His face was red again, and his eyes darted sideways at me. I suspected he was worried I was going to call him for moving his ball into a better lie in the rough. But that would lead to a loud and angry argument, since no one actually saw the transgression, and it would end up being my accusation against his word of honor. So I just let him stew for a few long moments.
“I think it’s Rule 19-2,” I finally said. “The one about stopping or deflecting a ball in motion. Your chip shot rolled into your golf bag. That’s a deflection caused by your own equipment. Two-shot penalty in stroke play. Loss of hole in match. Rules of Golf. You lose. Sorry about that, chief.”
Jackie nodded thoughtfully, turned on his heel and led me through the junipers to the shack. Vitus Papageorge, probably for one of the few times in his life, was struck absolutely dumb. I didn’t look at him, but I could feel the emanations of hatred rolling off this tightly wound little man.
The explosion, when it came, was a doozy. First, Vitus took his anger out on the offending golf bag. He slammed it to the ground and kicked it a few times, then he turned it upside down, dumped out the clubs and hurled it against a tree, shouting obscenities at the top of his lungs the entire time. Then he started kicking the clubs around on the green. I wasn’t sure, but I think there was some froth about his mouth. When he got tired of screaming and kicking, he set off in search of someone else to blame. Storming into the snack shack, he zeroed in on the poor caddie. The kid was sitting on a bench, sucking on a Coke, minding his own business. Vitus burst through the door breathing fire and blowing smoke, and began screaming a line of sputtering, saliva-punctuated curses and threats at the boy.
Fred cut him off before I could. “Stop it, Vitus,” he said, grabbing the angry man by the arm and getting in his face. “Leave the boy alone. It wasn’t his fault. It was just one of those things. You’re the one who wanted to play by the all-fired rules, so just shut the hell up.”
Fred’s quiet little speech was effective. More effective, probably, than what I had in mind, which was a snot-stomping thrashing of the man. Vitus started to argue, but then he looked into Fred’s eyes and saw something there that snapped him out of his rage. Fred let go of Vitus’ arm, and Papageorge shook himself, once, twice. Then, he turned on his heel and stalked off towards the next tee.
The young caddie was sitting as still as a rock, blood drained from his face, his eyes big and round and beginning to fill with tears. He didn’t have the slightest idea of what he had done to inspire Vitus’ tirade.
Jackie went over and squeezed the kid’s shoulders. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to him.
“Here, kid,” he said. “Combat pay. You just earned it.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
The back nine went much the same as the front. On those holes where Vitus had a handicap stroke in his favor, he was unbeatable. He drove it down the middle, knocked his approach shot onto the green and two-putted for his par-net-birdie. Mr. Automatic.
Vitus and Fred won three holes that way, but on two other holes, where Papageorge didn’t have a stroke, I managed to make birdie, and on the long, uphill par-3 17th, my besotted partner somehow managed to run his chip into the hole for a two. It took him a few seconds to figure out why I was cheering.
Vitus’ temperament was unchanged as well. On those holes where he played well, he kept silent and to himself. He never once congratulated another player – not even his partner, Fred – for a good shot or commiserated over a missed putt. When he spoke, it was only about his own game and its fortunes, the good putt that he had just stroked or the overhanging tree limb that had prevented him from getting his shot closer to the hole. And I counted three screaming tantrums, five helicoptered clubs and one tee marker neatly drop-kicked into a thick patch of poison ivy. He sent the caddie, the poor kid, in after it.
One of his screaming fits came on 13, where he had a long, 80-foot putt for birdie. His putt, rapped with authority, looked better and better as it rolled closer and closer to the hole. But it stopped less than two inches shy of the goal, and Vitus let loose, with both voice and putter, which went flying off in the direction of the next tee. He put together a very imaginative combination of “fucks” and “shits” in a voice loud enough to carry all the way back to the clubhouse. Jack waited until he was finished stomping around.
“Yeah,” Jack said dryly, “I know how you feel. I always get mad when I miss those 80-footers, too.”
