The Prodigy

by John Feinstein

  Even though Frank understood that playing the golf course well on Monday was a bit of a mirage, he was still fired up when he rolled in a six-foot putt for par on 18 to shoot 68. If nothing else, he could always tell people he’d shot 68 at Augusta National, practice round or not.

  His father and Lawrensen were waiting for him when he and Slugger walked from the 18th green to the clubhouse inside the ropes that separated the public from those with special passes. Lawrensen was, comically, wearing a credential that said ANDREA SASAKI. That was Frank’s mother’s name, now that she’d remarried, so clearly his dad had applied for a badge for her even though she had no intention of coming.

  Since Augusta National always limited the number of credentials it would give to agents—and to media outlets—it was routine for agents to use extra family badges. It was also routine for everyone to look the other way.

  “You played great!” his father said, beaming. “Second time on the golf course, and you shot four under par!”

  “This wasn’t the golf course I’ll be playing Thursday,” Frank said, although he was pretty excited by how he’d played, too. “The greens will be completely different then.” Now he was just parroting Streelman, Spieth, and Thomas.

  “True, but you showed you can handle the length of the course,” Lawrensen said. “That’s important.”

  Frank didn’t disagree. He was looking around for Forman, who was nowhere in sight.

  “Let’s go eat,” his father said.

  “Dad, Slugger says the best food in the place is in the caddie barn,” he said. “A lot of the players eat there. I think I’ll go eat there with him, if that’s okay. We’ll have dinner tonight at the Double Eagle house.”

  Like a lot of the big-time agencies, Double Eagle Inc. had rented a big house not far from the golf course. They brought in a chef for the week and invited all their important clients to dinner every night. It was a way to get a good meal in relative privacy and not hassle with getting a reservation at a restaurant when the town was bursting at the seams with people.

  Frank’s dad hesitated. “Can the media eat in there?” he said. He was clearly thinking about Forman.

  “Nope,” Slugger answered. “Just players and caddies.”

  “Fine, then. You going to hit any balls after lunch?”

  “Don’t think so,” Frank said. “It’s getting hot, and this is not an easy golf course to walk. I want to eat, get back to the Marriott, and get off my feet.”

  His dad nodded. “Perfect. Let’s meet in the lobby at six to go to dinner. I hear you have an early tee time tomorrow.”

  Rory McIlroy had texted Frank that morning—they’d exchanged cell phone numbers—to say he and Jason Day wanted to play early because the planned nine o’clock tee time would mean a six-hour round.

  “They told me we’d tee it up about seven-thirty. Rory and Jason say that’s the only way to play eighteen holes and not lose your mind. So I want to be here by seven to warm up.”

  “I’m going to store the clubs and get out of the jumpsuit,” Slugger said. “I’ll meet you in the eating area.”

  Slugger was wearing the white-and-green jumpsuit that all Masters caddies were required to wear, even during practice rounds. The jumpsuit had the name BAKER on the back and the number 36 on the front. Frank knew that meant he had been the 35th player to register for the tournament. The number 1 always went to the defending champion. The rest of the numbers were given out in the order in which players arrived.

  Frank and Slugger walked down the hill to the area roped off for the caddies. As they started to walk in the direction of the club storage area, a guard stopped them.

  “Sorry, young man,” the guard said, nodding at Frank. “Caddies and players only in this area.”

  “He’s a player,” Slugger said.

  The guard laughed. “Sure he is—I bet he’s the next Tiger Woods.”

  Slugger reached into his bag, where he had stored Frank’s wallet, watch, and player ID while they were playing. He shoved the ID in the guard’s direction. The guard took it, looked closely at the photo and then at Frank, and finally handed it back to Slugger.

  “How old are you, young man?” he asked.

  “Seventeen,” Frank answered.

  “Well, good luck to you, then,” he said. “Maybe you are the next Tiger Woods.”

  Slugger peeled off to store the clubs, and Frank walked inside to where the buffet was set up.

  “About time you got here,” he heard a voice say.

