The Prodigy

by John Feinstein

  He reached Nevins’s table. He knew Nevins to say hello to, usually on the range, but had never had any kind of real conversation with him. His interest in who was wearing what clothes or golf shoes was, to say the least, minimal.

  “Billy, Keith Forman,” he said, reaching his hand across the table.

  Nevins smiled, but not with any warmth. “Sure, Keith, I know,” he said. “This is one of our sales reps, Erica Chambers.”

  Erica Chambers was, in fact, quite beautiful. She had jet-black hair and matching eyes that seemed to look right through him as she extended a hand. “I’ve read you in Golf Digest, haven’t I?” she said.

  “On occasion,” Keith said, flattered and a little bit dazzled. Erica Chambers wasn’t a run-of-the-mill good-looking golf wife or groupie. She was stunning.

  “You love Rory McIlroy, don’t you?” she added. “Every time I read you there’s something in your story about what a great guy Rory is.”

  “Well, Rory is a great guy,” Keith said defensively. “And very quotable.”

  “Erica’s very competitive,” Nevins said. “She’d rather you love some of our guys, not a Nike guy.”

  “Well, actually I was hoping to talk to you about someone who might be one of your guys soon,” Keith said.

  Nevins pointed at the empty chair directly across from him. “Join us. You hungry?”

  “Thanks, but I ate in the caddie barn,” Keith said. “I wouldn’t mind some coffee, though.”

  Nevins waved in the direction of a waiter while Erica Chambers looked at him, surprise in her spectacular eyes, and said, “You ate in the caddie barn? With the caddies?”

  Clearly, she found the notion remarkable.

  “And a few of the players,” Keith said. “It’s the best food on campus.”

  “On campus?” Chambers asked.

  “Just a phrase I use,” Keith said. “This place reminds me of college, somehow. All the cliques and the endless popularity contests.”

  The waiter arrived, a familiar face from Keith’s past trips to Augusta.

  “Mr. Forman, how good to see you,” the waiter said.

  Keith had always found Augusta’s employees to be the nicest people at the place. Joseph Andrews was one of those people.

  “Joseph, great to see you, too,” he said.

  “Are you eating?” Joseph asked. “Need a menu?”

  “No, thanks,” Keith said. “Just coffee with cream would be great.”

  “Coming up,” Joseph said.

  “So, Keith, what can I do for you?” Nevins asked.

  Keith decided not to beat around the bush. “Frank Baker,” he said.

  Nevins’s eyebrows twitched. He smiled. “We on the record or off?” he asked.

  “Whatever gets me an honest answer,” Keith said.

  “That would be off.”

  Keith nodded and made a point of putting the notebook he’d taken out of his pocket on the table, pen on top of it.

  “Of course we’re interested in the kid,” Nevins said. “Everybody is.”

  “Nike would kill to have him,” Chambers said, which earned her a sharp look from Nevins.

  “Nike, Adidas, everyone is in the mix right now. But…” He paused and leaned back in his chair as Joseph arrived with the coffee.

  “But,” Keith said once the waiter had left.

  “But I think we have an edge. Our biggest-name player right now is Jesse Allen. We’re going to make a play for Harold Varner III because he’s got such a great personality, and if he plays well at all, he can make us a lot of money.” Nevins paused for a sip of water. “Nike has Rory, who is a big number and worth it, and Tiger, who is a bigger number and not worth it—unless he actually starts racking up wins again. I think they want the kid. But they have a ceiling on investing in a teenager. We don’t have a ceiling.”

  “You’re that sold on the kid?” Keith asked.

  “Everyone I’ve talked to loves his game, his maturity, and his personality. Look, the last sure-fire guy was Tiger. Nike got a bargain with him at the beginning. No one’s ever really sure-fire, but we like this kid a lot.” He stopped as if he thought he’d gone too far. “What are you going to do with this?” he asked.

  “For now, nothing,” Keith said. “But that might change as soon as…” He left the sentence hanging intentionally.

  “Next week,” Nevins said, finishing the thought for him.

  “You sure Lawrensen will deliver him?”

