?”
“Back on the tee, before you hit your second tee shot, you did not announce to me that you were playing a provisional ball.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“No, you did not.”
“I damn sure did.”
“Do you remember what you said?”
“Sure. I said, uh—I said what I always say—I said what we say on the Tour—I said, ‘I’m gonna reload, just in case.’ My exact words.”
“Precisely.”
“Precisely what?”
“You did not use the word ‘provisional.’ A player must say, ‘I am going to play a provisional ball.’ It’s in the rulebook. You admit you did not specifically use the word ‘provisional.’ That is a clear violation. I invoke the penalty. You must play the second ball.”
“Like shit I will,” I said. “I want a rules official.”
“You have one.”
Another voice falling out of the sky.
I wheeled around to find a middle-aged woman in a navy blue blazer, white blouse, khaki pants, and a USGA armband. She might have been attractive if she hadn’t been with the USGA.
In as pleasant a voice as she could muster, she said, “I’m Brenda Claire Hopkins. I’m a vice-president of the United States Golf Association, and the rules official on this hole. Tricia is correct about the rule. You must play the second ball.”
I said, “Do you Know what’s riding on this? I believe I’ll find me a higher opinion than . . . Brenda Claire . . . whatever your name is . . . whoever you are.”
“You are entitled to another opinion,” Brenda Claire Hopkins said calmly. She spoke into her walkie-talkie.
“Bunny, are you there? Come in, Bunny. Need you on eighteen.”
“Who?” I said.
“Bunny Pemberton is the rover on this nine.”
“Man or woman?”
“You’ve never heard of Bunny Pemberton?” she said. “My goodness, he won the Senior Amateur two years ago at Ridgewood!”
I said, “Ah, that Bunny Pemberton. Of course. Gosh, I’ve followed his career for years.”
Brenda Claire Hopkins turned away and made a social call on her cell as she strolled among the pines.
I stood around. Wished I smoked. Stood some more. Tricia Hurt, meanwhile, walked up to her own ball in the fairway.
Bunny Pemberton arrived in a golf cart and didn’t take long to make up his mind after he listened to Brenda Claire Hopkins explain the situation. He upheld her decision.
“You people are dead wrong,” I said. “I want to appeal to the chairman of the competition committee. Call him up, please.”
Bunny Pemberton said, “He may be out of touch at the moment. He was in a hospitality tent a moment ago. I’m sure he won’t overrule us— he’s more of a stickler for the rules than anyone I Know.”
“Who’s the chairman?”
“Jarvis Phillip W. Burchcroft.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Do you Know him? He’s Known as Mr. Rules.”
“ ‘Mr. Rules’?” I said, looking like I smelled sour milk. “I Know the lightweight, chinless fuck-face. He gave me a horseshit ruling at the Masters.”
“Mr. Grooves! Your language!”
“Get him down here.”
Bunny Pemberton summoned the chairman on his walkie-talkie. They had a long discussion. Then Brenda Claire Hopkins had a discussion with him on her walkie-talkie.
Five minutes later Jarvis Phillip W. Burchcroft showed up in a cart.
He said, “Mr. Grooves, you and your rules problems are becoming a habit, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
I thought he may have hiccupped.
He said, “My ruling is the same one I gave Bunny and Brenda when they interrupted me as I was putting a delicious dab of Beluga on a wedge of toast in the Bank of America tent.”
Bunny said, “I hope you tried the quail eggs in the mushroom cap.”
“The foie gras was exquisite, too,” Brenda said.
“It most assuredly was,” the rules chairman said. “But I must say the caviar went very well with the Cristal Bellini and fresh peach.”
I said, “Does anybody mind if I find out what my ruling is?”
“Indeed not,” Jarvis Phillip W. Burchcroft said. “You of course must play the second ball. It’s covered under twenty-seven–two.”
He produced a little spiral notebook and pen from his blazer pocket, wrote “27-2a/1” on a piece of paper and handed it to me.
He said, “It’s a rule that’s usually excused or ignored by competitors, but when it’s invoked, I am obligated to investigate and enforce it if necessary, as in this case. You’ll find it under the decisions section in the rules of golf. Twenty-seven dash two . . . small letter ‘a’ . . . slash . . . numeral one. Are we clear? Everyone?”
With that, Jarvis Phillip W. Burchcroft hopped back into the golf cart and sped away.
I glanced at Mitch. “We just lost the Open.”
“It ain’t over,” he said.
“Yeah, it is,” I said.
Bunny Pemberton said, “Mr. Grooves, I strenuously suggest you move ahead and finish the hole. I’m putting you on the clock.”
“I’m on the clock? You’re putting me on the clock? We’re the last group on the golf course! Who the fuck are we holding up?”
“Your language, sir! Honestly!”
“Aw, crawl up my ass and die, Bunny!”
I lobbed several more f-bombs into the atmosphere before I reached my ball. Having done that, I proceeded to make sure I lost the Open. I made a lovely 10 on the hole.
