by James Ross
“But start off the back nine if you do that,” J Dub advised.
“Your shoes are ready Mister Curt,” BowTye piped from the opposite corner.
“While we’re waiting for Paul, can you show these two lads how to clean shoes?” Curt asked BowTye.
BowTye’s beaming smile once again lit up the room. “Send them over.”
“I don’t want to learn how to shine shoes,” Keith protested.
“It’s an art,” Curt urged. “Go ahead and learn something new.”
The two kids sauntered over to join BowTye who was positioned at his seat in the corner. “I’m going to start on this pair right now. These are Mister Paul’s.” He grabbed a brush with stiff bristles and ran it across the bottom of the shoes. “This will get all of the grass and dirt out of the spikes,” BowTye enlightened them. “After we get all of the junk out of there then we’ll check the spikes to make sure that they’re tight.”
“There’s an empty hole in that one,” Justin pointed out.
“Yeah, it looks like Mister Paul lost a spike here.” BowTye agreed as he grabbed a jar filled with replacement spikes. “There are two kinds we want to look for,” he started, “one has the thinner thread and the other has the wider thread.” BowTye examined the sole of the shoe. “This one needs a spike with the wider thread.”
“Why do they make two different kinds?” Keith asked.
“Probably so the shoe companies can sell more shoes,” BowTye hypothesized. He grabbed a spike and twisted it into place. Next he grabbed a small tool.
“What’s that?” Justin questioned.
“This is a spike wrench,” BowTye replied. “We’ll give it a little twist and tighten the spike into the shoe.” He bore down with the wrench, gave a tiny grunt, and screwed the cleat into place. “See how easy it is?”
“Why do they need them anyway?” Keith asked. He looked down at his own tennis shoes. “What’s wrong with these?”
“Golfers need traction so they don’t slip in the middle of their swing,” BowTye clarified. He picked up a damp cloth and wiped all the dirt and mud off of the exterior of the shoe. “Now we’ll clean the outside and prepare the shoe for the polish.” After going over and around the shoe with the cloth he selected a tan-colored wax that matched the color of the shoe.
“Now, what?” Justin asked naively as if BowTye was going to apply it to his body.
“We’re goin’ to slap this on the shoe and wait for it to dry.” BowTye applied the wax in a circular motion all over the shoe. Then he reached for an old toothbrush and went around the exterior of the sole with black polish. “Now I’ll take out another brush and make her shine.” He went around the shoe with the brush. “Next I’ll go over the shoe with this cloth and really bring out her color,” BowTye said as he rubbed the golf shoe with the dry cloth and made it look like it was brand new and right out of the box. “See, there’s nothing to it.” His smile flashed across his face.
The boys shook their heads with approval.
“This just in,” the announcer on the cable network blared to the public. “The GRS killer has struck again . . . this time in Allentown, Pennsylvania. For more on the story let’s join Sharon Johnson from the scene with a live report.”
“That’s the third time this year for that guy,” Fred noted, “and its only June.”
“And those are only the ones that they know about,” Pork Chop added.
“The world we live in now is so messed up,” Rollie threw out. “It sure makes you appreciate the little things in life.”
“Like breathing,” Fred stated as he yucked it up at Rollie’s expense.
“Can you play golf with that machine hooked up to you?” Keith asked Rollie.
“I’ll unhook it to play but I’ll take it out on the course with me in case I need a good dose of some pure oxygen,” Rollie said with a smile.
The door to the clubhouse swung open and Paul walked in. “Where have you been all morning?” Fred yelled.
Paul, dressed to the nines, smiled. “Let’s go hit ’em!”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Curt was anxious to teach the young boys the game of golf. Learning the swing and hitting the ball was one thing. However, the mental side of the sport and all of the nuances that came with it was another. He hurried to the cart barn to grab his clubs, but only made it a short distance before he yelled to Justin. “Can you come over here and help me, Justin? This is too much for me right now.” The combination of the heavy bag and the extended walk had tuckered him out. I wish I could get in to see the doctor. It’s taking too long for the appointment to roll around, he thought.
Justin dashed over to throw the bag over his shoulder and continued to the row of carts. “How do you want me to hook this up, Curt?”
Curt was deep in thought trying to figure out who should ride with whom. Playing a fivesome meant that they would have a mini-caravan going off the first tee. The golfers plus the two boys meant that seven of them would be heading out on the round. “Put my bag on the drivers’ side. You can ride with me. Have Keith throw Paul’s bag on a different cart and he can ride with Paul.” Fred rode by himself while Pork Chop drove a cart with Rollie as his passenger.
“We’re teeing off with a small army,” Rollie wheezed as the carts parked by the first tee.
“But only five of us are playing. I want to teach the boys some of the etiquette of the game,” Curt pointed out. “They’ve got to learn some time.”
“Let’s just play a simple pig game,” Pork Chop offered. “Play them down and putt them out.”
“No gimme’s?” Rollie asked.
“You know better,” Fred scolded him.
“What’s a gimme?” Justin whispered to Curt.
“You have to putt out the ball until it goes in the cup. It’s not good until it goes in,” Curt told Justin and Keith. “In other words, we can’t give it to him and tell him that it is good.” The boys nodded.