  Nevins smiled. “Ron Lawrensen’s an agent. I never trust agents. But there’s a lot of money at stake for him here, short term and long term. He’s told me the kid is balking a little at turning pro right now, but he’ll deliver. As you probably know, Double Eagle practically owns the father. The kid will sign.”

  “With you,” Keith said.

  “Well, if he wins the Masters that could change things,” Nevins said with a laugh. “Beyond that, I feel pretty confident.”

  Keith drained his coffee and reached into his wallet to leave money to pay for it.

  Nevins waved him off. “Brickley Shoes can pay for a cup of coffee,” he said. “If you can be bought for that, then you’re in trouble.”

  Keith was about to answer when Joseph returned with lunches for Nevins and Chambers.

  Seeing Keith’s wallet, the waiter said, “Don’t worry, Mr. Forman, coffee’s on me.” He put the plates down and asked if his two customers needed anything else.

  “Ketchup,” Chambers said, not adding a “please.”

  “Coming up,” Joseph said. He shook Keith’s hand and said, “Please stop in and have lunch with us one day.”

  “I will, Joseph,” Keith said.

  He turned to say goodbye to Billy Nevins and Erica Chambers, and then walked away.

  28

  Frank was wired when he got out of the car on Tuesday morning.

  He realized his adrenaline was almost out of control. If he felt this way for a Tuesday practice round, how was he going to feel on Thursday?

  He practically sprinted to the entrance to the range—oops, tournament practice area—and had to wait for Slugger to catch up with him.

  “Do me a favor,” Slugger said as they were handed some range balls by one of the attendants. “Don’t drink any more coffee this morning.”

  Phil Mickelson and Jason Day were already hitting balls, and Frank stopped to say good morning, introduce himself briefly, and shake hands. One thing golfers understood was that you didn’t socialize on the range very much before playing—even on a practice day. After a round was different. That was more of a social hour than pre-round sessions.

  “We’re off at seven-fifty,” Day said. “Earliest I could get when I signed up.”

  “Perfect,” Frank said. “Have you seen Rory?”

  Day laughed. “No, and we probably won’t for another half hour. He’s not big on long warm-ups.”

  Sure enough, McIlroy walked onto the range at seven-thirty, hit about a dozen balls, and said, “Meet you guys on the putting green.”

  It was on the putting green, with fans—who hadn’t even been let in the gates until 7:15 but who were already at least five or six deep—that the four players all gathered in the middle of the green to settle on the day’s bet.

  “We do it here,” McIlroy explained, “so that the patrons and green-jackets on the first tee don’t hear us.”

  “Since no one bets on the PGA Tour,” Day put in.

  Mickelson nodded, with his big impish grin—if a forty-seven-year-old could be impish—firmly in place. “So, usual non-bet, right? If we were playing for money, it’d be a thousand bucks a hole, automatic presses.” He turned to Frank. “Can you handle that, kid? Or do we need to play for a dollar or something?”

  “He’s fine,” McIlroy said. “No worries.”

  Mickelson’s crack about playing for a dollar reminded Frank of a famous story told about Jack Stephens, the late past president of Augusta National. According to legend, a friend of Stephens’s had shown up
one morning with a guest who thought himself quite the hotshot.

  “So what are we playing for?” the guest had said on the first tee. “A thousand a hole, five thousand?”

  Stephens, who was a billionaire, looked at the guest and said in his Arkansas drawl, “Around here, we usually play for a dollar.”

  “A dollar!” the guest said, stunned. “A dollar? What’s the point of even playing?”

  He continued to complain the entire round about the embarrassment of only playing for a dollar. When the round ended, the foursome moved into the clubhouse for lunch. When the guest again expressed dismay at not playing for some real money, Stephens looked at him and said, “Exactly how much are you worth?”

  The guest drew himself up and said proudly, “Forty-two million dollars.”

  Stephens nodded, waved a waiter over, and asked for a deck of cards. The waiter brought the cards to Stephens, who put the deck on the table and said, “Forty-two million dollars, right?”

  The guest, a bit baffled by now, nodded.

  “Okay,” Stephens said. “I’ll cut you for it. That real enough for you?”

