Walking with Jack

by Don J. Snyder

  “Aye,” he said. “But you dinna make any new ones! And you’re not a shadow anymore, Don.”

  We talked for a while. He gave me the best advice: “Someday you will be caddying for your son when every shot will count. What you want to do now is learn something each time you are out on the golf course. Keep your eyes open and your head up and you will always learn something new.”

  ———

  So here I am in the Chariots pub celebrating with mashed and bangers. And I’m wearing my new handsome vest, dark blue with the gold Kingsbarns crown over my heart. I feel as if I belong here.

  MAY 13, 2008

  Let it be noted here what a well-trained caddie working in Scotland will carry for himself and his golfer: tees, divot tool, small coin for marker, pencil, extra scorecard, lighter, wool cap for when the wind howls off the North Sea, sunscreen (seldom needed), large towel with one end kept wet to clean clubs and ball, wee towel kept dry at all costs beneath his clothing and used only for grips (often needed), sandwich for when he is sent straight from the 18th green back to the 1st tee for a second loop, small bottle of water he can refill around the course as needed, waterproofs top and bottom, a pharmacopoeia of drugs for aches and ailments because it is a point of honor never to call in sick in the 180-day season, pin sheet, and yardage book, though he knows the ground by heart. In addition, of course, he carries his golfer’s clubs, and because the game can wreak havoc inside a player’s mind, there are those times when he carries his golfer as well and learns what it really means to be a caddie.

  These last three days I made a friend for life in a sixty-year-old investment banker from JPMorgan. It began on a windswept hillside just off the par-5 9th tee. He had blocked his drive high into a left-to-right gale, and by the time I climbed down the hill and found his ball, we were so far off course that he was just going to pick up and skip the hole. I persuaded him that we still had a chance. “A chance for what?” he said. “For par,” I told him. I handed him his eight-iron. “If you can just get the ball up in the air and over my head, we’ll be able to play from there.” He agreed to give it a try. I climbed back up the hill to the edge of the fairway, then positioned myself in a spot that took the bunkers out of play. It had taken us so long to reach his ball that his three pals were way off in the distance, already approaching the green. I put my hands over my head like a football referee signaling a touchdown. “Right at me!” I yelled down at him. He sort of shrugged, then settled into the swing. He swung so hard his hat flew off, and though it was not a great swing by any means, it was decent enough for his ball to clear my head by a few feet and land harmlessly in the fairway. When he reached me, he was winded from the climb. “We lie two,” I reminded him. “Three strokes left to save par.” We missed that par but had two even more remarkable par saves on the back nine, and as we were walking up 18 together, he asked me if I would caddie for him the next two days, when he and his pals played at Elie and the Torrance Course. “Why didn’t you give up on me?” he asked as we walked to his car. I gave him my stock answer, every word true, telling him that someday I would be fighting to save par with my son when we were playing on a pro tour somewhere.

  Davy gave me permission, and I spent the next two days with him. Late this afternoon as we were saying our good-byes and exchanging e-mail addresses, I said, “Can I ask you something?”

  “Anything,” he said.

  “Well, all my life I’ve heard that making a ton of money as an investment banker is easy. I’ve never believed that. I’ve always thought that for every guy who gets rich, there have to be nine guys who wash out.”

  He stopped me and turned to look into my eyes. “You’re wrong,” he said. “Take a look at the four of us. None of us made less than thirty million last year. And believe me, it was easy. A hell of a lot easier than lugging around someone’s golf clubs.”

  We had spent enough time together that he knew my financial situation. I had told him about the $300,000 I’d borrowed from banks so far to put my kids through college. Now as he took his wallet from his golf bag, he asked me if I had any of that money left. “Not much,” I said. “Well, whatever you have, you need to get it out of the banks in cash,” he told me. “Are you getting any news from home?”

  I told him that I had no TV or radio or Internet. “I’m living in a dreamworld here,” I said.

