The Franchise Babe: A Novel

by Dan Jenkins

  She went with a lob shot from there but flew it over the flag and left herself a ten-foot putt coming back, which she missed. Left it short.

  Thurlene stared at me, frustrated, baffled.

  If I didn’t look concerned, if I looked a little too nonchalant, it’s because I could afford to be frivolous about the situation. While I was rooting hard for the kid in my gut, I had a story to root for first, and Ginger had already saved the story for me.

  She’d fought back into the mix. I figured she’d nailed the SM cover for sure. I was thinking it’ll be great if she wins, but it won’t be too bad a thing if she loses now. No disgrace for an eighteen-year-old to lose a major on the last nine holes, in the final hour, to a player of the stature of a Penny Cooper or a Jan Dunn.

  Now Thurlene said, “Okay, Jack. You’re a big-time golf writer. You’ve been around. Will you kindly explain to me how in the name of God a player of Ginger’s caliber, with her talent, can birdie the hardest hole on the golf course and five minutes later bogey the easiest hole in the whole goddamn world?”

  I shrugged. “There’s only one explanation.”

  “What?”

  “It’s Chinatown, Jake.”

  42

  The easiest way to watch a golf tournament, it goes without saying, is at home in your comfortable chair with your dog and your clicker and something cold to drink and a handy bowl of Orville Redenbacher’s microwave buttered popcorn.

  But you need to keep in mind that TV distorts golf. Uphill or downhill never looks as severely uphill or downhill on the screen as it is in real life. A camera behind a player facing a 250-yard shot makes you think he or she can get home without much effort using a short iron. But if you’re out on a golf course, you know that 250 yards looks like—and is—a long way off. At least it is for normal humans.

  TV makes every golf course look beautiful, and this is okay. Every golf course is beautiful compared to a row of tenements in the Bronx. For an object to gaze at, even someone in need of cataract surgery would choose a burned-out public golf course with unraked bunkers, hardly any trees, and shaggy Bermuda greens over any downtown street in any industrial city.

  Come to think of it, I grew up on a course like that—and thought it was perfectly swell.

  As for watching a tournament up close and personal, out on the course, there are four basic ways that golf fans go about it.

  One, they do the grandpa and grandma thing. Pick a spot by a green, in a grandstand, or on a gentle slope, and sit there throughout the day, groaning over missed putts and applauding those that drop, seeing every player in the field, and not minding that most of them today look alike.

  Two, they have a favorite player for some reason or another, usually somebody who’s not even in contention, and they walk the full eighteen with her or him, seeing every shot of the round, good or bad, and do this out of what a sane person would consider to be perverse loyalty.

  Three, they couldn’t care less about who wins. They’re only out there to pick up swing tips that’ll improve their own games, although the tips usually confuse them and they come away with funnier swings than ever.

  Four, they’re like me. Aware it’s a war, an athletic event. Players competing against the course, the other players, and most of all themselves. You try to keep up by moving from one player in contention to another, then back again if necessary. Your eyes scan the scoreboards at each opportunity. You rely on your knowledge of the contestants, their histories in combat.

  You know where to anticipate the birdies, where the danger lurks on the course. You’ve learned to interpret the distant roars and moans of the galleries. That was a birdie. That was undoubtedly a par. That must have been a chip-in. But you don’t have to be a golf writer to watch a tournament like this. You can just be a golf nut.

  Though it went against my journalistic tendencies, we made the decision to follow the kid the entire back nine, win or lose. But why not, in this case? Ginger was my story. Ginger was Thurlene’s kid.

  Thus, we were loitering behind the fifteenth green, waiting for Ginger and Jan to putt, when the numbers went up informing us that Penny Cooper had bogeyed the eleventh and twelfth holes and slipped to three over on the round.

  There were two sounds as the numbers were posted. Moans from the fans of Penny, delirious whoops from Ginger’s fans.

  “My God, we have a two-shot lead,” Thurlene said, mentally doing the arithmetic. It told her the kid was one under par and Penny Cooper was now three over. Ginger had started the day two back of Penny, but now she was two ahead.

