Loopy

  To his credit he nearly pulled it off. The ball sailed upward, caught the top of the bunker, and wobbled there for a tense moment before dropping backward into the white sand, almost at Al Neumann’s feet. Understandably, he now lost what remained of his composure. Wordlessly but with a noticeable reddening of his cheeks and neck, he struck the next shot with rather more violence than required. This time it ricocheted violently off the vertical wall, barely missing him as it again finished in the sand. Picking up the ball, he climbed out of the bunker and then conceded the hole with as much grace as he could muster in the circumstances.

  Three down after three holes is not a comfortable position for anyone, but with fifteen holes still to go, it is still far from being a lost cause. The Neumann camp, however, felt differently. Maybe it was the difficult conditions—for the wind was now turning cold as well as gaining in strength. Or perhaps the feeling was growing among them that this was just not going to be their day. Whatever the reason, the heart seemed to go out of Al Neumann the moment he conceded the third hole. Though he played bravely for the rest of the contest, the result was never in doubt.

  The match finished on the thirteenth green, before a crowd now swollen to enormous proportions, as the referee announced, still in the most neutral of voices, “Match goes to Laurence Lynch. He wins six up with five holes to go.”

  Then, and only then, did Loopy emerge from the trance.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The first to pound his back as he left the green was Edward Linhurst. “Great win! Best of luck this afternoon! See you for dinner tonight.”

  His daughter, Amy, went further this time, giving Loopy first a hug, then a big kiss full on his lips. Followed by a whispered “Fantastic. Well done, Larry!”

  He noticed that she still refused to call him Loopy. As for Pat O’Hara, he was nowhere to be seen. The Neumann camp looked desolate, but Al had shaken Loopy’s hand after the last putt had dropped. The burly American’s only comment on the thrashing he had just experienced was to say with evident sincerity, “Do me a favor and win this thing out. That way I won’t look so bad.”

  The unexpected win had repercussions further afield than a Ballykissane that was already humming with excitement. Already there were heated arguments about whether Loopy had merely gotten lucky and would be wiped out in the afternoon round. By whom was still unclear as the other matches were still being contested all around the course.

  Brona received an urgent phone call from Joe Delany. She had been feeding the chickens and had rushed in with her hands still caked with meal as she picked up the receiver. Daytime phone calls to the Lynch household were few and far between, the night rate being far cheaper. A telephone ringing around midday was a cause for alarm, and this was evident in her voice as she asked nervously, “Joe who? Delany? I don’t know any Joe Delany … Oh my God, I’m terribly sorry, and you being so good and all to Larry … He’s what?… Oh dear Holy God, sure isn’t that grand for him.… Oh, you mean it isn’t finished yet, just that he’s beaten this American fella, is that it?… I see, well, sure all I can do is say a special prayer that he’ll keep up the good work … Ah, no, I couldn’t do that. Who would look after this place while I’d be gone? Anyway I’ve never set foot inside a golf club in my life, I’d only embarrass him, put him off his stroke or something … Sure I never even went to the hurling matches for fear of seeing him get hurt … Ah, no, Mr. Delany, but thanks all the same … Be sure to give him my love though when you see him … and tell him I’m praying hard for him … Good-bye now and thanks again for the call.”

  Telephones were also busier than usual at the Trabane branch of Allied Banks of Ireland. Leo was listening openmouthed to the PR officer for the ABI group screaming at him to get over to Ballykissane Golf Club as fast as he possibly could. “Didn’t you hear? Some youngster from your own golf club has just beaten one of the top Americans six and bloody five. Wiped the floor with him, so he did.”

  Leo was astounded as the voice babbled on, “He’s from your golf club, for heaven’s sake, man, that’s why I’m calling you. You’re what in it, by the way? I mean, what position does our man in Trabane hold in his local golf club, Leo? That’s what I bloody mean.”

  Here Leo was on firmer ground. “Treasurer and president-elect.”

  He thought it sounded better that way. Vice president sounded as if he were playing second fiddle to someone.

  The voice was unimpressed. “Um-m-m, I see. You know yourself, Leo, how keen Personnel are for our people to play a leading role in their local communities. Makes the bank look like a caring mother hen, y’know.”

