Loopy

  Suddenly it seemed the easiest thing in the world to lay the blade of the sand wedge wide-open, aim well to the left of the pin, and take the club back in a slicing, wide arc. The club paused at the top of a lazy, looping backswing for what seemed like a very long time indeed before the clubhead cut through the soft sand with a slicing action as though it were trying to cut the head off a daisy. Aiming several inches behind the ball, both sand and ball exploded violently skyward, then the ball dropped like a stone from the cloud of sand onto the green. He heard the wild applause before he could clamber back out of the bunker. His only sensation was relief that the difficult shot had come off, and for a crazy moment, all he really wanted to do was to return to the safety of the womblike bunker and never emerge again.

  His ball lay two feet from the pin. O’Donnell never even came near with his difficult downhill putt. In his eagerness to hole it, he had given no thought to the putt back. His brave putt had sailed past the cup, stopping a good six feet below the hole. He missed the one back and conceded the hole to Loopy. The remaining holes were halved.

  The Trabane contingent went wild when the referee announced on the final green, “The match goes to Laurence Lynch, who wins by one hole.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The weather grew progressively worse as The Atlantic drew to a close. After Loopy’s win over O’Donnell, the sun did not appear until the final day. In the interim Loopy found that the battle against the elements was as tough as that against a series of gritty opponents. It began to dawn on him that those long wintry afternoons spent on the hurling pitch in wind and rain when he was expected to put the ball over the bar and between the posts from far out had not been all in vain.

  Then as now, the key to success was to be mentally prepared for the worst the elements could serve up. On the hurling field, many stopped trying to score when the wind really blew and sleet showers screamed in off the ocean, pricking the face like a million steel knitting needles. Loopy was at his best then, and it stood him in good stead as he and Weeshy, surrounded by busloads of supporters, tried to keep their balance in a howling wind. Balance was the key. He stood with his legs far apart like a sailor on a heaving deck. This gave him, as Weeshy had said it would, a firmer stance and a better platform from which to strike the ball. He also put longer studs on the soles of his golf shoes to get a better grip on the slippery turf.

  Unlike his opponents, he did not wear waterproof outer garments to protect him from the elements. For one, he didn’t own any, but even if he had, he would not likely have worn them. The only concession Loopy made to the foul weather was to don a second sweater and stay under an umbrella when it rained really hard. Not wearing any rain gear kept his swing free and loose. The wind, he discovered, dried off any wet clothes within minutes. A cheerful Californian, one of ABI’s honored guests who specialized in reinsurance and was a valued client of the bank’s, that Loopy met in the semifinals had been two up and looked to be coasting to a comfortable victory until a sudden rainstorm lashed the golf course. One moment the sky had been blue, the seagulls swooping, and the waves gently breaking on the foreshore. Next moment the skies had darkened as storm clouds gathered in an angry mass overhead. Rain lashed down mercilessly and wind blew so hard that it was nearly impossible for either player to take his stance on the tee. The Californian took some time in climbing into rain gear so elaborate it looked like a space suit.

  Weeshy handed his charge a second sweater out of a pocket in the golf bag, commenting, “That’s him finished for today, anyways. God himself couldn’t hit a decent ball in that getup!”

  And Weeshy was right. From then on, whether it was the weather or the extra clothing, the American’s game deteriorated rapidly, and Loopy ran out a comfortable, if very wet, winner with two holes to spare.

  Later on the practice ground as Loopy practiced “wind-cheaters”—the low-trajectory shots that stayed beneath the gales that blew over and around the enormous sand dunes of Ballykissane—Weeshy dug deep into a pocket and produced a small, grimy bottle. “Here, take a slug of this. It’ll help keep out the cold and the wet. Better than any hot shower, I’ll swear.”

  Loopy knew full well that he was being offered a drop of “the hard stuff.” Though illegal, poitin was still made in the remoter areas, but nowadays the bootleg whiskey was used more as an embrocation than a drink. He tried desperately to think of some way he could decline the offer, but failed. He put the bottle to his lips and pretended to take a big swallow. Keeping his tongue firmly against the top of the bottle, he managed to take on board as little as possible of the fiery spirit while managing not to offend his prickly caddy.

  “Best medicine in the world!” Weeshy remarked as he drained what was left in the bottle with one gulp. “Now let’s see you hit a really low drive into the wind. It’s going to blow like bloody hell tomorrow, much worse than today, and if you’re up against who I think you are, you’ll need to be at your very best.”

  After his victory in the first round, ever more busloads of supporters had arrived from Trabane to cheer him on. That, as much as Weeshie’s whispered instructions, had helped him survive the early rounds. However, what had started out as one busload had by the final day turned into no fewer than six. To these were added many more who had traveled by car and minibus. While it was Loopy’s unexpected march to the final that attracted most of them, for some there was another reason, too.