At first, Vitus thought he was getting a sympathetic message. “Well, God-DAMN it!” he started in again, face red and angry. “It was IN all the God-DAMN way …”
That’s when he noticed his partner’s shoulders jumping as Fred laughed silently at his foolishness. Jack and I wore big grins.
Vitus harrumphed, stalked over to the hole, bent down and snatched up his ball angrily.
“That’s good,” Jackie and I said in unison. Fred laughed out loud.
So we came to the 18th all square again. Vitus and Fred needed to win the hole to win the back nine and halve the match. My heart sank when I saw the scorecard. Naturally, Vitus had a stroke on the hole.
The last at Shuttlecock is a damnable hole. It’s a short par-five, but trouble lurks along virtually every yard. The tee shot must be threaded through a narrow chute of trees to find not just the fairway, but the right-hand side of the fairway. For that’s the only place from which the second shot can be advanced up a steep hill to find the narrow fairway that curves slightly to the left. The left corner is guarded by several large, overhanging trees, so any tee shot that finishes left of center is virtually blocked, and requires the near physical impossibility of hitting a low hook from a hanging lie. Once over the crest of the hill, the fairway drops sharply back down to the right, with a nest of trees and thick rough waiting for any pushed shot, and drops down a hill to a huge green complex surrounded by pot bunkers and closely bordered by the entrance road, which is out-of-bounds.
It’s possible to reach the green in two shots, but it requires a perfectly placed tee shot, followed by a precision fairway wood that threads through the S-curve of trees, catches a good bounce on the downhill side and rolls between all the bunkers. No problem! Most players therefore elect, or are forced, into playing the hole in three shots, but that final approach, with its sharp drop in elevation, is no picnic. Depth perception is always thrown off by the drastic downhill change in elevation, and the roadway and parking lot beyond lurk with the promise of many penalty strokes. And the green is the largest on the course, so a slight miscalculation in the approach can result in a 100-foot putt. Three-putts from 100 feet are commonplace. Especially when, like ours, the match is tight and there is a hefty wager riding on the outcome.
My tee shot, despite my best efforts to keep it from going left, drifted that way, and while the hill threw it back to the right a bit, it was not in the best position to tackle the corner. Jack, who had cracked the last beer on the cart in celebration of his birdie and rare contribution to the fortunes of the team, jammed his drive deep into the woods on the right. I could tell by the nonchalance with which he greeted this turn of events that he was pretty much cooked for the day. He went back to the cart, sat down and drank about half the beer. “A veritable golfing machine,” he sighed.
Freddie grounded one up the middle, safe, but a long, long way from home. Vitus made an awkward pass at his drive, trying to let the club release freely but attempting to steer it at the last second. His ball ended up going right, landing in the fairway and then bouncing hard right into the rough and underneath the limbs of a tall pine. Not dead, but not in good shape.
Fred’s second shot was another grounder that ran almost to the crest of the hill, still a good 200 yards from home. Vitus tried to hack his ball up and over the hill, but the rough was thick and his backswing was restricted by the nearby tree. His ball skittered forward just 30 yards.
Thwock! He slammed his club against the offending tree trunk and the club
snapped neatly in two pieces. The part with the clubface went spinning off into the woods. The caddie started dutifully after it.
“Leave the GODDAM thing,” Vitus screamed. He threw the grip end after the first, kicked the ground hard enough to dislodge a toupee-sized divot, and stalked off after his ball. If Vitus had a dog waiting at home, I hoped the poor thing had Blue Cross.
I had a bad angle for my second. Because the fairway dove sharply to the left, with those trees protecting the corner, I’d have to hit a career three-wood with a sharp drawing action to get it close to the green. And with the fairway sloping below my feet, I knew the percentages for success on that shot were poor. If I tried it and missed, I’d likely end up down off the right side of the fairway, in that tree-and rough-encrusted jail.
So I pulled out my seven-iron and, playing the ball back a bit in my stance, hands forward, I hit a little knock-down punch shot up the hill and with a bit of running draw to take it around the corner. All I wanted was a safe shot that stopped in the fairway somewhere. From there, I’d take my chances with an eight- or nine-iron and a putt.