34
Gwen was saying she’d never heard of John L. Black or Roland Hancock, much less Mike Brady, and she wasn’t sure she’d heard of Miller Barber and FranK Beard, but those names sounded vaguely familiar—maybe she’d seen them in print somewhere—and what did it matter anyhow?
I said, “Those names matter in history. My name will be right there with the other losers. You look through the record books, you come across guys who blew the Open. Years from now, people will see my name, see my seventy-six in the third round. They’ll say, ‘That’s where he lost it, right there.’ They’ll wonder what Kind of truck hit me—if it was a new pair of shoes I threw up on.”
We were at a table in a back corner of the Pine Crest dining room, the place empty except for three weary British journalists and their third bottle of wine. It was Sunday night, the Open was over, most people had cleared out of the village, gone.
I was on my third martini rocks and my ninth olive. Gwen was nursing a vodka soda, poking around at the fried-shrimp appetizer.
I’d finished second to Cheetah Farmer. I made an admirable comeback in the last round with a 70, which gave me a 283 total, but it was two shy of what I needed. I’d blown it in Saturday’s third round. With a considerable amount of help from the space-alien teen bitch a
nd the USGA’s rules clowns.
As Gwen dipped a shrimp in the red sauce, she wondered why the $700,000 second-place money and the silver medal for runner-up hadn’t eased the pain. Not everybody could say they were a runner-up in a major, she said.
If it was all the same to her, I said, I’d rather have the trophy with the names of Jones and Hogan and Nicklaus all over it—and they could Keep the prize money.
I said, “People look in the record book, they see my scores . . . sixty-seven in the first round, great . . . seventy the second day, good . . . I close with seventy, fine . . . but what’s this shit in the middle? This seventy-six here? There’s still blood and pus running out of that thing.”
“Could you be more graphic?” Gwen said.
“Just call me John L. Black.”
“If you wish.”
“John L. Black, white man, forty-three . . . Came to the last two holes of the ’22 Open at Skokie needing four-four to beat Sarazen, four-five to tie. Easy holes, but what does John L. Black do? He snap-hooks his tee shot out of bounds on seventeen, makes a double, loses by one—never heard from again.”
“Hardly the same as you.”
“Just call me Roland Hancock.”
“Hi, Roland.”
“Roland Hancock, white man, twenty-two . . . Comes to the last two holes of the ’28 Open at Olympia Fields, needs five-five to win. Bogey-par, is all. Jones and Farrell are tied, sitting in the clubhouse. The crowd starts patting Roland on the back, yelling, ‘Stand back, make way for the new champion.’ So what does Roland do? He goes choke-dog sideways, finishes six-six, loses by one, never heard from again.”
“Misery loves company. Is that the subject tonight?”
“Miller Barber and Frank Beard,” I said.
“Yes,” said Gwen. “I was afraid you’d forgotten them.”
“Good players, proven winners. You’d think they’d be locks. Shows you what a major can do to a man. Miller Barber leads by three through fifty-four holes at Champions in ’69, but he shoots seventy-eight in the last round. If he shoots seventy-four, just a sloppy, ordinary, everyday, four-over seventy-four, you’d have never heard of Orville Moody.”
“I still haven’t.”
“Frank Beard at Medinah in ’75. He’s leading by three after fifty-four but he shoots a pitiful seventy-eight in the last round, and yet he only misses the playoff by one. Turns out if he’d shot himself a poor old seventy-six—it’s not asking too much, a poor old seventy-six—he’d have won easy.”
“Fate don’t have a head, is all I can say about it. Want a shrimp?”
“Mike Brady. There’s one for you.”
“Who’s he? Does he want a shrimp?”
“Mike Brady made losing the Open his hobby. He was the early-day Sam Snead. He lost two playoffs, in 1911, to Johnny McDermott . . . in 1919 to Walter Hagen. He always finished in the top ten. In 1915 at Baltusrol he shot an eighty in the last round when a seventy-five would have beaten Jerry Travers. He shot an eighty in the last round to let Hagen make up five shots on him at Brae Burn, then he lost the playoff by a shot. Mike Brady butchered more last rounds in the Open than anybody ever.”
“Why don’t you look at it differently?”
“Like how? Play like I won?”
“Put yourself in another category. There must be a lot of great golfers who were second in the Open, but never won it. You’re one of those.”
“Let’s see. That puts me in there with Sam Snead . . . Jimmy Demaret, Harry Cooper . . . Denny Shute, Macdonald Smith, Dick Metz . . . Vic Ghezzi.”
“Good. Think of it that way.”
“I will. They’re all dead.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You Know what?” I said. “I’m ass-deep in condolences.”
Cheetah Farmer was first, at the trophy ceremony in front of the clubhouse. He congratulated me for “bringing out his talent.” He said my comeback from yesterday’s “bad break” had forced him to play his best.
My bad break. Like a bank got a bad break one time when John Dillinger robbed it.
I performed OK at the ceremony. I was a gracious loser, a smiling runner-up—when all I wanted to say to Cheetah Farmer was, “I Know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart.”
Numerous fellow competitors in the locker room offered me warm handshakes and looks of heartfelt concern.