  “Good for you,” he said with a smile that quickly vanished. “Bear Stearns’s stock was selling for $133 a share not long ago. Our company is about to buy all their stock for two bucks a share.” Then he asked me if I had read my Suetonius. “The writings of the Roman historian who accurately predicted the collapse of the Roman Empire,” he explained. “Suetonius was invited to spend an evening reading poetry in the mansion of a nobleman. All in attendance were noblemen, and after two poems they were no longer interested in listening. Here were the nation’s aristocracy, and they had become shallow, uneducated people, interested only in their personal gain and their entertainment. After that evening, Suetonius knew that his society was finished. We’re right back there again. Trust me.”

  He took seven $100 bills from his wallet, folded them neatly, and placed them in my hand. “Don’t put this in the bank,” he said. “Wire it home on Western Union to your wife. Wire home every dollar you don’t need to survive here. Tell your wife to put it in a coffee can along with all the cash you have in the bank and on those lines of credit. Max out all your credit cards for cash too. Don’t worry about paying it back. And if you own stock, sell it. Have your wife bury the can in your backyard. I’m completely serious about this. A tsunami is coming. It’s going to happen this summer. Guys like me already have our exit strategy. You need to do exactly what I’m telling you.”

  I don’t know what to make of this, whether these are the wise words of a man with inside information or the mad, guilt-laden rantings of a jaded banker. Either way, I liked him and enjoyed our connection. As for his predictions, it’s a terrible thing to admit, but if he had been a decent golfer instead of a hacker, I think I would take his advice.

  MAY 20, 2008

  After my loop tonight when the course was empty, I sat on a hillside, leaning against a stone wall, and wrote Colleen a love letter on my BlackBerry. I thanked her for each of our babies and for believing in me as a writer. I apologized for being such a slow learner and for never being able to hold down a job across the years. In our twenty-five years together I taught for only eight years, and that was the only time I’ve had a steady paycheck. I was already fifty years old when we bought our first house. And I was fifty-three when my movie was made and I took my three daughters to Hollywood and bought them their first nice dresses. It just took so damned long for me. And it was difficult. I never had any natural ability. It was all just pure determination for me.

  JUNE 1, 2008

  For as long as I live, let me never forget this ride into work along the North Sea with the sun just rising over the blue water, and the tan sheep on the green hillsides, and the ancient stone walls dividing the farmers’ fields, and these good people on their way to work with me. The farmworkers from eastern Europe in their muddy rubber boots. The young Scottish nurse with blush in her cheeks, sitting up so straight in her starched white uniform. And the schoolchildren in their blue blazers and black ties.

  I climb to the upper deck of this bus and tap these words into my BlackBerry: I could live here forever, and if I can stay healthy and fit, I can march every day as a caddie and take care of Colleen as I grow old. I can do one loop a day for £60, which is £1,800 a month roughly. Four hundred and sixty for rent and utilities. No car. No car insurance. No TV or Internet. No pension. No bank account because since September 11, no foreigners can open up bank accounts in Great Britain. Just throw my money into a drawer at the end of every day and we will have more than we can spend. What we won’t need, we will send home to the kids.

  Midnight. I can’t fall asleep. I miss Colleen. I miss my girls. It seems that whenever I think about them, m
y eyes fill with tears. I miss Jack. They all seem so far away. I can feel the passage of time carrying us away. I know what it is. All day out on my loop this morning with the three caddies who were half my age, I had to hurry to keep up. The thing that I worried about on the bus this morning was right there in front of me at work. And my right knee is sore. I came down the back side of a hill and twisted it under the weight of a very heavy golf bag. I was trying not to limp through the rest of the round. But for the life of me, I could not catch up. I felt the way you do in a dream when you are trying to run but your legs won’t move fast enough to get up any real speed.