  He looked in the direction of the voice. It was Keith Forman.

  * * *

  “How did you get in here?” Frank asked. “My dad only let me eat here because he thought you couldn’t get in. Caddies and players only.”

  “Unless a player or caddie walks you in,” Keith said with a smile. He turned to a tall, lean man standing next to him. Frank recognized him instantly.

  “Jim Mackay, meet Frank Baker.”

  “You’re Bones!” Frank said.

  Jim “Bones” Mackay was almost as famous as Phil Mickelson, the player he had caddied for dating back to 1992, before the two had split the previous summer.

  “I know,” Bones said, smiling.

  Frank knew that 1992 Masters champion Fred Couples had hung the nickname on Mackay years earlier, in part because the caddie was tall and rail-thin and in part because Couples had trouble remembering names.

  They chatted with Bones for a few minutes before heading to the buffet line. By then, Slugger had joined them. Frank’s head was spinning. It looked as if half the players in the field were eating with the caddies.

  They found a place to sit and Frank’s eyes bugged completely out of his head when he realized that Tom Watson was sitting almost directly across from him. Watson, who had won the Masters twice, didn’t play in the tournament anymore, but as a past champion he had a lifetime invitation and was obviously in town for the annual champions dinner on Tuesday night.

  Keith apparently knew everybody, because when he said hello to Watson, the legend bellowed, “Forman, how the hell did you get in here? Do I need to call security?”

  He was grinning when he said it and stuck his hand out to say hello. Watson then turned to Frank and said, “Young man, I’ve heard you have a great future, but you need to be careful about who you hang around with. Never trust the media.”

  He was still grinning as Frank was trying to find his voice. He finally did and, reaching across the table, said, “It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Watson.”

  “It’s Tom,” the legendary champion said. “And, for the record, I thought you handled yourself wonderfully during that debacle at Riviera last summer. It was a terrible moment for golf, and you were caught in the middle.”

  “Th-thanks,” Frank managed, amazed that Watson knew what had happened. Then again, everyone in golf knew what had happened. It had been a bigger story than the final outcome of the Amateur, which Frank still thought was very unfair to John Caccese, who had, after all, won the thing. All the talk the following week had been about Edward Anderson III getting caught cheating.

  Frank had just taken a bite from a fried chicken leg when Watson said, “Who’ve you got Thursday?”

  “Um, don’t know yet,” Frank answered. “Waiting for the pairings. I guess they come out today.”

  “They’re out,” Watson said. He turned to the man sitting next to him, who was wearing glasses and talking intently to Andy North, the two-time U.S. Open champion who now worked for ESPN. “Neil, hand me the pairings, will you?”

  The man he’d addressed didn’t even look at Watson, but simply reached for a piece of paper that was under his left hand and passed it over. Watson began glancing up and down the list.

  Frank had been thinking a lot about who he might play with the first two rounds. He knew the amateurs were always paired with past Masters champions. John Caccese would play with Sergio García, because the U.S. Amateur champion always played with the defending Masters champion.

>   Watson found his name on the sheet. He smiled. “You did pretty well: Zach Johnson and Justin Rose.”

  Johnson had won the Masters in 2007, beating Tiger Woods down the stretch, and had also won the British Open in 2015. Justin Rose was the international player in the group—a Brit who was the 2013 U.S. Open champion and had a reputation as one of the nicer guys in golf.

  Watson handed the pairings to him. “That’s a good group for you. They’re both good guys and they play fast.”

  Watson was one of the fastest players in the game’s history and was well known for not liking to play with slow players—other than Nicklaus, who was as slow as he was great, and who was also a close friend of Watson’s.

  Frank felt his stomach twist a little as he pictured himself on the first tee Thursday with the two major champions. Not only was Rose a past U.S. Open champion, but he had lost in a playoff to Sergio García here a year earlier. A lot of people would be watching Rose and Johnson—which meant they’d be watching Frank.

  Slugger read his mind. “No matter who you play with, a lot of people are going to be watching you,” he said. “Don’t sweat it. Like Tom says, it’s a good pairing for you.”