There were the sympathetic phone messages taken by the locker-room attendant and passed on to me.
George and Louise Grooves had called to say I was still their son, and my clothes fit better than Cheetah Farmer’s did—anybody watching TV would Know that.
Buddy Stark and Cynthia called to say they were in the top-floor suite at the Victoria-Jungfrau Grand Hotel in Interlaken, Switzerland, but would soon be going to the Hotel du Cap–Eden Roc in Antibes, and wanted to Know if people still took golf seriously?
Witty pals, Buddy and Cynthia.
Grady Don Maples and Jerry Grimes left notes in my locker before they bailed for Westchester, the next stop on the Tour.
Grady Don’s note said, “Hell of an Open, son. You came as close as a man could, considering there’s no God.”
Jerry’s note said, “Great try, B.J. You had everybody in the locker room rooting for you.”
Smokey Barwood, the live-wire agent, left a note. “Tough loss,” it said, “but I have an idea that could turn this into a positive.”
Knut Thorssun even left a note. It said, “Vashtine and I are to feel great sorrow in your behalf. It is a plight that should not happen to nobody. She says your plight is definite to inspire her talents and she must write a song about a person who is cheated in life by butt wipers.”
Alleene Simmons, my first ex-wife, business partner, and still my pal, sent me a message that actually made me smile. The locker-room attendant wrote it down word for word because he didn’t understand it.
Her message was: “So your fifth-grade teacher gave you a D. Let it go, dude.”
35
A little later, after my steak had barely been touched and my fourth or fifth martini had rudely shoved the cup of coffee aside, Gwen lit a cigarette, and said, “Not to be insensitive, but there’s another way to look at it, Bobby Joe. You didn’t have to make a ten.”
Piss me off was what that remark did. So in a tone of pissed-off-ness, I said, “Boy, you’ve got that right. I should have given it more thought. I should have realized I could win the Open by three if I could make a five on eighteen Saturday . . . Or I could win by two if I could just make a double-bogey six . . . Hell, I still could have won if I’d only made a seven. I can’t imagine why none of that occurred to me.”
“Is that what I meant?”
“I Know what you meant. I didn’t have to let the ruling bother me that much. Well, I wish I hadn’t. I wish I hadn’t red-assed my fourth shot into the rough . . . red-assed my fifth shot into the bunker ... red-assed my bunker shot so bad it stayed in the bunker ... red-assed the next one on the green but left it in a place that Jesus Christ himself with Ben Crenshaw’s stroke would have three-jacked the fucker.”
“It was a learning experience. I gather that’s what your buddy Alleene was trying to tell you in her message. I’m looking forward to meeting your favorite ex someday.”
“Yeah, another life lesson for me,” I sighed. “Another character builder. I’ll tell you what. I’m about ready for the Skipper to start building character on somebody else’s ass.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“How’d the space alien finish? I haven’t bothered to look.”
“Her inexperience must have caught up with her. She shot a seventy-seven. She tied for ninth.”
“Gee, what a shame . . . but I have to admit it’s not too bad for a teenage girl in a guys’ major. She’s some Kind of talent, the little bitch.”
“She says she’s sorry about what happened to you Saturday. She feels badly about it now.”
“Who’d she say that to?”
�
�She said it at her press conference yesterday. It’s in the paper today.”
“I didn’t read the paper this morning. It’s bad luck to read the paper before the last round if you’re a contender. I guess I’ll rethink that shit.”
Gwen said, “Tricia told the press she was just trying to play with your head when she used the rules violation on you. She didn’t think it would be upheld. She said she was surprised when it was.”
“She was ‘playing with my head’? She said that?”
“That was the quote. She was five back at the time and trying to gain ground in whatever way she could. She was trying to upset you mentally. She hoped you’d lose your concentration and bogey the hole. She said they teach it at the academy in Florida. She said high school and college coaches teach it. You do whatever you can to unsettle your opponent. Rattle the clubs in your bag when the opponent is addressing a shot. Raise your umbrella up and down when your opponent is getting ready to hit. Play slow if they play fast. Play fast if they play slow. All Kinds of things. Gamesmanship.”
“She said they teach that at the golf academy? To teenagers? To girls? Jesus. You might do shit like that when you’re a Kid, when you’re learning how to gamble, but no golf coach I ever Knew taught it, and if you tried anything like that on our Tour, you’d have two chances to get away with it—slim and fucking none.”
“I’m only telling you what was in the paper. It seems to me the real culprits in your case were the officials.”
“Taking up for your new client, are you?”
“That’s not called for.”
“Why not? She’s going to be your client. Yours and Rick’s. He told me that. Your ex in the funny hair. He said he has a verbal agreement with Tricia’s father.”
“I am not a part of IST. Not yet. Maybe never. It’s something we’re going to discuss, right?”
“Not now.”
“I should say not.”
“What’s that tone supposed to mean? I’m not allowed to be pissed because I lost the Open?”
“Bobby Joe—”
“You Know what’s occurred to me, Gwen?”
“I’d be delighted to Know what’s occurred to you.”