  “One,” I said, correcting her. “She’s two ahead of Penny, but only one ahead of Jan…who’s still in the tournament, if I’m not mistaken.”

  An instant later Ginger didn’t even have a one-shot lead on Jan Dunn.

  The two-time major winner rammed in a thirty-foot birdie putt on the fifteenth green to pull into a tie with Ginger.

  Jan Dunn’s long putt was a dagger in Thurlene’s heart. But she took it with a calm display of sportsmanship. She nodded in a manner that said, “Good going, Jan—that was quite timely.”

  Of course, I knew she was really thinking: “How many more no-brainers are you going to make, you lucky bitch? You’re a friend but this is a major, for Christ’s sake.”

  It was now a two-chick race with three holes to go.

  Jan’s tie for the lead perked up her support group. We heard:

  “You got the tits,

  You got the ass!

  Come on, Jan.

  Step on the gas!”

  “Aren’t they wonderful,” Thurlene said. “I’ll sleep better tonight knowing those people are going to die someday.”

  Cy Ronack, my pal, the writer from Golf World, found us at “Mae West.” We were near the sixteenth green, waiting for Ginger and Jan to play their shots to the 174-yard par-three, the hole with two big mounds on each side of the green and protected in front by a pond.

  “Your office is frantic,” Cy Ronack said. “Gary Crane has been trying to reach you for three hours. He left a message with Monique in the pressroom. She gave it to me in case I ran into you on the course. Am I running into you?”

  “You are.”

  “Your boss says they want your piece tonight. They’re going with Heather on the cover.”

  Thurlene said, “Did you say Heather?”

  Cy read from his notes. “They want to go with it as a long ‘lead takeout,’ whatever that is. Their other ‘missiles’ have misfired. The tennis doping story has lost its momentum. The three crooked NFL zebras have retracted their confessions…and the college football coach denies knowing any of the fourteen women who’ve accused him of sexual harrassment.”

  “Gary’s having a rough time,” I said.

  “They’ve received great shots of Heather from your shooter. What an amazing world we live in. It was only yesterday that photographers had to rush to the airport after an event and ship their film to New York overnight. Now a guy clicks off a series of shots, looks at them in a little window on his camera, presses a button, and they appear on somebody’s screen three thousand miles away.”

  “In living color,” I said.

  “Who is Heather?” Thurlene said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “We’ve got the cover. Heather is Ginger. Rhymes with danger.”

  43

  Ginger’s iron shot to the sixteenth grabbed a chair. The shot gave her an inviting eight-foot birdie putt. It prompted a loud “Oh, yeah, baby!” out of Thurlene, and an audible “All right!” out of me. Which drew a glance from Cy Ronack, who said, “I’ve always heard journalists are impartial.”

  I said, “We are—I’m rooting for my story.”

  After Jan Dunn two-putted from thirty feet for her par, Ginger took what seemed like far too long reading her putt. She kneeled and studied it from all four sides, walking patiently with Tyler Hughes from one position to another.

  Thurlene said, “She’s acting like the tournament’s riding
on this, but there are two more holes to play.”

  “Looks to me like she’s thinking this is her last chance at a birdie,” I said. “Don’t be long, is what I’d tell her.”

  “Better long than short,” Thurlene said. “Give it a chance.”

  “But you know a putt that’s long didn’t go in,” I said.

  Thurlene looked at me like I was Retardo Montalban.

  I said, “Bobby Jones says it in his book. That’s why he played his putts to die at the hole…and Ben Hogan always said he found more trouble going long than short, with a shot or a putt. Hogan said there was usually more trouble behind a green than in front of it. He lost an Open and a Masters by charging birdie putts. He three-putted the last green at Augusta and at Canterbury in forty-six.”

  “I’m glad Ginger is putting this instead of Jones or Hogan.”

  “Why? Because they’re dead?”

  “Hush.”

  Ginger backed away from the putt once, stood over it again, took two practice strokes, and finally rapped the ball into the center of the cup, having accurately read a slight break to the right, the ball dying at the edge and dropping.