  For weeks rumors had been flying around Trabane that their bank was to be closed. It was bad enough that jobs were being lost at the Maltings, but the news of the bank closure was simply the last straw. The Lisbeg branch, a suboffice of the Trabane branch that had operated just two days a week, had closed after Christmas. On that occasion, Leo Martin had explained that the Trabane “outlet” had been upgraded in preparation for the relocation of both staff and customers from Lisbeg. He had not explained how old-age pensioners, the blind, and the lame would make the journey from Lisbeg to their larger neighbor. The local paper carried an advertisement that told of the closure, claiming that it would improve the service to the bank’s customers overall and that was that. There had been no warning to, no consultation with, those customers whose service was to be “improved.”

  Now that it looked as if Trabane was to suffer the same fate, some of the townspeople had resolved to take a last stand on the issue. SAVE OUR BANK notices had begun to appear in some shop windows. Through all of this, Leo Martin kept as low a profile as possible. When asked if his branch was really going to close, he would testily explain that banking was a modern industry, one that continually evolved and reinvented itself, and that people should look at “the bigger picture.”

  What he did not say was that if this meant transforming Trabane from an already struggling seaside resort without any tourists, and a dilapidated Makings plant shedding more and more jobs, into a soulless dormitory town lacking essential services such as banking, then so be it. That was the price of progress, as Leo and his bosses saw it. Amid mounting protests, the local paper lent its support to the anticlosure campaign. O’Hara had been a regular, if anonymous, contributor, the owner-cum-editor being a particular friend of his. Because schoolteachers were also civil servants, O’Hara’s freelancing had to be kept secret from his superiors. Now that he had retired, the current editorial showed clear signs of his authorship:

  Should the rumor that Trabane is to lose its only bank so soon after our next-door neighbors in Lisbeg prove to be true, then lifelong customers must surely ask why thousands of pounds are spent by Allied Banks of Ireland in promoting golf tournaments for the wealthy while closing down branches in rural areas as a cost-saving exercise at one and the same time. The fact that one of Trabane’s native sons is competing in one such tournament only serves to highlight this contradiction. It is to be hoped that those who flock to Ballykissane to help our local hero, Larry Lynch, bring back the coveted Atlantic Trophy will not fail to remind the sponsors, Allied Banks of Ireland, that their lifelong customers will
not take this mortal blow to Trabane lying down.

  In the carpark of Ballykissane Golf Club, some of the buses had banners draped along their sides that read in bold lettering:

  SOB—Save Our Bank

  If this weren’t enough, someone had edited with spray paint the large billboard poster under which Loopy had so recently posed with Leo under the legend:

  Allied Banks of Ireland serving the community!

  The word serving had been altered to screwing. In this charged atmosphere, the last stages of the Atlantic Trophy were to be played out, with the old guard at Ballykissane becoming increasingly unhappy with the way their tournament was proceeding. Months earlier there had been a clash with the sponsors over the number of advertising billboards the bank wished to place at strategic points around the course. Now the biggest billboard under which the official photographs would be taken at the end of the tournament had cruelly been defaced.

  An even less welcome development was the arrival of hordes of supporters for the lad from Trabane who had fought his way into the finals, aided and abetted by his disreputable caddy. Weeshy had been reported many times by disgruntled golfers for bad behavior on the course. They complained of his spitting, grunting, and ill-concealed profanities. He had even been known to stalk off the course in disgust, leaving his player to carry his own bag for the remainder of the round. His worst offense to date, however, had been to walk out on Sir Andrew at a critical stage in last year’s final. As neither party was prepared to discuss the matter afterward and no complaint had been lodged by his lordship, no action had been taken.

  Now Weeshy was to be seen on the practice ground coaching his latest charge on how to tackle the elements. Some of the older members felt that a caddy’s duties ended on the last green and that Weeshy had no business giving this young whippersnapper the benefit of his knowledge, especially when it might be used against one of their most distinguished members, Sir Andrew Villiers-Stewart.

  However, a more immediate cause for their concern was the possibility that their fairways might be swamped by protesters. It had not passed unnoticed among club members and Loopy’s supporters alike that Sir Andrew Villiers-Stewart was not merely a peer of the realm and the other finalist in The Atlantic, but that he was also a director on the board of Allied Banks of Ireland. What was not so widely known was that he sat on the board of the big British distillery that owned the Maltings—Trabane’s biggest employer and currently in the middle of a downsizing. He was regarded in both commercial and golfing circles as a man for all seasons. The worse the balance sheet, the broader the smile on Sir Andrew’s aquiline features as he reassured shareholders of one of the many companies whose directorships he retained that the disastrous set of accounts just revealed were but a mere hiccup in the onward and upward progress of their company. He could soothe the angriest shareholders baying for blood. He reminded them that the darkest hour was always before the dawn, that every cloud had a silver lining, and employed any other platitudes he thought necessary to reassure the doubters. He had found down through the years that often the best way out of a difficult situation was to call for a viability study. That way, one could always pass the blame for bad news on to whoever had conducted the study while the good news could be claimed for oneself. The exercise had served him well in the past, and he had no reason to believe it would not do likewise in the forthcoming Annual General Meeting of ABI, or the distillery.

