P.G.A. Spells Death

by James Y. Bartlett

  The tenth was a long par five, running from virtually the back porch of the clubhouse all the way down to the Hudson River. Like a ski jump, the fairway descended down a gentle slope, dropped over a lip and fell even more steeply for fifty downhill yards or so, and then flattened out and continued on in a straight line for another two hundred yards. If you could poke it out there around 300 yards, your ball would carry over the lip and keep running for another hundred. To the right, a rocky cliff crumbled down in a boulder-filled scree almost to the edge of the fairway, while a stand of brushy forest bordered the left side. There were imaginative nests of bunkers dropped in here and there, just where one’s shots might land. I looked at the scorecard and noticed that there was a pond situated right behind the green. Something to think about if you decided to go for the green in two with a fairway metal. Those are notoriously hard to stop, especially coming downhill and downwind, so you’d have the thought, in the back of your mind, of the ball running over the green and into the pond.

  Clyde Stewart saw me looking at the card and smiled at me.

  “I was thinkin’ o’ the last hole at Gleneagles Kings,” he said to me. “Long, flowin’ down the brae. But I thought addin’ that wee pond would put the fear o’ Old Nick in some of them.”

  “Does the green slope front to back?” I asked.

  “Oh, aye, that it does,” he said with a grin.

  “You’re a sadistic bastard,” I said.

  “Aye, that I am,” he said. “I should be ashamed. But, strangely, I am not.”

  The first group teed off and headed down the fairway, Clyde in tow. Somebody had magically produced a gold-painted golf cart with a fake Rolls Royce nose on it, luxury seating and wraparound plastic windows for Conrad Gold, and he climbed in and immediately called someone on his cellphone. There was a little practice putting green just behind the tee box, and I went over and stroked a few putts while we waited for the fairway to clear.

  There were several piles of building materials stacked next to the putting green, and someone had spray painted a bright green line along the edge to indicate where the stands would begin. It looked like the practice green would be covered up by the bleachers for the tournament.

  Jimmy Williams was strangely quiet during all this. I guess he was still mad about being one down for the front nine, which meant I was up a hundred. He was chatting quietly with our forecaddie.

  “OK, Hack,” he called finally when the group ahead had cleared out of the way. “Let’s get it on.”

  I still had the honor, so I aimed my driver down the right edge of the fairway, put today’s relaxed and easy swing on it and watched as the ball drew back nicely to the middle. It hit and rolled but stayed on our side of the ski jump lip.

  Jimmy was next, and he teed his ball a little higher than normal and put a Godzilla of a swing on it, barely managing to stay in his shoes and not fall on his face. His ball shot down the fairway, high and far, bounced twice and disappeared over the lip, no doubt running for miles.

  “Hope you didn’t hit Van,” I said. “He wouldn’t like that.”

  “Aw, screw him and his golden voice,” Jimmy said, hitching up his pants like Arnie used to do. “I got all of that one.”

  Kelsey, from the middle tees, hit her drive down the middle and we set off.

  I played conservatively on my next shot, hitting an easy four-iron to a little over a hundred yards short of the green. I didn’t think I could get a three-wood to the green anyway, and I didn’t want to take on Clyde’s devilish risk-and-reward trap on the green. I figured I could put a lot of spin on a wedge for my third and hopefully get the ball close to the hole.

  Kelsey followed my lead and laid up on the long hole, but Jimmy had about 260 yards left on a slight downhill lie and he was going for it, tossing caution to the winds. The forecaddie told him about the front-to-back slope of the green, but he was undeterred.

  “I didn’t come all the way up here to lay it up,” he muttered, teeth clenched. He took out his fairway metal club, took aim and let it rip. Because of the downhill lie, the ball came out hot and low, screaming toward the green, where the group ahead was still putting out.