Poor Fred, who was trying so hard, shanked a three-wood almost dead right, where it rattled around in the trees and dropped out of sight. He was out of it. Vitus, still with his stroke in hand, also hit a safe iron up and over the hill. He and I would be pretty close, but I lay two, and he was three with his stroke. When Jack—who had ricocheted one even deeper into the forest and quit— drove us over the hill, I saw our two balls, no more than three yards apart. It was Vitus and I for all the marbles. The game was on!
Jack parked over in the left rough opposite our two balls. I walked over, saw that I was away, and looked at the lie. Perfect. Slight downhill stance, but nothing difficult. I checked a nearby sprinkler head for the distance. 148 yards to the center. The pin was back right, so I added another 15 yards. But the hole was cut precariously close to the back edge of the green, no more than 10 steps further to the ashphalt surface of the road. And we were way up the hill, easily 50 feet above the green level.
I thought about all this. Downhill, with a bit of wind blowing left-to-right. Don’t want to challenge that pin, because anything that drifted to the right might carry onto the road, out of bounds, and give Papageorge the hole. But I didn’t want to play too safe, because it was a big green and I didn’t want to leave myself 50 feet for birdie, which was what I figured I needed to win against Vitus the all-star sandbagger.
I pulled my eight-iron, figuring a nice, solid swing would get the ball up to, but not over, the pin. Vitus, Fred and the caddie were standing about 15 yards behind our golf cart, in the left rough. I thought it a bit odd that Vitus wasn’t over near his ball, getting ready to play, but I pushed those thoughts out of my head and went into my preshot routine. I stood behind the ball and pictured the shot I wanted to hit. I saw a little patch of sunlight on the shade-dappled green, and decided that was where I wanted the ball to land: perhaps 20 feet short of the pin and just to the left of it. Hit that patch and the ball should release nicely towards the hole. With my target selected, I took a deep breath to relax, walked up to the ball and lay the clubface down behind it, pointing down the target line I had selected. Then I placed my feet along that aiming line. Took one more relaxing breath. Waggled once. Twice. Looked at the target one last time. Thought: “slow and easy.” And let it rip.
It was a pretty good shot. Guarding against that dreaded out-of-bounds on the right, I pulled it slightly and missed my patch of sunlight to the left by about 10 feet. The ball bounced forward once, then checked on the second bounce and spun to a quick stop. Looked like maybe 25 feet. Not bad.
“You da man,” Jackie said from the cart. I laughed as I walked back towards him. He gave me a tired, slightly unsteady, thumbs-up.
Then I saw Vitus, out of the corner of my eye. He had wandered even further into the rough behind our cart, and was bending over, picking a handful of grass and tossing it into the air, to judge the wind speed and direction. But why was he doing that way over there, a good twenty yards away from his ball? He began walking towards that ball now, slowly, on a line that would take him past the rear of our cart. Where I was putting my club back in the bag. Where he could see which number iron I had just used. Which would help him make his own club selection.
I saw all this in an instant. I have seen all the tricks in the book in my years in competitive golf, and in watching and reporting it. I’ve seen them try everything from the patently illegal to the borderline unethical. I could have done a number of things to prevent Vitus from learning the little piece of data he wanted. I could have kept the club in my hand and away from his prying eyes. I could have leaned over the bag and blocked his view that way. I could have looked straight into his eyes, so he’d know I knew what he was up to.
But I didn’t. Instead, I tried something I’d heard Tommy Bolt once used on a similarly snoopy opponent. Quickly, I put my club back in the bag, snatched my towel and began polishing the clubface. Vitus stepped up, stuck out his hand and said “That was a very good shot, Mr. Hacker. Especially under the pressure.”
I smiled at him happily and shook his proffered hand. “Thanks, Vitus,” I said. “I stepped on it pretty good. Wasn’t sure if I had enough club.”
I watched his eyes and saw them dart down into my bag to catch the number of the club I was wiping. I saw his quick, half-smile of triumph. The All-Universe prick had stolen my signals.
He continued on to his ball, where his caddie was waiting, and I walked around the cart and sat down next to my partner. He was looking at me strangely. “What the fuck was that all about?” he asked wonderingly.
