Skinner’s round bs-4

by Quintin Jardine

  Skinner glanced at him, as they strolled towards the first tee. And he didn't give you trouble when you set up your own company? No more visits from Mr Nice?'

  `No. I told Mike from the start that I was mainly interested in guys who base themselves on the European tour. He said that he didn't have a problem with that.

  'How come you're asking about Andrews all of a sudden, Bob?'

  The policeman shrugged his shoulders. 'Oh, the name was mentioned, that's all. And I'm just a nosey bastard by nature.' Atkinson grinned. 'Yeah, and I'm the next Pope!'

  Norton Wales and Hideo Murano were waiting on the tee as they approached. Bravo stood, with two wizened, weather-beaten caddies and their heavy burdens, beside a tall signboard bearing the legend, 'The Murano Million. Hole № 1. 465 yards.' Skinner wandered across and looked at the champion's bag. 'You play Shark's Fin clubs, Darren?'

  'Yes, they're the best. I'm paid well to use them, but that's secondary for me. I've known pros who've changed clubs just for the money they've been offered to make the switch, and who've lost their game as a result. You want to be the best, you have to use the clubs that are best for you.'

  'D'you carry a standard set?'

  'No. I have three wedges, one for fairway play, a sand-iron and a thin-soled job for short play around the greens. I find that I can do without a nine-iron. Actually, in any given round I tend not to use any more than ten out of the fourteen. If I could be sure in advance which ones they were going to be, I could take some weight off Bravo's shoulders!'

  He clapped his hands. 'OK guys,' he called. 'Ready for action?' He looked around. 'Where's your caddy, Bob?'

  ‘lady Kinture? She said she was going to change her shoes, that's all.' He looked round. 'Here she comes now.'

  The others followed his gaze and saw the immaculate figure of Susan Kinture sweeping elegantly towards them. She was dressed in a peach-coloured trouser suit, with a white shirt and golf shoes, and was pulling a wide-wheeled caddy-car, on which Skinner's clubs were loaded. 'Hello, chaps,' she called as she approached. 'Ready for action?' She smiled warmly enough at Skinner, Wales and Murano, but when she looked at Darren Atkinson, the light of hero worship seemed to shine in her eyes. 'Hello, Lady Kinture,' the golfer said, formally, and with the briefest and most courtly of bows. Skinner thought that he saw the faintest flash of disappointment cross her face.

  A grandstand had been set up behind the tee, looking down the first fairway. It was filled by around three hundred seated spectators. Skinner tried to banish all thoughts of the gallery from his mind.

  `Right chaps, we'll play this as a medal round, but just for interest, let's make a match of it.

  Norton and I'll take on you guys. Let's give Norton and Hideo a shot at each hole. Bob, there are ten par fours. I'll give you a shot at each of them. OK?' The three nodded agreement.

  'Right, Hideo,' said Atkinson, 'you're up first.' The Japanese stepped forward and asked his caddy for a number three wood. He wasted no time, teeing his ball up and clipping it carefully and sensibly down the middle of the fairway.

  `May I have my driver, please, Susan?' said Skinner. The tall blonde looked at his clubs, found the longest in the bag, pulled off its woollen head cover, and handed it to him. He teed his ball and stepped back, looking down the fairway. The hole was a slight dogleg easing right around the slope of the Witches' Hill towards the green which was, according to the sign, a good drive and a long second shot distant. There was a wide bunker on the left, two hundred yards away; the reason, Skinner guessed, why his Japanese partner had played deliberately short. He gave the club a swish to loosen his shoulders, then lined up his drive.

  'No chances here, boy,' he muttered to himself. 'You've got one of your shots at this hole, and you'll need to make use of them all.' He addressed the ball and swung, slowly and smoothly.

  There was a gasp from the gallery as the ball headed straight for the sand-trap, then an exhalation of relief as it carried easily over the hazard, took a hard high bounce and careered for another thirty yards down the left-hand side of the fairway. Behind him, there was a smattering of applause. Skinner stepped back to stand beside Murano.