  Three of us yelled “Fore!” and we watched as the guys on the green all ducked and covered and then watched as Jimmy’s ball landed about ten yards in front of the green, bounded up onto the green and began running. And running. And running. It shot past the hole and disappeared off the back edge, into the water. Van Collins gave us the over-and-in sign.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Jimmy said, moaning a little. “I just hit two of the greatest shots of my life and I’m in the water! What kind of crappy golf is that?”

  “I’ll note your displeasure when Mister Stewart’s next payment is due,” Conrad Gold said from his wrapped-in-plexiglass golf car.

  We all laughed, but I could tell by the dangerous shade of red that was gathering on Jimmy’s neck that he was pretty pissed. And likely wounded. It’d be hard for him to get himself back in the match now, unless I totally crashed and burned.

  I hit a nice three-quarters sand wedge and watched the ball bounce twice and sit down hard, about ten feet to the left. Possible birdie, easy par. Life was good.

  “Old Man goddam Par,” Jimmy muttered, more to himself, and stalked away toward the green.

  When we reached the last four holes, I was three-up on Jimmy who was now bitching and moaning about every shot. I’d say he was toast, but I knew that Clyde Stewart had likely designed the last four holes to be the concluding crescendo to his golf course, the final test of nerve and skill where the champion would be determined.

  Fifteen was a short little dogleg left filled with all kinds of interesting trouble. The fairway ran level from the elevated tee for about 270 yards and then turned sharply to the left and downhill for a hundred yards or so. But there was a narrow creek running across the fairway at the turn, and that creek fed into a marshy, reed-filled pond to the left of the green. The creek bed was filled with rocks and brush and bushy grass to make it visible from the tee.

  It was a classic risk/reward kind of hole. If you were feeling your oats, you could try to drive the green, even though you’d need a controlled draw around the corner, but not too much of a draw or the marshy pond would come into play. Or, you could lay up off the tee with a mid-iron, get as close to the rocky creek as you dared, and then feather a wedge down the hill to the green, which sat atop a ten-foot ledge over the river’s edge. There was a small but deep little bunker right in front, adding yet another thing to think about.

  I was still in my effortless zone, so I pulled out a five-iron and laid it out there short of the creek. I wasn’t chasing someone to win the PGA Championship, so making a four on this hole would be fine with me. And a three was always possible.

  Jimmy Williams, on the other hand, was leaving nothing in the bag. He consulted with the forecaddie on a good line, then took his driver and smashed it down the hill and around the corner to the left. We lost sight of it once it turned the corner.

  “Whaddya think?” Jimmy asked as it flew out of sight.

  “Won’t know till we get down there,” the caddie said. “But I think the angle was good. You should be dry.”

  “Long as I can make a bird,” he said, teeth clenched.

  Kelsey also played the percentages and laid up. When we got down to the corner, we all had good views of the green below us. I couldn’t see Jimmy’s ball anywhere, and he and the forecaddie scurried down to look for it, probably thinking his day’s tip depended on him finding it on dry land.

  I hit a nice wedge to about ten feet, and Kelsey was also on in regulation. When we arrived at the green, Jimmy was standing in ankle-deep rough about twenty yards short and right of the putting surface.

  “I wanted to let that rough grow between now and the tournament,” Gold said, getting out of his cart to watch us play. “I’d love to see it a foot high, but the tournament staff from the PGA will p
robably make us cut it back to six or seven inches.”

  Jimmy had his sixty degree wedge out and tried an explosion shot to knock his ball onto the green. But the grass grabbed the club, its speed died and the ball plopped forward maybe five yards and nestled down in the deep stuff again.

  He let out a bellow of frustration, took a couple steps forward, took a quick stance and just made an angry hotheaded slash at the ball. This time, he caught it cleanly and we all watched as his white ball arched against the deep blue afternoon sky before dropping, with a nice splash, into the Hudson River.

  Jimmy looked like he wanted to send his wedge in swimming after it, but, though he reared back, he managed to control himself and stopped. Then he shook his head, looked up at us and smiled.