  Leo grasped at the opportunity to ask, “Speaking of mother hens, anything further on the closure, is there?”

  The voice was reassuring. “A matter of weeks, months at the very most. Right then, Leo, I know I can count on you to look after things until we show up at Ballykissane then?”

  Leo assured him that indeed he could, then sought confirmation that he was on the guest list.

  “Yes, of course! Will your wife … Yes, of course, Rosa. Gawd, I’ll be forgetting my own name next … She will? Good. The Royal tends to be rather crowded for The Atlantic weekend. The fact that it’s a bank holiday is no help either. That’s about it then, Leo. Show the flag for us till we get there tomorrow night.”

  “How do you mean?” Leo was mystified. This was the first he had heard about a flag.

  The voice proved less than helpful on this score. “Oh, I’ll leave that to yourself. At the very least get a picture of yourself and that young fella, what’s his name, the child prodigy, standing in front of one of our signs. There’s a whole raft of top-notch golfers in the lineup, so he may not be around for much longer, which means you had better get on to it right away. I suppose our esteemed director, Sir Andrew Villiers-Stewart, is the hot favorite, now that the Yank has got his walking papers?”

  Leo admitted that he did not know.

  “You don’t know, Leo? Well, it’s about bloody time you found out, isn’t it?”

  Content that he had inserted a king-size flea in Leo’s ear, the voice slammed down the receiver. Leo glared at the silent telephone for a moment, then hurried to his car. He would drive to Ballykissane immediately, do as he was told by that idiot PR man, then return home. The next day he and Rosa would pack their finery and return for the weekend revels at The Royal Hotel. Best of all, it would not cost him a penny. He just hoped young Lynch could keep his afternoon match alive until he got there. It never occurred to him as he started the car and edged out onto the road that he was the one who had opposed Loopy’s membership in Trabane in the first place.

  Father Michael Spillane’s conversation was briefer:

  “Hallo, is that Corkery’s?… Good, Michael Spillane here.… That’s right, the curate. I want a bus to hold about thirty or forty people.… No, not for bingo. I want it to go to Ballykissane.… I want it today, for God’s sake. About two o’clock or so.… I know it’s very short notice but something quite unexpected has just come up. Can I count on you for that?… Right so, outside the church, two o’clock. How much?… Two hundred pounds? Are you gone mad or what? One hundred and fifty—not a penny more.… Right? God bless you. See you at two o’clock sharp.” His phone was busy for another hour.

  Pat O’Hara had not been idle either. From a high stool in the golf-club bar he was regaling a group of reporters with tales, some of them almost true, of Loopy’s brief but meteoric golfing career to date.

  “Y’see, the whole thing about young Loopy is that he started out as a hurler.… Yeah, that’s right, just the same as that fella hanging up on the wall over there. Jimmy Bruen was the greatest golfer ever to come out of Ireland, no matter what anyone tells you to the contrary. Henry Cotton described him as the best golfer—amateur or professional—in the world, and old Henry knew a thing or two about the game of golf, I can tell you.… No, I’m not trying to tell you that he’s as good as Bruen was. Not yet, anyway.… Yes, I know he hasn’t won any
thing yet. For Jaysus’ sake, this is the first big tournament he has ever been in.… How do I know if he’ll win it out? What do you think I am—a shagging prophet or what?… Yes, the loop at the top of his swing is the reason we call him Loopy back home in Trabane. You wouldn’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out, now would you?… Yes, he used to play for the local hurling team till he got a belt of a hurley and can’t play anymore. That’s why he took up golf as a matter of fact.… No, I’m not his father.… No, he’s not here, he’s in England. I was his teacher, that’s all.… Well, I showed him how to swing a golf club before anyone else, if that’s what you mean.… No, not anymore, I don’t. Joe Delany is the teaching pro at Trabane and he’s coaching him now.… Why didn’t he change his grip? That’s a question you’d be better off asking Loopy—or Joe. Speak of the devil, here he comes now!”