  Norton Wales stepped up to the mark, clowning and waving to the gallery. Atkinson spoke to his caddy, who handed his client a five-iron. The singer took the club with a nod to his team captain, who mouthed the words, 'Swing slow.' Wales followed the instructions and was rewarded with a satisfactorily straight shot, shorter than Murano's or Skinner's, but like theirs safely in the playing area.

  Darren Atkinson took the tee to a round of sustained applause from the gallery in the stands, and from the crowds lining the fairway on the left, swelled in number by his appearance on the course. He acknowledged them with a smile and a wave, then turned to begin his day's work. As he flexed the golden shaft of his metal-headed driver, rehearsing his swing section by section, Skinner was aware that this was no longer the amiable coach of the previous evening. This was a warrior readying himself for battle, not against another man but against the course itself, against its challenge to his supremacy, to his mastery of his craft. He looked down the fairway, selecting the point to which he would strike his first blow, and Skinner recognised in his eyes an expression which, in his earlier years as a karate player, he had seen often in the eyes of opponents out to attack his black belt status. He had been able, invariably to face them down, and now, he sensed, Atkinson's challenger was in for a pounding.

  The US Open champion teed up and addressed the ball. The crowd, with traditional Scottish courtesy and discipline, was totally silent. Across on the Truth Loch, a goose cried out, but Atkinson's concentration was unbroken. Without seeming to exert overpowering physical force, he smashed the ball away into the distance, its left-to-right flight following the curve of the dogleg. Its first bounce was beyond Skinner's drive, satisfactory by his standards, and it ran on and on, so far into the distance that it was almost out of sight. The gallery's cheers, which had begun almost at the moment the ball left the club-head, echoed around the teeing ground. Atkinson grinned and, waving to the crowd in the stand to follow, led his team off down the fairway.

  `See what I mean about the course, Bob?' he said as he and Skinner walked, side by side towards Norton Wales's drive, around 160 yards from the tee. 'It doesn't have sharp enough teeth for a championship venue. The hill isn't really in play, and that bunker isn't a hazard at all for a pro, or for you, for that matter. There's nothing to stop me using all my length off the tee, and with a short iron for my second shot, it's a birdie there for the taking.'

  `Shall I tell Hector to do something about it?' asked Susan Kinture, earnestly. Atkinson looked over his shoulder in surprise.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lady Kinture. That was very rude of me. You and the Marquis are my hosts this week, and here I am criticising your course.' He paused as Norton Wales duffed his second shot, impossibly, into the bunker. 'Don't take it to heart, though. Witches' Hill is in the finest condition I've ever seen in a brand-new course, and your visitors will enjoy it as it stands. It's quite natural for adjustments to be made to a new venue as it matures.'

  Susan Kinture's eyes shone like those of a schoolgirl. `Could you suggest any? If you could, Darren, it would be wonderful.'

  Atkinson smiled at her, as Hideo Murano hit his second shot, a conservative three-wood, which he tugged into light rough, eighty yards short and left of the green. 'I probably could make one or two suggestions, but I'm not sure that the Marquis would welcome them. It's his course, and he has his own architect. He and O'Malley may well have long-term development plans.' He took her hand for a second, as Norton Wales picked up, after his third unsuccessful attempt to extricate himself from the sand-trap. 'Tell you what, I'll give it some thought on the way round, and perhaps you and I could have a chat about it over a nightcap tonight, after the dinner.'

  `That would be great!'

  `Right, it's a date. Now I must concentrate on my game. I could have a battle on my hands with these two guys
.' They had reached Skinner's ball. 'Right Bob. Show us your stuff.' The kidney-shaped green, two hundred yards away, was guarded front left by a bunker, and a second lay to its rear on the right. The big policeman looked at the lie of his ball, thought for a moment, then took a three-iron from his bag. `Slow,' he said, aloud and fired in a high shot which bounced on the front edge of the green, bit hard, and trickled to a stop just short of the right-hand bunker.

  `Bugger,' said Atkinson, forgetful of Lady Kinture's presence. 'That's you there for nett one, counting your shot.' Bravo was waiting by his ball when they reached it, sixty yards beyond Skinner's drive. Eight-iron, please, Bray.' He approached the shot as carefully and as methodically as he had prepared his tee-shot, seeming to ease, rather than force, the ball towards the green. It pitched six feet past the hole, but spun back sharply to stop inches away.