  “I believe my goose has been cooked,” he said.

  “Shit happens, Jimmy,” Kelsey said, going over to him and giving him a little hug. “We love you anyway.”

  When we walked over to the sixteenth tee, set on the riverbank, we found a short dark man in slacks and a windbreaker standing there, looking intently down the fairway. Standing next to the man was a small black-and-white border collie who was completely fixated on what his master was looking at. I followed the man’s gaze and saw a gaggle of Canada geese down the fairway. They were poking their beaks into the turf grass, looking for something to eat.

  Conrad Gold came up beside me.

  “Watch this,” he said, a smile on his face.

  The man raised his hand in the air. The dog went on point, quivering in concentration, every fiber of its body straining to be let free. The man dropped his hand and simultaneously gave out a low whistle.

  The dog took off as if shot, bulleting its way down the fairway. The geese saw him coming a long way away and by the time he reached the spot where they had been foraging, they had long since taken flight, honking in displeasure as they circled out over the Hudson River. The dog made a couple of circles, sniffing the ground, then turned and began to trot back towards us.

  “Folks, this is Willie McLeod,” Gold said. “Finest dog trainer in Dutchess County and the man who keeps my fairways clear of goose crap.”

  “Not me, Mister Gold,” Willie said, “It’s Bullet that does the work.”

  Bullet returned to his master’s side, and was rewarded with a bit of a dog cookie. His tail wagged furiously while he scarfed it down, then he sat attentively by Willie’s side and looked at us, head cocked, deciding whether we were worth chasing.

  “You know, I wondered how you kept the geese off the course here,” Kelsey said. “They must love this place.”

  “It’s a big problem with course owners up here,” Gold said. “The numbers in the Canada geese population have been rising for several decades now. The number of natural predators is down and the environmental people won’t let us shoot them, which would be fast and effective. So I just get Willie and Bullet to do goose patrol and so far it’s been pretty effective.”

  “We were up on seven and eight a while ago,” Willie said. “Canada geese are herbivores and they pretty much love anything they find growing. So we gotta keep after them, keep them moving along.”

  We turned back to golf. Sixteen was a good long par four along the river. The tee had been built atop a concrete platform sticking out into the water, and the tee shot called for the players to thread the needle between a nest of sand on the right, and the river all down the left. The second shot was similar, but this time the green had been installed sticking out into the water. The only strategy that would work on this hole was two straight shots. On a Sunday afternoon in the PGA Championship, executing those two shots with all the pressure riding would be an interesting test of one’s fortitude.

  “Did you have any trouble getting approval for that platform where the green is?” I asked Gold, standing next to me. “It doesn’t look like a land form known to nature.”

  “Trouble?” he said with a chuckle that didn’t sound like a happy noise. “Only about three years of litigation with the Audubon Society, the Save the River crowd and I think some native American tribes. I don’t know if you’d call all of that ‘trouble.’”

  “So how’d you convince them to let you do it?”

  “We agreed to call it a ‘dock,’ which was permitted under the law,” he said. “Then I made a donation of a few million dollars and transferred title of a buffer zone for a park that runs from the river just north of eighteen all the way up to the top of Hannerty’s Bluff up there…” He nodded at the tall, rocky hill that rose to the east above the river. You gotta do stuff like that these days to get anything built.”

  Naturally, I made my first bogey of the day, driving into the next of bunkers on the right. I had to lay up coming out, lofted a wedge onto the small and rolling green and got down in two. Jimmy made a regulation par. I noticed his swing was slower and more relaxed now that our match was pretty much over. As a result, he drove it down the middle of the fairway and rifled a mid-iron right at the flag.

  Seventeen was Clyde Stewart’s variation on the island green concept. The green was bounded by the river on three sides, and the entrance was defined by a visually arresting series of tall boulders that looked like they had rolled down the hillside and come to rest on the water’s edge.

