Loopy

  Loopy got his first surprise of the day when Weeshy handed him the driver for his second shot. “White stone to the left of the path. Don’t be afraid to hit it, anyways!” Weeshy’s old driver probably had a bit more loft than a modern metal fairway “wood,” but it was still a high-risk shot to try so early on in a thirty-six-hole match.

  Weeshy wet his finger and put it in the air. “Gimme back the driver. You won’t need it, not yet anyways. The wind’s softenin’ a bit. The spoon’ll do you this time.”

  Loopy exchanged the driver for the three wood and made a few experimental swishes with it. The wind seemed to have become stronger again as he took the club back with exaggerated slowness. He had widened his stance even more than previously to maintain his balance in the wind. In doing so, he had restricted his backswing before, with his trademark loop, he started the downswing.

  He drew a bead on the white stone high up in the dunes and concentrated totally on keeping his head and body steady as he visualized the ball soaring toward the distant target. After the shot he was almost afraid to lift his head to see where the ball had actually gone. A deafening roar told him what he needed to know without looking up.

  “Aha, ya bhoyo!” and “Good man yourself, Lynch!” greeted the shot as it flew through the air. He looked up just in time to catch sight of his ball losing its forward momentum and drifting gracefully to the right before dropping out of the sky in line with the distant flagstick. It was impossible to say whether the ball was on the putting surface or buried deep in the dune grass at the back of the green.

  Marching down the fairway, Sir Andrew turned to Loopy. “That was a brave shot, young man. Do you think you made the green?”

  Loopy was uncertain how to reply. Was this some form of gamesmanship? Or was it nothing more than a polite gesture between two sportsmen out for a game on a wet and windy morning? Only the crowds following them, barely constrained by the nylon rope, gave lie to the idea that this was an ordinary round of golf.

  Loopy was uncertain how to address a peer of the realm. No way was he going to concede the psychological advantage of addressing his opponent as “your lordship.” Nor could he call someone more than twice his age Andy. He solved the problem by calling him nothing at all.

  “Dunno really. Must admit it felt good though.”

  “Do you mind if I take a look at that driver you were thinking of playing before Weeshy changed his mind?”

  Loopy passed the club to him. Weeshy, barely inches away, was snuffling and snarling loud enough to be heard above the gale. His lordship examined the club closely, paying particular attention to the head, which he turned over and examined minutely, as if reading the label of a claret about which he was uncertain.

  “Hmmmm, interesting, very interesting,” he murmured as he shot Loopy a questioning look, then stared hard at Weeshy for a long moment before handing the club back without further comment.

  As they parted company to allow his lordship to execute a tricky pitch shot up the steep slope and onto a green that was all but invisible save for the top of the flagstick, Weeshy tugged at Loopy’s elbow. “Don’t be talkin’ to that bastard, anyways. Keep your mind on your game. We’ll need all our the wits about us to win this one, and that’s not one word of a lie!”

  Loopy was about to protest that the conversation had been started by his opponent, then thought better of it. He, too, had heard tales of Weeshy walking off the course when upset, leaving the golfer to carry his own bag for the rest of the round.

  On their reaching the green, two balls were within ten feet of the hole. It was Loopy’s turn to putt and he marked his ball, as did his opponent. Within seconds of Sir Andrew replacing his ball on the green, a gust of wind blew it downhill to within inches of the cup. As he had not been near his ball when this happened, he merely shrugged his shoulders, looked quizzically at the match referee, and drawled casually, “Replace, without penalty, I presume?”

  The referee nodded and the ball was replaced. Loopy was on the green in two, his opponent in one more as Loopy knelt behind the ball, looking along the line to the hole. Weeshy was directly behind him, stooping over his charge and eyeing the line of the putt intently. Taking the pin out of the hole, he said to Loopy as he headed for the side of the green, “Two inches to the left and barely touch it.”