  The gallery, now numbered in thousands, roared its applause behind the rope barrier.

  Hideo Murano took two shots to free himself from the rough, then hit his fifth into the bunker behind the green. He signalled that his caddy should retrieve his ball, and stood beside Norton Wales on the edge of the green as Skinner surveyed a putt which was all of thirty feet long. 'What d'you think, caddy?' he asked Susan Kinture.

  Obviously pleased to be asked, she stood beside him and looked down the line. 'It looks as if it'll come in from the right, about two inches. But it's slightly downhill, so be careful not to hit it too far past.' He nodded and lined up the putt. Remembering Darren Atkinson's advice, he kept the Zebra's head clear of the grass and stroked the ball delicately. For a moment, he thought that it would fall into the hole, but at the last moment it ran out of pace and stopped on the lip. Unable to suppress a smile, he tapped in for a four, nett three, leaving Atkinson to confirm the half with his tiny putt.

  `Well played, partner,' said Hideo Murano, with his first grin of the day, as they walked towards the second tee.

  Enjoy it,' said Skinner. 'I think that's as good as it's going to get.'

  It was a measure of Atkinson's class that he did not lose a single hole on the way round, even though Skinner managed to use five of his ten shots to secure nett birdies. His golf was awesome, and the match ended on the sixteenth green when he rolled in his eighth birdie putt to put his team three up on Skinner and Murano. Norton Wales looked crestfallen as the four shook hands. 'Worse than a bad night at Batley, that was,' he muttered.

  `Don't worry,' said his captain. 'Suppose you pick up just two or three birdies with your shots in the competition proper, you'll have done your bit for the team. No one's expecting you to break par. This might not be the toughest course for us pros, but it's a bloody good test for high handicappers.'

  They played on to complete the round. With the clubhouse in sight, and the gallery swelled still further, Skinner and Atkinson chatted as they walked together down the eighteenth fairway, alongside the Truth Loch with its raucous geese and its newly reinstalled ducking stool.

  `What made you decide to set up your company, Darren?' the policeman asked.

  The golfer shrugged his shoulders. 'I felt that a good management company dedicated to golfers was one thing that the European Tour lacked. Then when I thought about it, I realised that Rick and I had in effect, a good management company devoted entirely to my interests.

  So we decided to expand its operations, and to put it at the service of others.'

  `Do you plan to ease yourself out of playing one day, and into the company?'

  Atkinson shook his head vigorously. 'Rick runs the company. That's what he's good at. I'm good at golf. At the moment, I'm the best golfer in the world. Some say I'm the best there's ever been. I can't agree with them, not yet. But I think I can be and that's what drives me on.

  Every time I tee up, I want to win. Sometimes I expect to win, and when I'm in that sort of form I usually do. If you're a betting, man, put some dough on me to lift the Million this week. I'm a racing certainty. Then back me to take at least two more majors next year. I've got thirteen in the bag so far. My dream is twenty'

  They stopped by Skinner's drive. He asked Susan Kinture for a three-iron and hit a low shot to the fringe of the green. As Wales and Murano played what seemed like a separate game along the edge of the left-hand rough, Skinner, Atkinson and their caddies strolled on towards the champion's ball, its position the result of a long, beautifully flighted shot which had made the Truth Loch seem pointless as a hazard. 'You said something yesterday about having your own course. When are you going to fit that in? In your lunch-break?'

  Atkinson laughed. I'm always looking for development opportunities. One day I'll find the right one. There must be plenty of people out there who would love to have the World Number One involved in their project.'

  As the gallery filled the surrounding stands, he selected a five-iron and smacked a beautiful shot into the heart of the green, fifteen feet left of the flag. Again the crowd cheered, but Atkinson was less impressed by his work. He slammed the club back into the bag in annoyance. 'Poor,' he said to Skinner. `From this range I should finish no worse than ten feet away.'

  The policeman laughed. 'Back here in the world of the mortals, I'll settle for two putts for a par!'