  The guest practically whimpered as he backed down and didn’t say another word the rest of the day. Needless to say, he was never invited back.

  Even though McIlroy was fronting him, Frank would have preferred to play for a dollar, like Jack Stephens.

  The bet made, the four of them walked between the ropes from the putting green to the first tee. There were cheers all around, people leaning against the ropes reaching out for hand slaps as the players went by. They all granted them. There were no autograph requests because club rules expressly forbade autograph-seeking on the golf-course side of the clubhouse.

  As the players walked onto the tee, several fans began chanting, “USA, USA,” the chant that seemed to break out anytime Americans were playing against non-Americans in anything.

  “USA versus foreigners, right, Phil?” someone yelled on the tee.

  Mickelson shook his head. “This isn’t the Ryder Cup—it’s a practice round,” he said. “Rory wanted the kid.” He turned to Frank and said, “Lead us off there, kid.”

  Me? Lead off? In front of all these people? Frank, who’d been enjoying every second up to this moment, had no choice.

  He teed his ball up, stepped back to go into his pre-shot routine, and heard Mickelson say in a loud stage whisper, “Wonder if he knows about the bunker out there at about three hundred?”

  This got a laugh from the crowd. The first hole’s fairway bunker was impossible to miss.

  “You starting already, Phil?” McIlroy said with a grin. “On a seventeen-year-old? Really?”

  “You were pretty good at seventeen, as I remember,” Mickelson said.

  “At least I can remember when I was that age,” McIlroy answered.

  Oh my God, Frank thought, stalling to let the trash talk wind down. Is it going to be like this all day?

  * * *

  It was exactly like that all day.

  With the bunker now clearly stuck in his mind thanks to Phil’s ribbing, Frank pulled his first tee shot into the left rough but managed to keep it out of the trees. From there, he made par—as did everyone else. That helped him settle down.

  Then, on Number 2, he bombed his tee shot over the bunker. So did McIlroy and Day. Mickelson found the bunker and had to lay up. The rest of them went for the green in two. Day hit his shot into the left-front bunker. Frank found the green and had a 40-foot eagle putt. McIlroy got his ball to within 20 feet. Day got up-and-down for birdie, making the bunker shot look easy. Frank hit a good putt to within three feet.

  Frank looked at Mickelson. “Pick it up?” he asked.

  “Better mark it,” Mickelson said. “Just in case Rory knocks his six feet past.”

  Instead, McIlroy’s putt went dead center for eagle, winning the hole for them. “Now,” he said to his partner, “you can pick it up.”

  They fist-bumped.

  Frank was having a blast.

  That’s how it went the rest of the round. Kevin Streelman had given Frank some helpful hints the day before, but his three playing companions this time around seemed to know every inch of the golf course. Mickelson had won the Masters three times; Day had finished second; and McIlroy had taken a four-shot lead into the final round seven years earlier, only to shoot 80 on Sunday. He was just twenty-one at the time. Six weeks later, he’d rebounded to win the U.S. Open by eight shots.

  The level of play was breathtaking. Someone seemed to make a birdie—or an eagle—on every hole. Frank and McIlroy won the front nine one-up, when Frank, remembering what Streelman had said about needing to hit the ball 20 feet past the pin on the ninth green when the hole location was near the front, did just that. The ball rolled back to within three feet and he made the birdie putt.

  “You brought a blanking ringer!” Mickelson said to McIlroy. “This kid’s not seventeen. No way!”

  He walked over and fist-bumped Frank. “Good playing,” he said softly.

  The back nine was more of the same. Day and McIlroy halved the 13th hole with eagles; then Mickelson made one at 15. They came to the 18th with the whole match—for an “imaginary” $5,000—even, and McIlroy and Frank one-up on all the various presses. If 18 was halved, Frank and Rory would win $1,000. If they won it, they’d win $6,000. If Mickelson and Day won the hole, Rory would have to pay their opponents $4,000.

  Frank stood off the tee, looking down the chute between the trees, heart pounding. Mickelson and Day had the tee, and they both bombed drives past the fairway bunker on the left. McIlroy hit first for their team, and he, too, striped his drive. With his partner safely in the fairway, Frank relaxed and hit a bomb that was only a few feet short of McIlroy.

