by Ed Nelson
John and I both agreed that you win some and you lose some.
Sixteen was my favorite hole on the course. I seemed to have a knack for ending up on the green on this par 3 166 yard course. When you make the small green you have an excellent chance of making a Birdie. It held true today.
On the seventeenth a 576-yard par 5 monster I let it rip. With the roll, it went 340 yards. A three wood put me on in two. I then managed four putts for a six giving me a Bogey.
Eighteen 451 yard par 4 is a strong finishing hole. The trick is the tee shot. It is not difficult. All you have to do is hit it, without seeing the spot it will land which is hidden behind a rough grass-covered hillside. I had played this course enough that I was able to make the shot without stress. From there it was a six-iron to the green and two putts for the par.
At 67 I hadn’t set another course record but I did win the local qualifier. The only reason that happened was I didn’t have to fight the wind. Also, it was a single round. Everything had broken my way, more rounds and the averages would have got me. I would really have to practice my putting, it wasn’t so hot today.
I was so focused on my game I didn’t realize that my family less Mum who was still in England had followed me all day. Mary ran out to me after my last putt and I guess there were several cute pictures of her jumping up to me, and my catching her. I loved the picture title, “Ricky gets his girl.” I wish.
I was glad to see Mr. Swartz was included in the qualifiers. Also, the nice guy of the two other guys from our foursome had made it. The arrogant one hadn’t.
There was a very brief press conference as this was only a local tournament so I was able to get out and head home quickly.
Chapter 20
John Jacobs asked if he could have some time on Saturday. He had some ideas on my putting that he would like to share with me. Since this was the weak part of my game I would have been crazy to say no.
He had asked that we meet over at the Calabasas Country Club. It certainly wouldn’t be as busy as Riviera with all the US Open candidates trying to get in practice rounds.
It was a beautiful southern California day as we met and sat on the patio. The hillsides were still brown, the spring rains hadn’t come yet to turn everything green.
“What’s up, John? You say you have some ideas?”
John was unusually nervous-looking today. If he had a formal shirt on he would have been tugging at the collar. He had a thick notebook with him.
“Rick I have been noting where you have been landing on the greens at Riviera. Let me show this to you from the first hole.”
He pulled out a sheet of paper with a diagram of the first green. It had a bunch of x’s marked on it. They were bunched in a round pattern.
“As you can see you are very consistent with where you are landing the ball. I have this pattern on every hole.”
At that, he leafed through the book showing me all the diagrams.
“My thought is those putts are what you really should be practicing. Now the problem I see is this week it would be impossible to do that at Riviera. Now come with me I want to show you something.”
He led me over to the enormous practice green. It had split levels, breaks and just about any type of break or slope you could imagine. He led me over to a position on the corner of the many holed green.
“See if you set up to putt here it is the same as the first hole at Riviera. I have plotted out all eighteen holes. You can practice here all week. Yes, the grass will be a little different but not that much. You can even vary the time of day to try to match your tee time that way the grass will be leaning the same way.”
I remembered what Arnold Palmer had shown me about how the grass will turn to face the sun which will speed up or slow down a shot.
“This is great John. I was wondering how I could get enough practice in this week. Not only will I have more attempts here, but the attempts will be better focused. By the way, in my statistics class, they call this a measles chart as when it is finished it looks like it has the measles.”
Thanks, Rick, I’m thinking of my future here. If you win the US Open my future as a caddy will be secure no matter what you choose to do in the future.
“John, have you been keeping other notes on how this has gone from the first time you caddied for me?”
“Not the first time but I do make notes after every round. My wife wants to know how things are going so I have learned to write them down so I have something to tell her.”
“If we win big time, you have the beginnings of a book and a new method of golf instruction, think about it.”
“Wow, I will!”
“There is one more thing I want to show you, Rick.”
“What’s that?”
“See this putt on the seventeenth. You have bogeyed it several times. You are landing the ball where you want it, it is a low percentage putt for you. Now, look at this.”
He walked me over to another portion of the practice green. He showed me a putt that matched the putt I made frequently on the second green.
“This putt is longer than what you are doing on the seventeenth but you make it more often. Now, look at this.”
Referring to the diagram of the seventeenth he showed me a different landing spot which left the same putt as the second. Yes, it was a longer putt but there was a little less break and it was right to left which I did better with than left to right.
By changing the landing spot on the green I would go from an average of 2.5 putts on the hole to 1.5. This was a big deal.
“John I am in awe, of what you have come up with.”
“Okay, now if they move the pin a lot it will negate some of this. But I have the diagrams for every pin position they have historically used in tournaments so those are what you should practice this week.”
That is what I did for four hours every day for the next week. I varied the time of day practicing for each hole to get different sun conditions. Altogether each green had four basic pin locations they used; front, back, left, and right. This gave me seventy two different pin placements to work on. I timed it. If I laid out the golf balls in a line I could do six putts a minute. John would have six balls at each hole lined up for me.