  Joe, his wife, Linda, and some thirty other supporters that the priest had managed to round up at short notice had got on the bus outside the church and made the journey as speedily as they dared to Ballykissane. Joe and Linda had been seeking out Pat O’Hara for details of the morning’s stunning victory, and naturally the first place they looked for him was in the bar. Joe was unprepared for the barrage of questions from the media, but coped as best he could. He knew nothing of the old driver with the binding cord flapping in the wind like a fishing line. Nor could he enlighten them further about the eccentric caddy whose ragged overcoat trailed along the ground and with whom Loopy conferred before every shot.

  All Joe could tell them as they scrabbled desperately for something that would steal a headline from the other sporting events of that Easter bank-holiday weekend was that young Loopy Lynch was the best golfing prospect he had ever seen. Disappointed not to have gleaned something more newsworthy, they slipped away to the practice ground, where Loopy was having his picture taken with Leo Martin’s arm draped around his shoulder in front of a giant sign that read ALLIED BANKS OF IRELAND SERVING THE COMMUNITY!

  Leo was wearing his best suit and a wall-to-wall smile. As for Loopy, he was keen to get something to eat before retiring to the practice ground and working on those low wind-cheaters under Weeshy’s watchful eye. By now he knew who his opponent would be for the afternoon match: Sean O’Donnell. He was a junior International on a scholarship to Wake Forest University, an American college more noted for its golfers than its academics. He had won his match after two extra sudden-death holes, having started ten minutes after Loopy. Since Loopy’s contest had taken just thirteen holes to complete, he had all the time in the world between the morning and afternoon rounds, while O’Donnell had barely time to grab a hurried hamburger before going out on the course again.

  They shook hands on the first tee and played as well as could be expected in the gale that was blowing harder than ever. The turning point came at the fifteenth, when they were all square after a heroic tussle that had the lead changing regularly and neither of them yielding an inch. They were followed by a large crowd, swollen by a group of vocal supporters who had just arrived in a dilapidated bus and were racing from hole to hole across the sacred turf of Ballykissane. The bus journey had been like no other. Some of the supporters had brought tea and sandwiches to sustain them over what promised to be a long afternoon. The majority, however, had brought cans of stout and bottles of whiskey, most of which had been consumed long before the supporters piled out of the bus, looking for lavatories and their local hero in that order before the astonished eyes of the members of Ballykissane GC.

  The fifteenth hole was a tricky par four, and the tee faced the sea and straight into the gale. A sharp dogleg to the left required the drive to finish on the elbow of the narrow fairway. Too short and the approach to the green was blocked by an enormous sand dune. Too far and the ball would end up on the seashore. Though not out of bounds, it meant playing off the beach or the pebble-strewn foreshore. It was arguable as to which was the least attractive option.

  O’Donnell had the honor off the tee, having won the previous hole to square the match yet again. The atmosphere between the two contestants was markedly different from that of the morning match. Loopy did not know if he was still “in the zone” but continued to play steadily, following Weeshy’s whispered instructions to the letter. Both young men chatted easily with each other as they ambled along the fairways, breaking off only to play their shots and then resume where they had left off. When one hit a really good shot, the other murmured appreciatively.

  Taking a driver, O’Donnell hit an exceptionally long drive, perhaps the longest of the day at that hole. It seemed to have struck a hard patch of fairway, for it bounded forward past the elbow and through a narrow band of rough, ending up somewhere on the foreshore.

  Loopy reached for the driver, but Weeshy stayed his hand. Wetting a finger with his saliva, Weeshy raised it skyward to test the wind. More to himself than anyone else he muttered quietly, “As I thought. The tide’s changin’. So’s the wind. It drops for a minute in the ebb tide, then gets up again so you’d hardly notice, anyways. But it drops all the same, so it does.”

  Moments later, the wind did drop, and Weeshy handed his charge a three iron, growling, “Go for the corner,” before shuffling to the back of the tee.

  Those around Weeshy, seeing the club he had handed his charge, assumed that he was either drunk or insane. They believed, as did Loopy, that it was willful suicide to play an iron into the teeth of such a wind. No iron shot had a snowball’s chance in hell of reaching the elbow, it just had to fall short, leaving a blind second shot over an impossibly high dune.