  Standing over the ball, Loopy placed the putter behind the ball before making the delicate stroke that would trickle it ever so gently down the slope to the hole. As he did so, he was rocked by another powerful gust. It almost blew him off-balance. More significantly, it moved his ball several inches away from the hole. Without consulting Weeshy he walked over to the referee and said in a calm voice, “I’m calling a one-shot penalty on myself. The ball moved as I was about to putt. Okay?”

  The referee nodded but said nothing.

  Once again Loopy stood over the ball, aimed for where Weeshy had said, and stroked the putt as gently as if it were a tiny kitten. It took off at an alarming rate, gathering speed as it accelerated downward, spurred on by the wind. It struck the back of the cup, did an almost perfect horseshoe lap of honor around the rim of the hole, then dropped, exhausted, into the hole. Three shots plus the penalty called down on himself made for a par four. The opposition still had a tricky downhill putt to halve the hole. This putt struck the hole also but ran around the lip and stayed out.

  The referee announced in a voice loud enough to reach the farthest extremities of the crowd, “Laurence Lynch wins the hole by one shot.”

  As they made their way across the plateau to the next tee, Loopy felt another tug at his sleeve. Thinking it was Weeshy about to abuse him for calling the penalty shot on himself even though justice was done in that he had won the hole anyway, he was surprised to discover that it was his opponent trying to get his attention.

  “Very sporting, young man. They still teach good manners in Trabane, it seems. Don’t see much of that nowadays. Won’t stop me from trying my level best to beat you, though!”

  Loopy thought he saw a twinkle in his opponent’s eye—or maybe he was just squinting against the wind. It was Loopy’s honor to hit first off the elevated tee—and one he could have done without because the par three, always difficult in the calmest of weather, was now verging on the impossible. Any shot from the elevated tee that was caught in the maw of the howling crosswind was almost certain to be blown out of bounds onto the road on the left. Unless, of course, one had the luck of the devil like Neumann when his ball struck the boundary fence—and bounced back into play. However, miracles like that were rarities in golf.

  On this occasion even Weeshy seemed unsure of himself. He shuffled around the tee looking this way and that, snorting and muttering unintelligibly to himself. He seemed to be looking everywhere except toward the distant green that lay far below them, snuggled up against the out-of-bounds fence. Conditions were much the same as those prevailing when Loopy had played Neumann in the opening round. The wind was from the same direction—only much, much stronger. Loopy remembered how Weeshy had handed him a six iron on that occasion. He was expecting something similar now, given that the ball would have to travel all of two hundred yards in a viciously gusting crosswind. To his amazement, Weeshy handed him a three iron, just one club shorter than he had used off the first tee. It seemed at the very least to be two clubs too much, and he was about to protest when Weeshy whispered into his ear, “Same shot as ye hit against the Yank. Grip well down the shaft and hit it hard about thirty yards to the right. We want to keep it low, in the shade of Old Moll.”

  Loopy hit a crisp, low ball to the right that didn’t drift back on the wind quite as much as he had hoped it would. Nevertheless it was safely in bounds and pin high. His opponent may have played the same iron for his shot looked identical to Loopy’s in length and trajectory—except that the wind got a better grip on it so that the ball veered hard to the left at the last minute before trickling onto the front of the green. Both shots were of a high order and were rewarded with a smat
tering of applause from the more knowledgeable spectators standing behind them on the tee. The vast majority of the crowd had rushed ahead of play, down the hill, and were now waiting impatiently for the two players to appear. Kept well back by the stewards and their taut ropes, they still had no idea of where the two balls had come to rest.

  In truth, few of them were much interested in the finer points of a well-struck low iron into a severe crosswind. Most of them had arrived from Trabane that morning, and many of them had never been on a golf course until now. If their grasp of the game was rudimentary, it did not deter them from shouting encouragement for their man, much to the consternation of the stewards.

