by Dan Jenkins
“All right!” She screamed with laughter, and ran off through the trees toward the press tent.
Scott Pritchard, possible future son-in-law, hadn’t done badly himself. He shot a handy 69 for his adoring gallery of 20,000, plus mom, but it left him one behind his mom’s boyfriend.
History tells us there once were big souvenir buttons to be seen in the galleries that said, “Arnie’s Army,” for Palmer, and “Lee’s Fleas,” for Trevino, and “Ben’s Wrens,” for Crenshaw, when he was single.
Now there were suddenly buttons to be seen on young girls at OaKLAND Hills that said, “Scott’s Bods.”
The top 10 on the scoreboard after fifty-four holes at the PGA read:
The golf fans who might have been wondering where Alfie Crangburn’s name was in the list of scores for three days must have been disappointed to learn that the British Open champion hadn’t entered. I’d read where he was still celebrating and could be found at the Hotel Splendido in Portofino, Italy. I wondered if he had run across my friends Buddy and Cynthia.
I’d cleaned up and was selecting a frocK for dinner when SmoKey Barwood, live-wire agent, called to wish me lucK and apologize for the fact that he couldn’t be at Oakland Hills tomorrow—there was another pressing problem with Trapeze Cobb, his NBA client.
Trapeze Cobb was the LaKer who’d beaten the rap on two rape charges bacK in April. But now he was in jail again and had been charged with Kidnapping and raping Rachel Stafford, the good-looking criminal attorney, often seen on Court TV, who’d represented him in the first trial.
Rachel Stafford was going to testify that Trapeze came to her office and Kidnapped her at gunpoint, Kept her chained up for three days in the bedroom of his suite at the Beverly Royal Hotel, where he lived, and repeatedly raped her.
Further, Trapeze Cobb permitted a teammate, Smithsonian Wilson, to come over and have his way with her. Rachel said she wouldn’t swear on a Bible that Smithsonian Wilson raped her—she Kept passing out— but who else could the other dick have belonged to?
Rachel had been rescued by police after they’d found Trapeze drunk, stoned, and wandering around Rodeo Drive with nothing on but a pair of jockey shorts, darK glasses, and a straw hat.
Smokey said, “Trapeze says it wasn’t rape because it was ‘consexual.’ That’s what he thinKs the word is. Listen, Bobby Joe. You watch cable TV. I hear there are lawyers on there all the time. I can use a name. Preferably a woman. And, just to be on the safe side, I’d rather she wasn’t too good-looking . . . you Know?”
“Good thinKing,” I said.
“Tempo, tomorrow,” he said.
I said I’d take it under advisement.
53
The “family” dinner on Saturday night was RicK Pritchard’s idea, and that’s how he referred to it. He arranged it in a private room at a restaurant called Christopher & Gregory’s that was next door to our hotel. I didn’t want to go. Gwen didn’t want to go. Scott didn’t want to go. I don’t believe Tricia Hurt wanted to go. So naturally we all went.
RicK showed up in a blacK suit, light blue shirt, silver tie—and makeup. He’d done a spot on local TV, discussing Tricia Hurt and the “bomberoo” impact she was going to have on the game of golf.
Tricia arrived with him. She wore tight jeans and a sleeveless blouse. She looKed fresh and cute in that girl-who-plays-sports Kind of way.
Tricia and I hadn’t seen each other or spoken since Pinehurst. She seemed embarrassed for us to be in the same room. At first she acted liKe she wasn’t sure whether to say hello to me or ducK behind furniture.
I smiled at her to put her at ease and offered a handshake. What the hell. She hadn’t hit the golf ball for me that day in the Open. And why make an enemy of somebody who was going to be president of CBS News before she graduated from high school?
She took my hand. “You’re playing really good this week.”
“It’s the equipment. How do you like doing TV?”
She said, “I haven’t done anything but walk around. I mean, like, there’s this guy who talks to you on the headset and tells you to be ready, we’re coming to you in five, but nothing ever happens. I couldn’t have said more than two things on the air today.”
“What two things did you tell the world?”