  “Honestly, I can’t believe how long you are at seventeen,” Rory said as they walked off the tee. “I couldn’t hit it close to there when I was your age.”

  Frank just smiled at the compliment. In truth, he normally couldn’t really hit it close to that far either. He just had so much adrenaline pumping that the ball felt as if it were exploding off his club.

  They all had seven- or eight-irons in. The hole was cut near the back of the green, so Frank took the seven, even though Slugger thought it might be an eight. Slugger might have been right. The ball landed hole-high, took a quick hop, and went over the green, leaving him with a difficult downhill chip back, even though he was less than 20 feet from the hole. The other three all hit the green, none of them close but all below the hole with birdie putts.

  Mickelson and Day went first, each from about 30 feet. Mickelson’s putt looked like it was going in before it curled right, about six inches from the cup for a gimme tap-in. With his partner safely in for par, Day banged his putt, but it hit the cup still going fast and popped out.

  McIlroy was about 25 feet away. “Why don’t you go first,” he said to Frank. “Get it close so I can go after my putt.”

  Frank liked that idea. He knew Rory wasn’t going to three-putt from below the hole, which meant that they would, at worst, tie the hole and the match.

  He thought for a moment about putting, which he often liked to do from off the green, but the grass was a little too thick, so he took his wedge.

  “You land it more than about six inches on the green, it’s going all the way to the bottom,” Slugger said.

  “And if I land it short, it might not get on the green,” Frank said.

  “That’s why you should have hit eight,” Slugger said, which annoyed Frank a little.

  He shook it off, studied the shot, and stood over the ball. The crowd was at least six-deep around the green. Augusta never released attendance figures, but Frank had read that at least fifty thousand people passed through the gates on practice days. It looked as if half of them were around the green at that moment. He hadn’t seen his father or Lawrensen all morning, but that was okay—they might have been standing on top of him and he wouldn’t have noticed. He was having too much fun.

&n
bsp; It was as quiet as if it were Sunday afternoon. Frank got his club well under the ball and felt it gently pop in the air, exactly as he had intended. It landed just on the green and began picking up speed as it approached the cup. Frank realized that if it didn’t hit the flagstick, it wasn’t going to stop for a while.

  “Hit the hole!” he yelled, in what he knew was a pleading tone.

  Somehow, the ball heard him. It hit the stick, popped into the air, and then disappeared into the hole. The crowd exploded. Frank felt like he’d won the Masters. McIlroy was running at him, arms in the air. If they hadn’t been on the iconic 18th green at Augusta, Frank might have jumped in the air for a chest-bump. Instead, they double-high-fived, and Rory hugged him.

  “You are ridiculous!” he shouted in Frank’s ear.

  Mickelson and Day were standing there with silly grins on their faces. They also hugged Frank.

  “When I’m Ryder Cup captain, I want you on my team,” Mickelson said.

  Frank knew Mickelson wouldn’t be Ryder Cup captain for another six years, but that sounded good to him.

  “Great playing, mate,” Day said.

  “We’ll pay off over lunch,” Mickelson said.

  They walked off the green with the crowd chanting, “USA, USA!”

  Frank didn’t quite get it, but he enjoyed it anyway.

  * * *

  They all had to spend a few minutes under the big oak tree talking to the media. Most of Frank’s questions were about what it was like to play with the three stars. Then someone said, “Rory just said you’re the most talented young player he’s seen since he came on tour.”

  It was a statement, not a question, but he was clearly expected to respond.

  “That’s really nice of him to say,” Frank said. “I had a very good day today. I’m not really as talented as all that. I was just inspired, I guess, by playing with those guys.”

  It occurred to Frank that he had shot 67 on his own ball, which was pretty amazing, especially given the pressures of the match and Mickelson’s constant needling.

  “Do you think you can play as well as this on Thursday?” someone asked.

  “I hope so,” Frank said. “I’m sure the golf course will be set up very different and there won’t be as much joking around going on, so we’ll have to see, I guess. I’m certainly psyched for it.”