  Every so often a SAVE OUR BANK placard would appear out of nowhere, get held aloft for a brief moment to loud cheering, before vanishing from sight again under a spectator’s coat. As Loopy walked down the steep path leading to the green, he could sense the carnival atmosphere already among the spectators. A small knot of sleek, smartly dressed men, part of the crowd yet separate from them, were chatting easily among themselves while keeping a close watch on the contest. These were the senior staff of the sponsors, Allied Banks of Ireland. In their midst stood Leo Martin, looking natty in a navy blue blazer that, like all the others in his group, sported the ABI logo and crest on the breast pocket. Toward them, the body of the Trabane supporters directed the occasional catcall.

  Tired of the “blazers” and their talk of public relations, Leo’s wife, Rosa, drifted away to become part of another group that included Joe Delany, his wife, and Pat O’Hara. Both Joe and O’Hara, as the acknowledged experts on the game, were continually being asked by supporters how the match was going. Those not familiar with golf could find it hard to understand that in a thirty-six-hole final the result could still be in doubt six or seven hours from now. Many of them were more interested in discussing that morning’s rumor that the bank was going to close at the end of the month. Anyone not yet aware that Sir Andrew was a director of ABI was soon made so. The blazers continued to be the object of some adverse comment, not all of it delicately phrased.

  Loopy conferred with Weeshy about the short approach shot. The ball had to steer a course between two yawning bunkers before reaching the green. Left to himself, Loopy would have pitched a high lob over the larger of the two bunkers and hoped the ball would finish somewhere adjacent to the hole. Weeshy had a different idea as he handed him the putter: “Nice firm putt, two feet to the left of that bunker. Don’t be short, whatever you do!”

  Doing as he was bid, Loopy putted the ball along the apron of the green. It skirted the bunker by a safe margin before rolling down the slick green to some twenty feet below the cup. In his anxiety not to leave it short, he had overhit the ball, but, he consoled himself, at least it was an uphill putt, albeit a long one. On greens dried out to a rockhard consistency after three days of hard wind, any sort of downhill putt would have been a nightmare. No matter how hard it rained, Ballykissane dried out instantly. The thin layer of green turf allowed the heaviest downpour to seep through to the deep sand base underneath.

  Sir Andrew seemed only to give his long putt a cursory glance before stroking it firmly toward the hole. It never occurred to Loopy that he might hole the putt. It was almost fifty feet long with a break to the right. Old Moll, the enormous sand dune, ensured that the green itself was an oasis of calm, sheltered from the wind by her enormous bulk. The ball seemed about to stop a foot short of the hole but found a downhill slope that dragged it the last twelve inches into the dark recesses of the cup. It was an enormous putt, the longest anyone had holed in the tournament thus far, and it drew applause from friend and foe alike. To Loopy it felt like a dagger thrust deep into his heart, but Weeshy appeared unmoved. Nor did he join in the applause. Loopy did, clapping with an enthusiasm he did not feel, yet appreciating the excellence of his opponent’s play. They were now all flat, even and with everything to play for. Sixteen holes later they were still all flat as they went in to lunch.

  By then the crowd had become restive. When it dawned on them that unlike at a hurling match, they were not going to have a result for many hours to come, they drifted off in search of sustenance. The clubhouse, with a dress code that insisted on jacket, collar, and tie, neither sought nor attracted their custom. Instead many walked the mile or so into the town where food and drink was available in more congenial surroundings than those prevailing at the golf club. Many of those who had made the long trip on the buses would find a seaside town like their own, albeit a far busier and prosperous one, more attractive than traipsing round a windblown golf links. They had paid their respects to Loopy, cheered him on for as long as they could manage, registered their protest with the powers that be in Allied Banks of Ireland, and by lunchtime felt it was high time for a drink.

  Back at the golf club, lunch was a more formal affair. Sir Andrew, engulfed in a sea of blazers, was whisked off to a large table reserved for the sponsors in the main dining room. Loopy joined his friends and supporters in the bar. When a reporter asked Joe Delany if he had given any advice to his pupil as to how he might cope with the wily Sir Andrew, Joe explained that Loopy had long since learned everything he could teach him and had now graduated to a higher plane. His last word on the subject was “Anyway, he’s in good hands right now. That caddy of his is some genius, I can tell you. Not only does he seem to know every blade of grass on the course, but he can club young Loopy to the very inch. Mind you, the other guy knows a thing or two also. Looks like we’re in for a ding-dong battle this afternoon.”