  “Did you move those there?” I asked Gold, who laughed.

  “I did not,” he said. “It was the power of a receding glacier approximately 20,000 years ago which dropped them there. I liked the idea of having to hit over them. Even though they really don’t come into play for any normal shot into this green.”

  The hole played about 190 yards from our tees, and Jimmy hit a four-iron into the breeze. It was a lovely shot and the ball tracked the flag all the way. The rest of us followed his lead and we all made par on the hole.

  The last hole at Gold’s Hudson Links was a monster par-five back towards the clubhouse visible up on the bluff. Again, the river was in play the entire length of the hole, lurking there on the left as we played north. Today the wind was against us every inch of the way, so it took all of us three long shots to get home. I hit driver, three-wood and eight-iron, and my approach just crawled onto the front edge of the green, leaving me a long putt to the back where the pin was.

  “This is an unusual northerly wind today,” Gold said as we stood on the green and looked back down the fairway. “Usually, it’s helping a bit out of the southwest. That means someone behind a shot or two would be tempted to give it a go trying to get home in two. That last little inlet in front of the green might well get a lot of action in the PGA.”

  “It’s a nice piece of work,” Jimmy said, clapping Conrad on the back. “There’s some holes out there that’ll give the boys fits.”

  “I hope so,” Gold said.

  We made our way back up to the clubhouse and unpacked the carts. Heading into the locker room, Jimmy handed me some folded bills.

  “Three hundred,” he said. “Well played.”

  I held up my hand. “Why don’t you keep it?” I said. “We’ll play again, and the outcome will probably be quite different. Let’s keep a running total and at the end of the season, we’ll take the crew out to dinner or something. Deal?”

  He paused, thinking. Then he smiled.

  “Good idea, Hacks,” he said. “I’ll get your ass next time for sure.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “You probably will.”

  16

  We met for dinner that night in the “Chairman’s Room,” a private dining room centered by a large round table that seated 20. There was a fire burning cheerfully in a granite hearth and the room was paneled in deep stained mahogany with brass sconces and a deep green carpet.

  We only took up about twelve of the place settings, but Conrad Gold took his place at the center, in the largest black leather chair, and the rest of us spread out around him on both sides. We had enjoyed cocktails and hors d’oeuvres downstairs in the cocktail lounge before Gold led us up the dramatic winding
staircase to his private dining room lair on the second floor.

  Two waiters in starched white waistcoats poured the wine and the club’s head chef, dressed in his pristine white chef’s coat, black-checked pants and wearing a tall toque, came in and announced the evening’s menu.

  “We are starting tonight with some bacon-wrapped seared Long Island scallops in a lemon-sage reduction, and some pork pot stickers in a soy and orange sauce, followed by your choice of roast duckling, rack of lamb or steak Diane, flambeed to order with a mustard garlic aioli sauce,” he told us. “Desserts to follow so please leave some room!” He bowed and returned to his kitchen.

  Gold held up his wine glass.

  “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for coming today,” he said. “I hope you enjoyed the golf course. We are looking forward to seeing what the world’s best golfers can do with it in a few weeks. Salude!”

  We drank. Van Collins, our lead broadcaster, was our unofficial spokesperson, and we let him respond.

  “Thank you, Conrad,” he said, nodding at our host. “I think we all learned a great deal today. I know I appreciated having Clyde Stewart on hand to explain some of the architectural strategies that went into the course design. But thank you for having us here today. If I can ask a question, when did you first think that this course was worthy of holding one of the world’s major championships?”

  Conrad Gold smiled. The light from the chandelier above the table reflected off his bald pate, which glistened.

  “I would say it was when I told Jack Cunningham, who was then the president of the PGA of America, that I would guarantee his organization twenty-five million dollars if they awarded the PGA Championship to this course,” he said. “Jack just nodded at that, didn’t gasp, didn’t frown, and that’s when I knew we’d get the tournament.”