  Frank looked down at the sheet. They were teeing off at 8:48. At least it was early. He wasn’t going to sleep Wednesday night, so the earlier they teed off, the better.

  Watson and the man he’d called Neil stood up to go. Frank had figured out that Neil was Watson’s caddie.

  Watson leaned down to talk to Frank in a low voice before he left. “I’ve heard some stories about that agent Lawrensen running around trying to make deals for you. Don’t get carried away with all this. You’re a high school senior, right?”

  Frank nodded.

  “Go to college. If you’re any good, there’s plenty of time to play golf.”

  He shook Frank’s hand, patted Neil on the shoulder, and they took off.

  Slugger watched them leave, then turned to Frank and said: “You see his caddie, Neil Oxman?”

  Frank wasn’t paying attention. He was thinking about what Watson had just said.

  “What?”

  “Neil Oxman, Watson’s caddie.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s probably the richest guy in this room. In real life he’s a big-time political consultant,” Slugger said.

  “A Democratic political consultant,” Keith put in.

  Slugger was nodding. “Yup, a commie, just like Keith. But a rich one.”

  Frank smiled and nodded vaguely, but all he could focus on was what Tom Watson had just said in parting: “Go to college.”

  He knew the legend was right. But how could he convince his father of that? He snapped from his reverie. That could wait. He had a tee time the next day with Rory McIlroy, Jason Day, and Phil Mickelson—ten major titles among them. There was no reason to think of anything else. At least for now.

  27

  Keith followed Frank and Slugger out of the caddie barn and spent a moment with them outside. He was tempted to reinforce what Watson had said inside, but figured he didn’t need to here and now.

  They were leaving. Frank was worn out from the early wake-up and wanted to be ready for his big day on Tuesday. Keith thought that was a smart idea.

  “What are you going to do the rest of the day?” Slugger asked his friend.

  Keith sighed. “Something I’m not going to enjoy—find some agents.”

  “Why?” Frank asked.

  “Because I want to get more specifics on what Lawrensen’s really up to. He must be getting around if Watson’s heard stuff. I’d like to find out what you might actually be dealing with next week, Frank. Your dad and Lawrensen certainly aren’t going to tell me, so I have to try to get a feel for it on my own.”

  “Well, do me a favor,” Slugger said. “Don’t tell us. Let’s keep Frank’s focus on golf—at least for the rest of this week.”

  “Couldn’t agree more,” Keith said.

  Frank and Slugger turned to walk to the player parking lot. Keith went the other way, circling back to the other side of the clubhouse—the golf-course side.

  He walked up the hill to the big tree. The lawn underneath its enormous branches was teeming with people. Monday under the tree at the Masters was like the first day of school. The entire golf world was there, and everyone was glad to see everyone else.

  Keith said hello to a number of people, but he was on a mission now. He spotted Mark Steinberg, Tiger Woods’s longtime agent who also represented Matt Kuchar and Justin Rose. The guy knew just about everyone in the world of corporate golf.

  Steinberg was talking to Jerry Tarde, the editor in chief of Golf Digest—who was Keith’s boss. That meant that Keith had a good walk-up excuse; he wasn’t just interrupting Steinberg and a stranger.

  “Ah, there he is, the man I’m paying to babysit a teenager all week,” Tarde said as Keith approached.

  “The teenager’s playing tomorrow morning with McIlroy, Jay-Day, and Mickelson,” Keith said.

  “I hope he brings his wallet,” Steinberg said.

  Keith pretended to be stunned. “Mark, you know there’s no gambling on the PGA Tour,” he said.

  The conversation continued in that vein for a couple of minutes before Tarde said, “Well, I should probably check on my writers who are actually working this week.”

  As he walked away, Keith asked Steinberg if he had a minute. Steinberg shrugged. “As long as you aren’t going to ask me about Tiger, I’ve got all the time you want.”

  “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about the teenager I’m babysitting.”