“I guess it’s probably a good idea to stay quiet too,” Justin offered. He had watched some golf on television and saw the marshals always putting their hands in the air.
“You’ve got that right,” Curt nodded in agreement, “and don’t be moving in anybody’s backswing. Stand still.”
Fred was busy throwing tees up in the air. He was trying to determine who would be hitting in what order. “Paul, you’re first. Then it’s Pork Chop, Curt, Rollie, and me. We’re playing for quarters and we’ve got carryovers going on the ties.”
“No money out there today,” Rollie quipped as he unhooked his oxygen.
“We’re playing even. No strokes,” Pork Chop reminded the group.
“What’s going on?” Keith asked Curt.
“They’re just reminding all of us what the rules are today. Basically, we’re playing the ball down. That means we can’t touch it when it is in play. We’re putting them out. And Rollie doesn’t think any money will change hands because all the holes will be tied. Nobody gets any advantage by taking any strokes, so we’re all playing even.”
“What’s that mean?” Justin pried further.
“Whatever you shoot on the hole is the score that you get,” Curt told the boys.
“Isn’t that the way it is supposed to be?” Keith asked.
“Of course,” Curt agreed. “That is until you get some of these guys that think they need to have a handicap advantage to stay in a competitive game. There are some guys out there that insist on getting strokes on certain holes. That tends to water down the quality of the competition. Those guys would rather whine about getting shots than practice harder.”
Curt grabbed three clubs and went off to the side to take a few practice swings. He bent over to touch his toes a few times. The elevation change in his head caused him to become severely light-headed. He rose up, closed his eyes and winced, hoping that he wouldn’t pass out. After a deep breath and a slow exhale he felt alert. Curt certainly didn’t want to fall over and bring attention to himself.
“W
hat are you doing now?” Justin questioned his mentor. Every action garnered a query from one of the teenagers.
“We didn’t have time to go to the range,” Curt answered. “I’m trying to get warmed up a little.” He rotated and twisted his waist to the left and then to the right.
Paul placed his tee in the ground and prepared to hit first. “ . . . One or two off the first tee?”
Pork Chop lost it. He chuckled incessantly. “What do you think?” he fired back. “You know better than to even ask.”
Paul forced a grin back to Pork Chop. “Okay, one it is.” He swung and smacked the golf ball a long way with a little draw. The ball came to rest in the fairway. “Let the games begin.”
“That might even be a pig ball,” Fred kidded.
Paul shook his head in the negative. All the players in this group could play well. He wasn’t about to play this hole without a partner. “I know better than that. Don’t bait me.”
All of the golfers got off of the tee okay and continued with their round. The normal arguing and good-natured ribbing prevailed. Virtually every one of them could play the game very well and pars were abundant. Curt turned to the boys as the group stood in the middle of the fifth fairway waiting to hit their approach shot. “Justin, you and Keith have been out here long enough to see that golfers come in all shapes and sizes.”
“It’s neat to watch Fred and Pork Chop hit the ball,” Keith marveled. “They’re so fat they can’t bend over to get the ball out of the cup.”
Curt chuckled. “That’s why they have those suction cups on the end of their putters. They don’t have to reach down and pick up the ball.”
“ . . . And all of them can putt so well,” Justin added.
“That’s the name of the game,” Curt said with a smile. “It’s all about getting the ball in the hole. Young or old, fat or slim; it doesn’t much matter as long as you get it done.”
“I’d say they know how to bang it into the cup on each hole,” Justin said and Curt grinned.
“Even the two old guys can play real good,” Keith observed referring to Rollie and Paul.
Rollie was getting up there in years. If he wasn’t eighty yet, he was in his late seventies. He had come back to run the family business after returning from the war. When the time was right, he got an offer to sell that he couldn’t refuse. He had been a distributor of electronic parts for a number of years and now the profits allowed him to spend his golden years golfing at Prairie Winds.
During the war, a mortar had exploded a few feet from his head causing him to lose about ninety percent of the hearing in his left ear. Now, a lot of the time he cocked his head so that his right ear could pick up the conversation. Years earlier he had developed a terrible habit of talking all of the time and staying in perpetual motion. Rollie was even known to hit a golf ball in the middle of a sentence while he was still moving. He continually wore a sweatshirt because he was cold all of the time.
Rollie was noticeably slowing down. The hearing was getting worse and the post-smoking difficulty with his breathing signaled the beginning of the end. His days were numbered and he was well aware of it, but nothing diminished his love for the game of golf. Rollie could still rack up his share of pars and was “dead-on” with the putter. It was fun to watch a guy his age play the game and get the ball in the hole.
Paul on the other hand was in his early seventies and had taken very good care of himself. He was called a silver fox because of his head of shiny gray hair. Of all the guys that hung around Prairie Winds, Paul looked the most distinguished and commanded the most respect. He was dependable, honest, and a straight-shooter. As an ex-military officer, he lived off of a sizeable US Government pension.