In theory, I could do all seventy-two variations in twelve minutes. It worked out to take the better part of half an hour to do each round, so I was doing eight rounds a day. So six times eight, times seventy-two, I had stroked a golf ball over three thousand times in practice. Every one of those was very much like what I would face on the real course.
We went to the clubhouse and talked to the Pros about what we were trying out in the next week. They had done similar things in the past but nothing so studied and planned out. They were all for trying it and would cooperate with keeping other club members away. They still considered this my home course and wanted bragging rights.
If nothing else it helped my frame of mind each day. I had to give thought to what I could do for John.
On Saturday afternoon I went to the beach. I didn’t even surf, just people watched, okay, girl watching.
Sunday was more of the same, putting practice in the morning. I also used the practice range going through each of my clubs ten times to keep myself loose. Quite a few people all strangers wished me luck but no one stopped me for an autograph so my practice wasn’t interrupted.
That did give me a thought. I asked the club pro if he would like me to do an autograph session if I won the sectional next week. He thought that was a great idea. It would sort of pay back the people who were working around me as I hogged the practice green and tees.
The afternoon was back to the beach but I did spend time on my board. Believe it or not even girl watching can get boring.
Monday I went to the studio in the afternoon. That may not have been the best idea I have ever had. Mr. Monroe had left word at the gate if I showed up to stop and see him.
He wanted to know if I had any plans for the rest of the week. I told him about m
y practice sessions for Saturday.
“Oh good your afternoons are free.”
Boy did I set myself up.
“Yes, what do you have in mind?
“There is this movie...”
“Not to be rude but there is always a movie. That is your job.”
I can’t believe I said that to the head of the studio. A year ago he was this mysterious powerful godlike figure that I would never have talked back to.
He laughed, “I guess it is. Rick, we lost an actor, we need a teenager that could be funny in a clueless sort of way. I immediately thought of you for the part.”
Should I be insulted? But then I am a teenager and usually clueless, so this would just be character acting for me, still think I’m insulted.
One problem was that I still didn’t have an agent.
“What are you thinking about pay?”
“No points, your role isn’t that big.”
“Fair enough.”
“How does one hundred thousand sound?”
“How many scenes?”
“Three and we do them all this week.”
“Okay, let’s seal it with a handshake until your people can come up with a contract. I will pass it by my lawyers but if it is basically the same as my others have been we have a deal.”
We shook hands.
“Rick you have taught me to be straight forward and upfront and never try to push you around. The early reports from the focus groups on, ‘Over the Ohio’, say it is going to be a blockbuster.”
“What sound stage?”
“Studio B let me walk you over.”
He took me over and introduced me to the Director a John Adams, no relation. The movie didn’t have a fixed title yet but they were using Teenage Angst as a working title. If I saw that on a billboard I would walk right on by.
Its basic premise was a new boy in school trying to fit in. I would be a bit of a sideshow for laughs. I hadn’t worked with the male and female leads before. They were nice but again enough older than me they didn’t socialize. As a matter of fact, they seemed to keep their socialization to her trailer.
I had to go to costuming and makeup. They had a bit of trouble finding an outfit that was in my size. The guy that had to drop out for whatever reason was much smaller than me. They finally had me wear the clothes I came in wearing. The movie was modern times so my clothes were fine. Better quality than what they had for the previous guy.
In makeup, I had to shave as it was in the afternoon. My beard had come in dark and heavy, so the stubble so showing by the end of the day. I was getting used to shaving twice a day. It was too much to hope that stubble would ever be in fashion.
My lines were very simple, for my part, it was all in the timing of the delivery. It took me fourteen takes before I got the first one right. By then it was getting near dinner time and the Director called it a day. The rest of the movie was on schedule so they could work with me.
Tuesday was up early, exercise, run, head out to Calabasas, meet John and practice golf, a lot of putting and some time on the driving range to keep loose. John had set out bushel baskets at various locations and angles on the range. These were to show the sort of drive or fairway shot I would have to make on the Riviera course.
A lot of my fellow golfers paid attention to this. They were still polite and left me alone as I practiced for which I was thankful. I had a lot of work to do.
The afternoon was back to the studio to try to get the second scene in the can. As directed by the costumer I had worn a more casual polo shirt and left off my sport coat. This was to be inside a classroom. In this scene, I had to talk to the male lead.
The director kept yelling cut as the scene didn’t look right to him. Finally, someone pointed out that I was so much taller it was hard for the lead to be condescending to me when he had to look up so far. A wooden box put us on eye level and it worked. Of course, it took another five extra takes because the lead and I both started laughing and couldn’t stop.