  And then, to make matters worse, when I walked back to town and stumbled into the little stone hut at the bus stop, there was someone there, sitting on the bench with his head bowed, leaning forward on his knees, as if he were praying or trying to catch his breath. He was wearing a new Titleist cap and brand-new running shoes and shorts that showed his tan legs. I had on my blue vest, and when I introduced myself, it surprised me that he knew who I was. He explained that Davy had told him about me, the guy trying to become a caddie for his son. He asked me how old my son was, and we talked for a while about the road ahead. Then he told me that he had been caddying for almost thirty years, working at private clubs in Florida during the winter and for the last seven seasons here at Kingsbarns during the summer. This winter he had developed some trouble with circulation in his feet, and today, his first day back in Scotland, he had walked the golf course alone, climbing the hills at his own pace, just to test his feet on this ground. “I’m at the end of the line,” he said as he glanced up the road into the distance. “I just told Davy that I’m through. I’ll be leaving in the morning.”

  When the bus came, rather than walk to the door with him, I said good-bye. “You’re not coming?” he asked.

  “No, I’m taking the bus into St. Andrews,” I lied.

  “You’re waiting on the wrong side of the road then,” he said.

  “Right,” I said. “I keep forgetting.”

  I don’t know why I didn’t want to ride the bus with him. Maybe because I thought he wanted to be alone with his thoughts. Or maybe because I was afraid to get any closer to him. He looked to be younger than I by at least a few years. I watched him pull himself up onto the bus like an old man. Then he turned back.

  “Your boy has to make the cuts to have a chance. Play the early rounds not to lose. Then after you make the cut, play to win.”

  “Good advice,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “And if you’re going to be on his bag, don’t put on weight,” he said, patting his stomach. “There aren’t any fat, good caddies.”

  JUNE 10, 2008

  This morning I sat for three hours with Jimmy Hughes, my age exactly, a fine man with bright eyes and a quick wit. I feel comfortable talking with him. His father did not want him to become a fisherman, and so that is what he became. For years, each day at work, just off the shore here, he would look at the golf course while he was working and wonder what it would be like to be a caddie. Now he’s here. Today I told him the advice that one of the veteran caddies had told me a month ago. The secret is to stay one step ahead of the golfer, meaning, don’t wait until you get to the tee to look in your yardage book for the distances to the bunkers ahead of you. Glance at the yardage book and get the distances while you are walking from the green to the tee box. If you are going to be calm and unhurried out there, then you have to stay ahead. This is going to be a job of uncertainty. Each day we don’t know if we will go out. And if we do, we don’t know what time we will go out. We don’t know when we will finish and go home. We don’t know what kind of golfer we will have or how he will treat us. We don’t know what we will get paid. We don’t know what the weather will be like. We don’t know if we will screw up in some fundamental way. We don’t know if we’ll be able to find his golf ball when he hits it into the rough. And then, of course, there is the uncertainty that is intrinsic to the game. Nothing is certain. The caddie must carry through all the uncertainty—with a quiet confidence and calm as if he relishes the uncertainty. Thrives on it! Will never get flustered by it! We are supposed to be the Kings of Cool. Always cool.

  ———

  After three hours, Davy told us all that we could go home. The rest of the golfers booked for the late afternoon had not requested caddies when they made their reservations. There was always the chance they might change their minds when they arrived, and so I stayed behind and waited another four hours and had the privilege of being the last caddie out on the course with a Catholic priest from Northern Ireland with freckled arms and long red hair who apologized to me on the 1st tee for the weight of his old leather golf bag. When I raised it off the ground, it felt like a ship’s anchor. “Take a look,” he said. I knelt down and unzipped the large pocket, then counted eight sixteen-ounce tins of Tennent’s beer. “If you’re feeling like a drink yourself, be my guest,” he said amiably. “The more we drink, the lighter your load.”