“I said, uh, ‘He doesn’t have a very good lie, Lanny.’ I remember saying that . . . and I said something to Mr. Nantz, like, ‘It’s a five-iron.’ I think that’s what I said. I’ll be with your group tomorrow. You and Scott.”
“We’ll be pleased to have you, Tricia. If I may ask, won’t it be a come-down for you, going on the LPGA Tour after playing against the guys? Pardon me for sounding like a reporter.”
“It was so cool, playing in your Open,” she said. “But, like, I can’t wait to go on our tour. I love to practice, I love to play golf, I love to compete. It’s what I’ve been training for, working for. What I don’t want to do is be something I’m not. Like, I don’t want to have to wake up every morning and think, oh, my God, now I have to go out in public and be this person everybody wants me to be.”
I said, “Just play golf and win, Tricia. All that other stuff will take care of itself. It’s amazing how much personality and charm the press can attach to somebody because they win golf tournaments.”
Tricia didn’t act too happy to be with Rick Pritchard, and it was easy to see why after a while.
He couldn’t Keep his hands off of her. Squeezing, patting, touching, rubbing. Wherever there was bare skin. Forearm, upper arm, neck. But acting casual about it. Like it was harmless. Like Gwen and I were fools and wouldn’t notice. It was sickening to watch. The asshole was in his forties, same as me, and to a fifteen-year-old girl that meant he might as well be eighty, but he was too dense to realize it, or too taken with himself to consider it.
Rick’s second sin of the night was pre-ordering dinner for us.
I didn’t Know he’d done it until the first course was served. It was two patties of puffed rice crust—they looked like English muffins—with an overdose of wet spinach between them and warm maple syrup poured over everything. There was a name for whatever the deal was. Sounded like flute.
Rick said, “I inquired and discovered the chef here cooks cutting-edge French with Asian flavors.”
I handed the dish back to the waiter, and said, “Pal, I don’t go near maple syrup unless there’s a waffle underneath it. Just bring me another martini rocks with four olives.”
Tricia Hurt giggled, picked around at her plate. Gwen smiled to herself. Scott said, “Geeeahh, I’m so hungry, I’ll eat anything,” and devoured it.
When the curious-looking main course was placed in front of me I learned it was a “skewered squid” and “simmered oyster” salad with watermelon, pineapple, and green mango remoulade sauce.
This promptly extracted a hundred-dollar bill from my pocket. I put it in the waiter’s hand with instructions to bring me a goddamn cheeseburger with French fries and a glass of iced tea with lemon and Keep the fucking change.
“Make that two,” Gwen said.
“Three,” said Tricia Hurt.
All through dinner and coffee, Rick buried us in the carpet with talk about International Sports Talent. Its future, its hopes, its dreams.
Scott left first. Yawning.
Tricia was next. Rick’s limo took her to wherever CBS was staying.
Rick asked Gwen and me to stay and have another cup of coffee, or an after-dinner drink—there was a business matter he wanted to discuss.
“Big day tomorrow,” Rick said.
Gwen said, “I’m too nervous to talk about it.”
“Relax, Gwenny,” Rick said. “You can’t lose. You have two dogs in the fight.”
“I Know,” she said. “But whatever happens, I’m going to be happy one way, sad another.”
“This is ridiculous,” I said. “Scott and I aren’t the only two people in the tournament. Jesus, there are nine players within six shots! Two of ’em are Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson, in case n
obody’s noticed. Anybody can win this thing tomorrow. A guy can go out early, put up a number, swoop the whole pot. It happens all the time.”
“I hate tomorrow,” Gwen said, and smoked.
“Very true, Bobby Joe,” said Rick. “Nevertheless, the odds favor it coming down to you and Scotto. You’re both looking sharp. If that turns out to be the situation, I believe there’s something we should discuss in all seriousness.”
He gave me a long look.
“What do you think it would be worth to you—financially—to win the PGA?” he asked. “Aside from the winner’s purse, the prize money? Which is what—a million-four?”
“I haven’t noticed,” I said truthfully.
“What else would it be worth?”