His military background as a recruitment officer had instilled a sense of order and neatness that stayed with him in older age. Paul always wore freshly starched and pressed slacks with a smart looking golf shirt. The addition of BowTye to the work force ensured Paul that his shoes would forever be spit-shined and not a trace of grass would be found in his cleats. His perfectionism was a little too much at times, however, that spirit of perfection carried over to his swing and course management. Paul was a talented golfer that could shoot par almost every day. He had honed those skills through his travels across the states trying to talk recruits into enlisting in the armed services.
“Keep watching Rollie and Paul,” Curt urged the boys. “Even though they’re older, you can see how they get themselves around the golf course and stay in every hole. Then when it comes time to make a putt, look out, they drain it.”
“After watching them I can see why you said that putting is the name of the game,” Justin said.
“Now what do you think I should do here?” Curt asked them. “It’s a par-five and we have to go over water to get there.”
“Grip it and rip it,” Keith repeated what he had heard.
“You’ve been watching too much television,” Curt laughed. “In my younger days I would have done that too. Then the next shot would go into the water and I’d take a seven or an eight.”
“So what do you think is best?” Justin asked.
“I think that I’ll lay up to the hundred yard marker and take the water out of play. My pitching wedge is pretty good. That will give me a good opportunity to knock it in there close to the stick and maybe sink a putt,” Curt reasoned. “Did you give me an easy pin placement on this hole this morning?”
Keith and Justin laughed. After a few minutes Curt did exactly what he told them he would do. He laid up, then with his pitching wedge knocked the ball close to the pin. He left himself a nine-foot birdie putt to win the hole. “Now let’s see you putt like those old guys,” Keith said.
“I wish I had their talent with the putter.”
“Do you need some help reading that?” Fred asked Curt as they stood on the green. He had picked Curt in the pig game and the two of them were playing against the other three.
“I think I can manage,” Curt replied as he squatted behind the ball to read the line. After surveying the green Curt stepped up to the ball, stood over it for a second and whacked it in the hole. He turned to the teenagers. “Now do you two see how to manage your game?” Curt questioned.
Fred was jumping up and down and doing a little jig on the green. “Way to go partner!”
“We’re just playing for a few quarters,” Curt replied to Fred. “You’d think that putt just won the Masters the way you’re acting.”
“That’s pretty neat stuff,” Justin surmised. “Good job. That’s the way to reach the finish line.” He put his hand in the air and gave Curt a high-five.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The arrangement that Tina had negotiated with Curt was that she would pick up the boys from work every other day. After their second day on the job she was punctual, getting to the golf course right on time. “How did your second day on the job go?” she asked the boys soon after they piled into the SUV.
“Mom, it was so neat,” Justin started. “After we pulled the carts to the front of the clubhouse, Curt took us out on the course and taught us how to move the tee markers and cut new holes for the pins.”
“We didn’t actually dig the hole,” Keith added, “but Curt let us pick out the location where we wanted to put the hole on each green.”
“That had to be a lot of fun,” Tina followed. “He must like the job you’re doing to give you that kind of responsibility.”
“He stayed with us the whole time, but he said that he wanted to teach us the right way so that when it comes time for us to do it ourselves we’ll know what we are doing,” Justin said.
“While we were in the middle of that job he took us by the irrigation lake again. That’s the part that I don’t like too much,” Keith moaned.
“He made you run again?” Tina questioned.
“Yeah, it’s like it is some kind of punishment for what we did,” Keith admitted.
“But he made it a lot of fun,” Justin added. “Curt put up a fin
ish line and told us to race to it.”
“Who won?” Tina inquired.
“Justin did,” Keith said. “He’s a much better runner than me.”
“But Keith made it close,” Justin added. “Then we went and showered.”
“Did he feed you breakfast?” Tina prodded the boys.
“We got in the clubhouse a little later today,” Justin began. “Fred was there again with a guy by the name of Pork Chop.”
“Yeah, they were huge!” Keith declared. “One was as big as the other.”
“You mean one was as fat as the other,” Justin corrected.
“I was trying to be nice,” Keith agreed.
“And Fred brought in another box of doughnuts,” Justin went on, “but Keith and I told him that we thought that we’d eat better food so that we wouldn’t end up as fat as him and Pork Chop.”
“Justin!” Tina screamed. “Don’t make fun of someone because they’re overweight.”
“They just laughed about it, Mom.”
“Yeah, they know they’re fat and encouraged us to not get as fat as them,” Keith added.
“So we ate an apple instead,” Justin said, “and Fred and Pork Chop started arguing.”
“Like two grade school kids,” Keith repeated what Curt had said about them.
“Then there was this guy named Rollie that kept coughing,” Justin continued.
“From smoking too much,” Keith explained.
“I hope you boys never start that,” Tina warned.
“No way,” Justin agreed as Keith bit his lip and stared out the window. “It was enough to make you sick the way he was hacking and trying to clear his throat.”
“If there is anything in this world that I want to see, it is for you not to smoke,” Tina said. “Don’t take that first puff.”
Keith was anxious to change the topic. He felt guilty about stealing cigarettes from his dad and tempting Justin to try one a few days earlier. “Then this little black man taught us how to shine shoes.”