  I liked him immediately and tried out the line I’d heard from one of the Scottish caddies on the 1st tee. Because we meet on the 1st tee, we have no idea what kind of golfer the fellow is—more of the uncertainty. I have already been out with a man from Belgium who never hit one single shot in the fairway the entire round. I spent five hours walking through thick fescue with my head down searching miserably for his balls. “Okay, Father,” I said as he took his practice swings on the 1st tee. “Tell me how far you can hit your driver, and please don’t lie to me.”

  I liked his smile. And the way he struck the ball. He didn’t hit it far, but he kept it straight, which meant a walk in the short grass for a change. We were only 158 yards from the green after his low, drawing drive rolled 60 yards when it landed. This called for his first beer. When I unzipped the bag this time, some clothes fell out. One item was a black shirt with the white priest’s collar attached. I am beginning to think that every golfer I will meet this season will have a story. He told me his as we played on. He was here to make a very difficult call on an old friend who had started seminary with him twenty-four years ago but had dropped out, gotten married, and raised a family not far from St. Andrews. Three days ago the man’s oldest son had drowned.

  It came down to the two of us discussing the existence of God while we huddled on the bench at the 15th tee, him finishing off his last beer and me holding the umbrella to keep the sideways rain from our faces, with the grip of his driver shoved under my jacket and shirt to keep it dry. Across the years he said it had occurred to him many times that the whole story of God and Jesus and the Holy Mother might have been just a made-up story to placate our fears about dying. But he had always renounced these doubts and clung to his faith. But now he was worried. The moment he had received word of the death of his old friend’s son, he had begun to sense that this was going to be the end of his belief. “That’s why I arrived in time to walk eighteen holes,” he explained. “And I never take a caddie. But I knew that I needed to talk with someone this time. I mean, before I go and see my friend.”

  I told him that I had taken my four children to Northern Ireland in 1997 so they could walk through the village their great-grandmother had left in 1901 to make her way by boat to Ellis Island. “The next summer there was that terrible bombing.”

  “Omagh,” he said. “Horrendous. The worst bombing in the history of the Troubles. It was the anniversary of my ordination of all things. I went to Omagh one year later.” He asked me if I was familiar with the band U2 and their version of “Sunday Bloody Sunday” when Bono recites the names of everyone killed in the bombing there. I told him that I was.

  “Actually,” he said, “a writer from America wrote a book about Omagh. I read it some time ago. A novel that was set against the backdrop of the bombing. He had been at the funeral for a young mother who died in the blast with twin girls in her belly just a few weeks from being born. And her three-year-old daughter holding her hand. All four were buried in the same grave. I don’t recal
l her name just now.”

  “Avril Monaghan,” I said.

  He was surprised. “So you know the story?” he asked.

  I told him that my son had given me the DVD of Bono singing the song in her memory. We talked about his faith and loss of faith as we walked in the soft rain while dusk fell. Coming up the 16th fairway, we were only 170 yards from the green in two on the par-5. I handed him a six-iron and explained that we had to land this next shot short of the green. “If the ball reaches the green on the fly or the roll,” I said, “it will race all the way across the green and down the slope into the river. Nothing can stop it.”

  When I handed him the six-iron, I could tell that he wasn’t buying it. “You want the five?” I said.

  “I do,” he said.

  A moment later we watched his ball roll right up the front of the green and down off the back.

  “That’s going to be wet,” he said with a pained expression. “I’m afraid so,” I said.

  I took the club back from him, cleaned it, and slipped it into the bag as we started walking.

  “I should have listened to you,” he said.

  “Well,” I said, “why don’t we take a test, Father? If your ball is not in the river, then that will be proof that there is a God and that you have lived a virtuous life.”

  He smiled and said, “That’s putting a lot of pressure on God, don’t you think?”

  “That’s what he’s there for,” I said.

  Of course there was no sign of his ball on the green or in the two-yard band of sloping ground behind the green that fell off into the water. I took an iron from his bag and began fishing around in the narrow river, which had only a few inches of water in it. “A wee burn,” I said. “That’s what the Scots call these rivers.”