  Admittedly, there had been some unrest recently in the rural areas where the bank had embarked on a policy of slash and burn worthy of Cromwell. Outlets in the smaller towns were being closed at short notice. It was left to the likes of Sir Andrew, ably abetted by a hardworking PR team, to soothe those opposed to the elderly being forced to take buses over long distances to cash their pensions. Small businesses going to the wall for want of financial services meant village life being further degraded by such closures. Fifty or so “outlets” had already been closed in recent times throughout Ireland, many of them being, like Lisbeg, part-time facilities in small communities. Trabane was different in that it had at one time been a thriving seaside resort that had but one bank. No rival bank would be left to take up the slack if and when Leo moved to Dublin and the promised sinecure in one of the better-class suburbs. When Leo had broken the news to his wife, her reaction had left him dumbfounded.

  In words that let no possible room for misunderstanding, Rosa had told him that she was staying on in Trabane. She liked the place, had put down strong roots, and had no intention of abandoning her friends there in exchange for the hell of traffic and pollution that was dear old dirty Dublin. She failed to add that she had even less intention of breaking off the satisfactory affair she had been having for more than a year with Joe Delany.

  In golf, as in commerce, Sir Andrew was rightly regarded as a safe pair of hands. An Oxford blue and frequent competitor in the British Amateur, no one knew the vagaries of links golf better than he. As for Ballykissane, he knew every hump and hollow of its greens and fairways like the back of his sinewy hand. Even though he played there only in summer, his home course being the even more testing Royal County Down, he was a three-time winner of The Atlantic. Despite his last victory having been seven years ago, he had been seeded number two after Neumann. Now, with the young American beaten, Sir Andrew had been installed as a clear favorite to add Loopy’s scalp to his belt.

  Sir Andrew disapproved of the inroads that space-age technology was making in his beloved game of golf. He preferred steel-shafted wooden clubs, irons that were twenty years old, and a putter that had belonged to his late father. He heartily disliked the current fashion of brightly colored clothes for golfers. Corduroy slacks, a check flannel shirt, and an old pullover were his preference. That the name of a university—however renowned—should be emblazoned on a golf bag, peaked cap, and shirt was an abomination. Indeed, he privately attributed last year’s defeat by young Neumann as much to HARVARD catching his eye everywhere he looked as to the unseasonably fine weather.

  As he strode to the first tee in the teeth of a howling gale, he found this year’s conditions more to his liking. The young man standing between him and his fourth victory seemed pleasant enough. He was dressed properly, too, without any logos or peaked cap. His caddy was the only blot on an otherwise promising landscape. Weeshy and his lordship were not soul mates, and neither party made any secret of the fact. This year his lordship chose to carry his own bag, a slim leather affair that held less than the fourteen clubs permitted.

  Dominick, the headwaiter at The Royal Hotel, had informed him that his opponent was called Larry Lynch and that he had recently been recruited from the game of hurling. It seemed, if Dominick was to be believed, not to have been all that smooth a transition, for the young man was said to have a marked loop at the top of his backswing, which had earned him the rather unimaginative nickname Loopy. Some humorists had already likened the young man’s golf swing to an octopus falling out of a tree.

  Dominick had thought it more tactful not to inform his lordship about Weeshy caddying for his opponent. There had been a falling out last year between his lordship and Weeshy, rumored to have been over the size of a tip. The matter was supposed to have ended with the caddy flinging the coin at his lordship’s feet, muttering, “Ye can keep yer f*cking queen’s shilling.” He then added insult to injury by inviting his lordship to stuff the coin in a place where the sun did not shine.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Good afternoon, Sir Andrew, may I introduce you to your opponent today, Laurence Lynch.”

  They shook hands as his lordship glanced over Loopy’s shoulder and murmured, “Ah, Weeshy, old fellow, so we meet yet again on the field of battle, eh?”

  The response, something between a grunt and a snort, was far from friendly. Stewards with yellow armbands were already having difficulty restraining the crowd trying to encroach on the first tee to get a better view of the opening drives. The slender ropes they carried to hold back the crowd seemed wholly i
nadequate as they pleaded yet again with the spectators, “Keep behind the rope, please!”

  Stewarding had never been required before this. However, because of the numbers arriving to support Loopy and to protest the closure of their bank, a meeting of the Tournament Committee had hurriedly been arranged the previous evening. It had been decided with some reluctance that stewarding would be necessary for the thirty-six holes of play on the final day. Placards of any sort would be forbidden, and one brave soul who tried to smuggle one under his coat had his SOB sign confiscated on the spot. The wind had become ever more frenzied as the match referee introduced the finalists and addressed the crowd.

  “Thirty-six holes of match play, ladies and gentlemen. I would make a special plea to all spectators to obey the stewards. That way everyone will get to see the match properly. Thank you and good luck to you both, gentlemen.”

  Sir Andrew was first to hit. In a gale that threatened to blow him off his feet, he rifled his ball less than ten feet from the ground, arrow straight down the first fairway. Loopy played a two iron and sent an almost identical shot twenty yards past his opponent’s. It, too, came to rest on the fairway. With the elevated green well out of reach, his lordship played a low fairway wood that bisected the large dunes on either side of the fairway and came to rest at the bottom of the slope leading to the first green.