I smiled at him. “Just watch,” I said.
Vitus had been studying his shot. Finally, he turned and pulled a club out of his bag. He took about four practice swings. He knew the importance of putting this shot –his fourth — on the green. If he could get it close, he could still make a five-net-four, which might be enough to win. My thirty footer was certainly no gimme. But even if he could get it on the green and two putt, it was likely that we’d halve the hole. That, at least, would save his team a $100 bet for the back nine. His goal was to try and get his ball inside mine.
Finally, he stood over the ball, wound up and let the ball fly with his short and powerful swing. It was a beauty. He had flushed it. The ball took off into the beautiful blue afternoon sky, sailing high into the air, a tiny white dot of hopefulness. From where we sat, it looked to be tracking the flagstick all the way.
“Oh, baby,” Vitus breathed softly to himself when the ball was in mid-flight. “Be the stick. Be tight, BABY!”
Finally, the ball began to descend. We all watched as it fell from the heights. We watched as it came down right over the pin. And over the green. We all watched as the ball smacked down with a sickening click on the asphalt surface of the road, bounced high into the air again, and kept on bouncing crazily down the road and in among the cars parked in the shady lot beyond.
“Holy Mother of God,” Fred exhaled, after watching the disaster unfold. “What the hell did you hit, Vitus?”
Vitus Papageorge was frozen at the top of his follow-through, posing, waiting for the ball to drop next to the hole. He began to shake his head in disbelief, as if trying to shake out the cobwebs from an unexpected right cross to the chin.
“It was …I can’t … I don’t …” He tried about four sentences at once, and none of them made it out. His brain was fried. “A four,” he finally croaked. He looked at his partner in agony. “A four-iron. I thought … he hit …”
He looked at me. I was smiling enigmatically. Jackie broke out in loud guffaws. He waved his hand. “Tough luck, Vitus,” he chortled. “Great match. See you guys inside. We’ll buy!” His brays of laughter echoed across the fairway as we drove down the hill and back to the clubhouse. “That was beautiful, Hack-Man,” he said, pounding his fist on the steering wheel. “A-One Magnifico! How the hell did you do that?”
�
��I thought he’d been clubbing off me,” I said. “He usually went one or two clubs down. So when I saw him trying to sneak a peek up there, I started cleaning off my six-iron. I had just hit an eight. I figured that if he thought I had hit a six, he’d go up to his four. I think even a five would have gone OB, but I was hoping he’d take enough club. He bought it hook, line and Top-Flite. Hit it pure, didn’t he? Hope it didn’t dent someone’s Mercedes.”
Jackie howled and howled. I told him, as we unloaded our clubs, about the Tommy Bolt inspiration. Terrible Tommy had been one of the purest ball strikers in history who could make a ball curve any which way he wanted, and stop it on a dime. The story I’d heard was that he’d seen his opponent clubbing off his iron choices, so he let the guy see him take his five-iron out on a shortish par 3. Bolt then used his considerable skill to manufacture a shot to put the ball on the green, even though a normal club selection might have been the seven or eight. He just put an extra cut on the ball, or hit an upsweeper than fell far shorter than his normal five-iron shot. His opponent, unsuspecting, also hit a five, but his landed forty yards over the green.
Neither Vitus nor Fred showed up in the grille for the after-the-round drink we’d offered. But that was OK. Jackie and I had one or two extra in their honor.
CHAPTER NINE
We celebrated our victory for the next hour. In be- tween drinks, he explained the format for the Shuttlecock Invitational. The tournament was scheduled over the next three days, and the field had been separated into ten flights of eight two-man teams each, and each flight would crown a champion team over the weekend. The teams in each flight had been selected so that the players were all roughly in the same handicap range: the lower flights were made up of pretty good, low-handicap golfers, while the ninth and tenth flights had teams of choppers and hackers. But that meant that, based on handicaps anyway, each team in each flight played at pretty much the same skill level. Each team would play a nine-hole match against the others in its flight: two nine-hole matches on Friday, three on Saturday and two on Sunday.
Death at the Member Guest Page 7