“It’s impossible to make an estimate. A five-year exemption on the Tour, that’s the big thing. My career would be set till I’m fifty and hit the Senior tour. I suppose my fee for outings would go up, and there’d be endorsements. Why?”
“Do you Know how much it would be worth to Scott Pritchard? Twenty mill.”
I stared at him.
“And twenty mill is just for starters,” he said. “Think about that.”
“I’m not sure I want to.”
“Twenty mill, Groovo.”
“I hope you’re not getting at what I think you’re getting at.”
“We’re just skating here. Once around the rink, maybe twice. You don’t like the ice, we don’t do couples only.”
I looked down at the carpet, slowly smiled cynically, and said to him in a low voice, “You . . . miserable . . . fucking . . . asshole.”
“Au contraire, sir,” Rick said. “Allow me to think of myself as a practical and realistic fellow when it comes to commerce.”
“What am I missing here?” Gwen said.
“I’ll tell you what you’re missing,” I said. “Your ex-husband is suggesting that if it comes down to a contest between your son and me tomorrow, I should lob a couple of three-putts on Oakland Hills to make sure Scott wins. Go in the tank, in other words. For the sake of—I’m fairly certain I have this right—International Sports Talent.”
Gwen glared at Rick, and shook her head with disgust.
Rick shrugged. “I’m a businessman.”
She said, “Let me ask you something, Rick. When you were our fullback at SC, what would you have done if someone had offered you money—any amount of money—to fumble away a touchdown in the Rose Bowl and let Ohio State win the game? What would you have said?”
“Altogether different hypothetical, Gwenny.”
“Oh, really?” Gwen said. “I only have one more thing to say to you, Rick Pritchard. It’s something I should have said a long time ago. If you ever call me Gwenny again, I’m going to Kick you so hard in the fucking nuts, you’ll cough up your dick!”
She turned to me. “Did I say that right?”
“Almost. I’ll have to check with Grady Don on it.”
“Take me home, please.”
“With pleasure, madam.”
Walking to our hotel across the parking lot, I said, “I have to say I liked your exit. May I assume it’s now a ‘no’ on going to work for International Sports Talent?”
“You bet!”
“Sounds good to me. I couldn’t handle too many more nights of watching a grown man sniff around on Shirley Temple. I seem to recall Rick was going to pay you a half million a year, babe. That was an expensive speech you just made. Was it worth it?”
“Every penny,” she said.
54
At the rear of the number 1 tee on the South course at Oakland Hills, with the monstrous old white clubhouse furnishing a backdrop, the Wanamaker Trophy was displayed on a table. It’s the prize awarded annually to the PGA champion. The trophy was donated in 1916 by Mr. Rodman Wanamaker, a golf-loving gentleman who owned a highly successful and popular department store in New York City at the time, a store named, as luck would have it, Wanamaker’s.
Scott and I were on the tee waiting our turn to go in the final round. Thousands of fans stretched out in front of us on both sides of the 1st fairway, a par-4 that didn’t break your back. There’s no scrapbook quality to the front nine on the South course. A bunch of solid holes, is all. The back nine was where the thrills and serious trouble lurked.
I’d already done the good-luck-handshake thing with Scott.
“This is some sight,” I said. “This tee and the clubhouse there—it’s what a major’s supposed to look like, isn’t it?”
“I guess,” he said, glancing around.
Now I was standing with Mitch.
I said, “That trophy there. It’s the biggest one of the four majors. You may or may not Know this, but it’s two and a half feet high, over two feet wide—handle to handle—and weighs close to thirty pounds.”
Mitch gave me a look that said I probably should be thinking about something else.
“Did you ever hear about the time the trophy got lost?” I asked.
“No, but you gonna tell me.”
I told him about Walter Hagen and the trophy. How the trophy disappeared after Hagen won the PGA for the fourth year in a row at match play in 1927—at Cedar Crest Country Club in Dallas, which is now a public course. Hagen’s story was that he handed the trophy to a taxi driver to deliver to his hotel, but the trophy never made it there.
This meant there was no trophy to present to Leo Diegel, who won the PGA in 1928 and 1929, or Tommy Armour, the winner in 1930.