  Then the wind dropped as if someone had flicked a switch. The iron shot flew low but much farther than anyone could have expected. It pitched onto the center of the fairway, checked, and then rolled along the turf until it came to a halt right on the crook of the elbow. Just then, the wind, as Weeshy had said it would, picked up again, but now it was blowing harder than ever.

  O’Donnell’s ball was lying amid pebbles worn smooth from the winter storms. Some in the crowd wondered aloud if he might be allowed to drop away from what was clearly an impossible lie. The contingent from Trabane, though vociferous in support of their man, kept their counsel, even though this might be the deciding factor in this closest of contests.

  The referee, the same tweed-clad gentleman as had supervised Loopy’s morning encounter, remained impassive. He would only hand down his judgment if asked for a ruling by either player.

  Weeshy commented as he shuffled alongside Loopy on the long walk down the narrow path that led to the fairway from the elevated tee, “We have him now, so we have. Don’t let him off the hook anyways, whatever you do.”

  O’Donnell elected to play the ball as it lay without consulting the referee. Hitting a golf ball off loose pebbles is the most inexact of sciences. The player never quite knows what will happen between club-face and ball. The intervention of even the smallest pebble between club and ball can have the most unexpected result. When O’Donnell’s recovery shot finished on the fairway but only halfway to the green, it was about as good as could be expected and drew a smattering of sympathetic applause from the onlookers.

  As Loopy shaped up his approach shot, Weeshy whispered, “Come in low from the right.”

  Loopy could hardly hear what his caddy said with the raucous shouts of “Come on, Trabane” and “Aha, ya boy ya, Loopy Lynch!” ringing in his ears.

  The older Ballykissane members understandably frowned on such partisan displays. Their idea of a suitable expression of appreciation was to murmur “Shot” or, in exceptional circumstances, give the merest hint of applause. The conduct of these dreadful people who had poured out of a bus so dilapidated that it would not have been out of place in the third world was quite intolerable. The problem was that nobody was brave enough to tell them so.

  O’Hara reveled in the discomfiture of the old guard and did everything in his power to encourage Loopy’s supporters to even greater displays of partisanship. Having missed the earli
er morning triumph of their man, those who had endured the bumpy journey in Corkery’s bus were determined to show their appreciation, even though most of them had never been on a golf course before and only had the sketchiest idea of how the game was played. As interpreter of all matters relating to golf, O’Hara now played a most valued role. His impromptu press conference between the first- and second-round matches had allowed him to recharge his batteries with Black Bush. Now in the intervals between explaining the finer points of the game to his fellow townspeople, he could be heard whooping “Come on, Loopy, ya boy ya!” with the best of them.

  With the green at Loopy’s mercy, it seemed that a one-hole lead at this critical juncture was well within his grasp. To get his nose ahead at this late stage in the game was vital if he was to win. Then fate took a hand. The low shot that he played just as Weeshy had told him to was running straight and true for the green. Then it struck an unseen bump on the fairway, kicked sharply to the right, and rolled into a deep pot bunker. Taking heart from his opponent’s unexpected reverse, O’Donnell struck a brave pitching wedge to the hard green. It checked and rolled past the pin, ending up about fifteen feet above the hole. Should he hole the difficult downhill putt, O’Donnell could still salvage his par.

  Loopy, on the other hand, was now faced with an extremely difficult up and down to save what had earlier looked like a cast-iron four. For a moment, as he viewed his ball lying in the middle of the greenside bunker, he felt like a dog that had just had its bone stolen from him. Now, instead of going one up, if he wasn’t careful, he could be playing the sixteenth one down.

  He took several practice swings before he climbed down into the deep hole. The flag was about twenty feet away from the lip of the bunker, but the vertical face was cut into a mound at the side of the green and presented a formidable obstacle in itself. The shot Loopy now had to execute was almost identical to the one Al Neumann had failed so dramatically to pull off at Eternity. This time it was Loopy’s turn to feel the pressure. Except that he didn’t. The hairs on the back of his neck began their now familiar prickling, and a feeling of utter detachment enveloped him like a protective cloak. First he eyed the small white ball lying innocently in the sand, then the sheer cliff over which it had to soar before landing ever so softly on the green.