  The kid didn’t even react. She ignored the explosion from the crowd. She was Downtown Focus City as she walked to the seventeenth tee, leaving Tyler to retrieve the ball from the cup.

  The birdie moved her to two under on the round and gave her a one-shot lead over Jan Dunn with two holes to play.

  As Jan Dunn staggered to a bogey on the seventeenth, “Sam Goldwyn,” a four-hundred-yard par-four, Ginger nailed her drive long and straight, leaving herself a second shot of 120 yards, and she put that one on the green twenty feet from the flag, and easily two-putted for the four that hurtled her into a two-stroke lead over Jan Dunn.

  “You know why she’s doing this?” Thurlene said. “I promised her she can have a car.”

  “You promised her a car if she wins?” I said.

  “I told her she can have a car regardless. She’s thanking me.”

  Cy Ronack said, “There’s your lead. ‘She did it for the car.’”

  I said, “I’ve been thinking more along the lines of, ‘Call her Ismael if you want to, but her name is Ginger.’”

  Cy said, “You might want to play around with ‘In my younger and more vulnerable years…’”

  “That was the time I said, ‘Ginger, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.’”

  “Then you turn up the collar of your coat and walk back to the hotel in the rain.”

  “Isn’t it pretty to think so.”

  Thurlene said, “If the two of you don’t mind, can we get past this last hole? It’s sort of important.”

  “We can,” I said. “There’s nothing left to do but win the war.”

  Ginger and Jan were standing on the eighteenth tee. “Tinsel Town.” The 352-yard par-four with trees left and out of bounds right. It looked like Jan was talking to her. Ginger was nodding as she stared ahead.

  We were walking along the ropes, working our way to the green.

  I said, “Smart money would play this hole with three seven-irons—cinch a bogey five. She has a two-shot lead.”

  “That would leave it open for a playoff if Jan birdies,” Thurlene said. “It’s not Gin’s nature to play safe. She has it wrapped, now she wants to tie a ribbon around it. She’ll go with a three-wood. Besides, like she said, this course owes her one. She wants to kick it to death.”

  “Bring the monster to its knees.”

  “Where have I heard that?”

  “Hogan said it at Oakland Hills…after he won the fifty-one Open with the sixty-seven in the last round. Evidently it was the world’s hardest golf course that week. At the public ceremony, Hogan said he was glad he brought ‘this course, this monster’ to its knees. But I have it on good authority that in the locker room he said he was glad he brought ‘the son of a bitch’ to its knees.”

  Cy Ronack said, “Late in the summer of that year—”

  But I nudged him into silence as Ginger ripped a three-wood center-cut, safe in the fairway, 125 yards short of the green.

  “Merely perfect,” I said. “I don’t think there’s anything she can do to screw it up from there.”

  “Not a chance,” Thurlene said. “Not this kid.”

  The mom was right. Ginger lofted a high nine-iron onto the green. The ball settled in about twelve feet from the cup. As the two players walked up the fairway to the green, Jan Dunn gave Ginger a congratulatory hug, patted her on the back, then pointed to her and applauded, encouraging the gallery to join in, which it did.

  “Isn’t my kid something?” Thurlene said. “Isn’t she something?”

  With that, Thurlene smothered me with a hug and kiss.

  I said, “It’s proper training in the home, is all.”

  Ginger denied herself any show of emotion until after she drained the twelve-foot birdie putt for a finishing 67, a Hogan 67, the only sub-70 round of the championship, and a three-stroke victory in the Colgate–Dinah Shore Kraft Nabisco Le Grand Cheval et Petit Chien Classique.

  She leaped into the arms of her caddie, Tyler Hughes, and a moment later was being sprayed with bottles of reasonably priced champagne furnished by the tour for such occasions. Debbie Wendell, Suzy Scott, and Linda Merle Draper had dashed onto the green and were doing the spraying.

  I helped Thurlene duck under the ropes, where it would be easier for Ginger to spot her. Cy Ronack came with us. We pointed to our press armbands to prevent three frantic volunteer marshals from throwing flying tackles on us and calling 911, the First Marine Division, and the CIA.