But in the fall of ’30, three years after the trophy had mysteriously vanished, it was found by accident. Workers were rummaging through a warehouse in Detroit—right here in this city—and when they opened a leather trunk, there was the Wanamaker trophy, unharmed, in beautiful condition.
“The warehouse?” I said. “It turns out the warehouse was owned by the Walter Hagen Golf Company.”
Mitch said, “So Hagen a thief. We on the tee.”
A younger man might have been embarrassed by Scott Pritchard out-driving him 50 to 100 yards on every hole, but I was bolstered by the Knowledge that he might be long but he had no idea who Irene Dunne was.
We were both even par through the first eight holes. I’d been reaching the greens like a normal human. Scott had been getting there a little easier.
Good example. The second hole. It’s a 523-yard par-5. Neither of us birdied it but I reached the greenside bunker on the right in two by coming out of my shoes with my driver, and coming out of my socks with the three-wood. Scott reached the same bunker with a one-iron off the tee and a sand wedge for his second.
Some people say length like Scott Pritchard possesses is not only criminal, it’s immoral.
It was something of a relief—to me, anyhow—that the other contenders on the leaderboard, who were playing in front of us, weren’t making the Kind of moves that cause a gallery to go running over a cliff, leaving you lonely and in a bad mood. If anything, the other contenders were falling back, whether it was your Ernie, your Phil, or your Claude Steekley. They were all over par.
Players who say they don’t look at the scoreboards on the course when they’re in contention are either liars, stupid, or don’t care about winning as long as they can collect a fat check.
I’m better off if I Know what’s going on around me. It Keeps my mind from jacking with my swing when I haven’t invited it to the shot.
Scott’s length got the best of him at the 9th hole, a 220-yard par-3. The only thing unique about the hole is that it’s a par-3.
Modern course designers never end up with a par-3 hole as the 9th. It’s out of balance. But you often find it on the older courses. It most likely had something to do with the real estate they were given to work with.
While the length of the hole required me to put everything I had into a three-iron to reach the green, Scott hit an eight-iron. But the problem with the shot was, the ball wouldn’t come down. His shot soared over the flag, over the green, and almost over the grandstand behind the green that w
as jammed with spectators.
“Get down!” Scott hollered.
“Hit a town!” his caddie hollered.
There were two rules officials going along with our pairing. They’d been introduced on the first tee. One was Haley Sprackling, the current president of the U.S. PGA. He was the director of golf at Whispering Silos Country Club in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The “walking observer” was Barney Rivers, the director of golf at Dancing Fairways Country Club in Rancho Pronto Honcho, California. I might have the name of the town wrong.
They ruled that Scott should receive a free drop from the grandstand. One club length away, no closer to the hole. Anyone familiar with rule 24-2b(i) “immovable obstruction,” would Know that Scott obviously deserved relief.
Tricia Hurt, the foot soldier with our group, would Know it. I imagined her saying on the air, “He’s getting relief, Lanny, and he deserves it under twenty-four–two, of course.”
The free drop didn’t help Scott. He was left with an impossible pitch over a bunker to a pin that was back left. His pitch raced past the pin by fifty feet and he three-putted for a double-bogey 5.
When I gingerly two-putted from thirty feet for a par, I went to the back nine with a three-stroke lead on Scott, and everybody else.
As we left the 9th green and made our way to the 10th tee, I said to Scott, “Tough deal—that was a brutal pitch shot you had.”
“My lob wedge sucks,” he said. “Geeeahhh.”
I’d scanned the crowd from time to time and I hadn’t seen Gwen all day long. I figured she was staying out of sight on purpose.
“Have you seen your mother anywhere?” I asked Scott idly.
He said, “I didn’t Know I was supposed to be looking for her.”
“You weren’t,” I said, and dropped the subject.
We both parred the first two holes on the back, then Scott made the 12th hole beg for mercy. While I scrapped around and made a par 5 on the 560-yard hole, playing it with a driver, five-wood, wedge, and two putts, Scott put it on the green with a 335-yard drive and a 225-yard seven-iron, and two-putted from twenty feet for a birdie.