  “I hear he’s pretty good,” Steinberg said. “But Ron Lawrensen is all over him. In fact, I think Lawrensen’s already got a deal with the old man.”

  “Oh, he does,” Keith said. “But I’m hearing he’s also trying to make deals for Frank right now.”

  Steinberg looked around for a second as if making sure no one else was listening. “I’ve heard the same thing,” he finally said. “Talk to the Nike guys and to the Brickley guys. I think he’s trying to draw them into a bidding war of some kind. Which, by the way, is smart. He’s also talked, I hear, to Callaway and Titleist about club deals. And he’s talking to McCarley about some kind of deal with Golf Channel.”

  “Deal with Golf Channel?” Keith said. Mike McCarley was the television company’s president.

  Steinberg nodded. “Like a ‘year in the life of a rookie’ type of thing.”

  That was the same sort of idea the agent had been pitching ESPN the previous summer. Now it appeared that Lawrensen was trying to create yet another bidding war, this one between TV networks, for Frank.

  Keith realized that neither ESPN nor Golf Channel could do such a story if Frank wasn’t a rookie on the Tour. Even if they wanted to chronicle his freshman year in college, NCAA rules wouldn’t allow it.

  “Is he pitching this stuff for right now?” he asked Steinberg.

  Steinberg shrugged. “From what I hear.”

  It occurred to Keith that the train might already be out of the station and the engineer driving it—Frank—hadn’t even been told.

  He thanked Steinberg and turned to leave.

  “Hey, we’re off the record on all this,” Steinberg said. “You aren’t going to quote me to anybody.”

  “Promise,” Keith said.

  What he needed right now was information, not quotes.

  He wanted to find some of the people Lawrensen was dealing with. Even if they wouldn’t confirm anything, their demeanor and body language might tell him a lot.

  He circulated around the tree a while longer, bumping into Guy Kinnings, the head of golf at the sports agency IMG. The agent had heard basically the same things that Steinberg had, except he added that Sky Sports was also talking to Lawrensen about some sort of documentary deal. Kinnings was based in London, so it made sense that he might know something about a Sky deal.

  Keith went inside the clubhouse to see who else might be around. He walked
up the circular stairs to the second floor, where the dining room, veranda, and the champions locker room were located. As he reached the top of the steps, he almost ran smack into Mike Weir, the 2003 champ.

  Weir had been the first lefty and the first Canadian to win the Masters. He had struggled with injuries in recent years but was one of the more popular guys in the game. Keith had first met him when Weir was playing some Web.com events to try to get his game back into shape.

  “Not waiting in line for the shower, were you?” Keith said, nodding in the direction of the door to the exclusive locker room.

  For a split second Weir looked baffled; then he burst out laughing. “No, but you can bet I’ll take care of that early tonight.”

  He had once told Keith a story about the 2004 champions dinner—which he had to host as the defending champion. He’d been on the range, grinding on his swing, when he suddenly realized the dinner was starting in a half hour and he was a sweaty mess. He’d raced back to the clubhouse to take a shower.

  “There’s only one shower in the champions locker room,” he had said. “I walk in and Nicklaus and Watson are waiting their turn. Palmer’s in the shower. Kind of hard to cut that line.”

  Just for the heck of it, Keith asked Weir if he had seen any of the shoe guys, as everyone called them, lurking around anywhere.

  Weir smiled. “Look behind you,” he said. “Billy Nevins is sitting right over there in the corner.”

  Keith turned and saw Nevins, the main Tour rep for Brickley, sitting at a corner table in the dining room with a very beautiful woman.

  “Thanks, Weirsy,” Keith said, using the nickname Weir was almost always called by everyone on the Tour.

  The small dining room only had about a dozen tables. There were perhaps a dozen more outside on the veranda. Inside was packed. Keith explained to the maître d’ that he was looking for Mr. Nevins, whom he pointed to in the corner. There were several members, easy to pick out in their green jackets, sitting at a number of tables. Keith felt as if they were staring at him as he moved across the room, even though he knew most—if not all—of them had no idea who he was or would care even if they did.