  As they approached the green, he held back, leaving Darren Atkinson to walk alone up the slope, to receive the acclaim of his public. The champion marked his ball then signalled the crowd into silence as Murano, then Wales finished their rounds.

  Susan Kinture handed Skinner his putter, drawing murmurs from the crowd as she helped him line up his forty-foot putt. Out on the course, the gallery had been more distant, but now in the amphitheatre of the eighteenth, he fought to control the churning of his stomach. Thinking of nothing but the ball, he managed a smooth stroke and ran his approach a mere foot past the hole. Smiling with relief, he walked up, amid applause, and topped in for his par. His blonde caddy, who was holding the flag, stepped up to give him a brief hug as he stood up after picking his ball out of the hole. 'Super golf,' she whispered. 'Michael would have been so pleased to see it.'

  The line of Atkinson's birdie putt ran across a sharp slope, and down into a small flat area where the hole was cut. Watching him judge the borrow, Skinner realised that it was probably the most difficult shot of the afternoon, yet when the ball swung sharply down the slope and rolled unwaveringly into the hole he was not surprised in the slightest degree.

  He applauded with the rest, as he walked up the green to shake the champion's hand.

  'Wonderful round, Darren. I think I'll go and put those bets on now.'

  Atkinson smiled. 'Let's just hope I haven't used up my ration of birdies before the tournament begins!' With Susan Kinture between them, they walked across the green, towards the clubhouse entrance, where Arthur Highfield stood waiting, with Andres Cortes, Ewan Urquhart, and a rugged man Skinner recognised as Sandro Gregory, the Australian.

  `Well,' said Gregory, with more than a trace of irony. 'How was it? Have the rest of us got a chance at the money?'

  Atkinson looked at him evenly. 'Sure,' he said. 'All you have to do is go round in fewer shots than me.'

  `What did you shoot, Darren?' asked Urquhart.

  Oh, just one or two birdies,' he replied vaguely.

  `Yes,' said Skinner, quietly. 'Nine, to be exact. That last putt was for a sixty-three.

  Andres Cortes shook his head and muttered something obscene in Spanish.

  `That's physically impossible, Andres!' said Arthur Highfield. He rubbed his hands together.

  'Gentlemen, you will remember this evening's dinner.' The four golfers nodded. It was really you I wanted to see, Mr Skinner. The PGA is hosting a pre-tournament dinner in the clubhouse dining room. Seven-thirty for eight p.m., lounge suits. I should have mentioned it before. You will be able to come, won't you?'

  I'd be delighted. I'd better head home right now though, to break the news to my wife… gently.'

  `Bring Sarah,' said Susan Kinture at once, 'otherwise I'll be the only lady present.'<
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  `She'd love to come, but we have a four-month-old social handicap, with an established routine. And we'd never find a baby-sitter at this notice.'

  Susan Kinture folded her arms across her chest. 'No excuses, officer. We have a wonderful girl on our staff at Bracklands. She'll sit for you. Off you go home and help Sarah to get herself prepared. Otherwise I'll tell her she was invited, but you said "no" on her behalf.'

  Bob smiled. 'I give up. But you phone Sarah anyway, and tell her all about your wonder girl.

  I'll head off home, meantime.'

  `Time for a quick team shandy first,' Atkinson interposed, and led his playing companions to the changing room. Hideo Murano and Norton Wales, each sweating heavily from their exertions, decided to shower, but Atkinson and Skinner simply washed and changed into blazers, slacks and shirts.

  In the bar, they found a window table, to which Williamson, the elderly steward, brought their drinks.

  That was a lifetime of golfing experience in one afternoon, Darren,' said Skinner, sipping his Coke. 'I'll be the club bore for months. But tell me, isn't it disconcerting for you to be playing with the likes of us?'

  Atkinson smiled. 'When I play, Bob, I don't even notice you're there. I don't see anything but the ball or the course. I don't hear the crowd, not even in the States.'

  `That's dedication for you. Is your brother like you?' `Rick? Yes, I suppose he is, in his own way.'

  Is he around this week?'

  `No, he doesn't come to all the tournaments. We have field people who look after our clients' interests, just like SSC and Greenfields.'