  Ginger rushed over to hug Thurlene. A long hug. Tears.

  “Well,” Thurlene said to her daughter, “I don’t know about you, but it’s the most fun I’ve ever had.”

  “You get a hug too, Jack,” Ginger said, and strapped it on me.

  She turned back to Thurlene. “Mom, I want a Lexus. A champagne gold LS Hybrid. They start at over a hundred grand.”

  “You got it, baby.”

  She yelped with delight, hugged her mom again, and jogged to the scorer’s tent, slapping the palms of fans along the way.

  44

  As soon as Ginger left to sign her scorecard and make the Horse Dog official, three familiar gentlemen approached Thurlene. They were the sports agents: Larry Silverman, Howie (the Dart) Daniels, and Smacky Lasher.

  They were trying desperately to look sporty. Larry wore a maroon crew-neck golf shirt under his gray blazer. Howie wore a yellow crew-neck golf shirt under his black suit coat. Smacky wore a green soft-collared golf shirt under his brown checkered sports jacket.

  Each agent attempted to give Thurlene an envelope, but she refused to accept any of them.

  “Not yet,” she said.

  Howie Daniels said, “But you told us—”

  Thurlene raised a hand that said, “Please…?”

  Smacky Lasher said, “I thought the deal was—”

  She stopped his sentence with her own.

  “Whatever I said before doesn’t matter now, does it? I know you people can count. Ginger has won three tournaments in a row.”

  “You’ll like my package,” Smacky said, boring ahead. “My package includes a tax accountant, traveling companion, investment counselor, professional caddie. The numbers are—”

  Thurlene said, “Gin likes the caddie she has…and I’m her investment person, tax accountant, and traveling companion.”

  Smacky shifted gears, breaking the speed of light. “That’s why this offer sucks. I told my boss it sucks, but he said go with it anyway. What does he know? He watches poker on TV. You never saw this, Thurlene.”

  The agent stuck the envelope in his coat.

  Thurlene smiled.

  Smacky said, “Allow me to spitball for a moment.” He started to punch on a pocket calculator.

  Howie Daniels said, “I have it all laid out, Thurlene. Ginger needs a swing coach, a travel agent, and a fashion consultant. That’s
to start. I have them built in. Also, we need to talk about a sports psychologist, a schedule advisor, a one-fourth interest in a Gulfstream—”

  “No motivational whisperer?” I said, interrupting.

  “Good,” Howie said. “Jack’s here. Great you can be with us, Jack.”

  “I would think she’d need a motivational whisperer, and maybe her own massage therapist.”

  “Appreciate your thoughts, Jack.”

  Howie glanced at Cy Ronack. “Oh, Golf World is here too. Terrific. More financial help from the literary set.”

  Cy said, “I’m just here to help out with the performance clauses.”

  Howie’s cell buzzed. He began scrolling.

  Thurlene looked at Larry Silverman. “Nothing to say, Larry?”

  “I suspect you have more to say,” Larry said.

  “I do,” she said. “Ginger and I are going to Palm Beach from here. She’s taking the next two weeks off. You guys have my phone number and my e-mail. I will expect to hear from you no later than a week from today. That’s the deadline I’ve given the others.”

  “The others?” Smacky said.

  “Do you think you’re the only three people interested in Ginger Clayton?”

  “Of course not,” Larry Silverman said.

  Thurlene said, “One more thing. I’m sure you remember three years ago when Tricia Hurt turned pro at sixteen…and signed with Walsh Goodman. She had never won anything, but she showed potential and she was a pretty girl, extremely photogenic. Walsh guaranteed her nineteen million dollars the first year…even if she never made a cut.”

  “You did read that,” Cy Ronack said. “I wrote it first.”

  Howie said, “Very unrealistic on Walsh’s part. That’s why they’re a theatrical agency.”

  “Nevertheless,” Thurlene said, “I’d like for you gentlemen to keep that in mind as I leave you with two words that have become my favorite two words in the English language.”