At one point he put his arms around me like he was going to kiss me. That totally broke us up. I thought the Director was going to throw both of us off the set but when I looked he was laughing as hard as everyone else.
The Director did say, “Now that you two clowns have got that out of your system could we get down to work?”
We both could take a hint and took it seriously. It took three more takes because of my timing or lack of timing but I finally got my line out correctly.
I shared my experience at dinner and it didn’t get the laughs I thought it would. I guess you had to be there.
I had been pushing myself for the last few days so went to bed and sleep early.
Wednesday was a rerun of Tuesday with the exception it was the female lead on a box. She didn’t try to kiss me. My timing must be getting better for it only took seven takes, five of them because of me. It was a shame that I did the scene with Tuesday on Wednesday.
Anyway, that was the three scenes I had agreed to do. I might be called back for a retake or extra scene but I had let them know when I would be leaving for England.
My putting had improved dramatically. Even my work on the driving range was paying off.
I continued my golf practice on Thursday. I stopped by the studio to see if they needed me anymore. They didn’t but the film for my scenes had been developed. They showed me them. The way they came off you would have thought I actually knew what I was doing, that is I looked like a clueless teenager. That or I hadn’t been acting. I knew the success was because of patient directing.
John Jacobs surprised me on Friday by cutting the entire workout in half. The rest of the morning we sat and talked about what we thought the rounds would be like. There would be two rounds of eighteen holes back to back with a slight intermission between the two.
We both agreed that no matter the draw I would be facing the sea breezes. One of the problems I had faced playing just eighteen holes last week was that I got hungry! That and thirsty. Since my family would be there I would ask them to have food and drink ready for each time I got back to the clubhouse.
John also thought I might want to change socks as they would get sweaty during the day. He also had a sun visor for me. This one was different from what the pros wear. It had no advertising.
I spent the afternoon reading up on the tower. Mrs. Hernandez came up at one point to discuss what sort of food I would like at the turns. I settled on a coke and ham sandwich after the first nine, then at the end of the first round corned beef, followed by tuna fish at the turn on the second round of the course.
This may sound like over planning but I had a tremendous headache after last week’s round. I was used to eating a lot more. That had to be due to my size, exercising and maybe I was still growing. I hoped I wouldn’t get any taller. Six foot five made me stand out as it is.
As far as I know, we had done everything we could to get ready for the sectional qualification for the US Open.
Chapter 21
Saturday was my make it or break day for the US Open sectional. I wanted to win and qualify cleanly for the main tournament in June.
The day started out like last week. The first hole was a Birdie. The second hole was where my practice started to pay off. Last week I two-putted for par, today it was a Birdie.
I birdied three and four again. I had a Bogey on five last week. Today it was a Birdie. This was due to all my practice. My putt was never in doubt. This was one of the greens where I chose a different landing spot. It was a longer putt but I had a higher percentage chance of making it. I drained it in.
The par-three sixth hole had me nervous. I was putting for a Birdie and I rimmed it. I swear it rolled around the cup rim at least a dozen times until it dropped. John later told me it dropped halfway round. He must need glasses.
The seventh hole about got me and I was glad to get off with a par. A stray gust caught my ball and put it in the rough. It took one putt to save par.
Eight and Nine were bo
th pars. Nine was one of those I had practiced putting the most but I still two-putted for the par.
At the turn my family had me set up fine for food so I wasn’t about to fall over from hunger on the course. I only ate half my sandwich as I didn’t want to carry a heavy lunch. I suspect there would be penalties for taking a nap on the green.
I started out with a Birdie on ten. I had a string of pars on eleven through thirteen. Fourteen a par three was an easy Birdie. At this point, I was eight under.
Fifteen was a Bogey for me last week. I had changed my landing spot, again taking a longer putt but a better chance of making it. I made it for another Birdie.
Sixteen gave me its usual gift of a Birdie.
Seventeen had been a Bogey due to poor putting. Today instead of taking four putts I put it in with two for another Birdie. I finished eighteen with a par.
The golf gods had been kind. I was ten under and killing the field.
Another sandwich and a quick trip to the men’s room had me ready to start the next eighteen. I never paid attention to the other golfers in my foursome unless there was a question about who was furthest from the hole. I did take a look and two of them looked a little worse for the wear. Evidently, they didn’t run four or five miles every morning.
While the golf gods smiled on the first eighteen they frowned at me on the next set. Not a disaster and maybe I got overconfident. Not to drag a sordid story out I finished the second eighteen even. It still left me ten under for the day but I had my comeuppance.
The wind had kicked up. Normally it was a constant breeze. For me, it was erratic and would carry my ball in strange directions. The only thing that saved me was my putting. I one-putted eleven greens which should have put me way under.
In the end, it didn’t matter. I ended up ten under. My nearest opponent was six under so I didn’t have to face a playoff.