  The same reporter got a frostier reception in the dining room. A red-faced man in a blazer told him in no uncertain terms that Sir Andrew did not give interviews during lunch—or halfway through an important golf match for that matter. Just as he was leaving empty-handed, it struck the reporter that his tormentor’s face was in some way familiar.

  “Excuse me, but are you Mr. Martin by any chance?”

  The blazer grumpily admitted as much, though secretly flattered by the recognition. The lad was a journalist, after all.

  “Can you give me a statement about the closing of the Trabane branch then? There are people out there with banners and…”

  Leo’s brow darkened. His face reddened as he bundled the cub reporter out of the dining room so fast that his feet barely touched the carpet. When Leo returned to the table, the bank’s public relations officer eyed him quizzically and asked what was the matter. When Leo explained as best he could, the PRO exploded.

  “Jaysus, Leo, you should have called me over. That’s no way to handle those bastards, chucking them out on their ear. You can bet your life the little swine is already on to his editor with some cock-and-bull story about closing down Trabane. I must say, Leo, you haven’t handled the whole business half as well as I had hoped. I can tell you here and now that you’ve been a big disappointment so far. What we want is a nice quiet closure with no fuss or bother. Instead of which, the whole bloody thing is being blown way out of proportion. You can see for yourself with those fucking placards and some clown defacing the billboard that shutting down Trabane is becoming a major issue. Which, in case you didn’t know, is exactly what the board of directors don’t want. You stay here and don’t say a bloody word to anybody, man, woman, or child, about the bloody closure from now on. Go over and talk to Sir Andrew while I go and see if I can find that bloody reporter and mend a few fences.”

  Having found him with difficulty, the PRO spent the rest of his lunch break pouring pints of stout into the reporter in an effort to quell the rumor that Trabane was really going to shut its doors at the end of the month. His task was made no easier by the rumor’s being true. Having missed out on most of what looked to have been a festive lunch, a disgruntled PRO joined his colleagues just as the last of the Irish coffees were being drained.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  To the morning’s wind, rain had now been added. During lunch it sidled in across the heaving ocean, announcing its arrival with a machine-gun rattle
of hail on the clubhouse windows, Sir Andrew, who had lunched lightly in anticipation of the battle that was to come, inwardly welcomed it like an old friend. Some of his happiest hours on a golf course had been spent in foul weather. The pleasure of directing a well-struck ball onto a fairway in blinding rain was keener than he could possibly hope to explain to those fair-weather golfers around the table. They could not appreciate the pure joy of dispatching a crafty pitch-and-run to a bone-hard green in a howling gale and, having judged it to a nicety, watching it scurry obediently up to the flagstick. For him that was a skill far greater that the high-towering lob-wedges to water-soaked putting surfaces, a form of outdoor darts that earned such drooling admiration from excitable television commentators. Best of all, he thought to himself, was putting on an exposed green in a gale. The miracle of links golf was that greens remained hard and fast despite the heaviest rain shower. The deft stroke, the sureness of touch, required to trickle a ball into the tiny cup came only with a lifetime of experience. Or did it?

  For the first time in his life he had encountered a youngster who seemed to have been born with the self-same skills that he had taken a lifetime to acquire. A lifetime of enjoyment, he reflected happily, but nonetheless a lifetime. Now, in the twilight of his golfing career, he was facing a new and not especially welcome phenomenon: a young man with a ridiculous golf swing who played the game really well. Not just well, he reminded himself, but honorably. Calling a penalty on himself at the very first hole was in the best traditions of the game. He wondered if the young man was in any way involved in the demonstrations against the bank that had continued to erupt sporadically during their match and decided not. His young opponent just didn’t seem the type to indulge in that kind of gamesmanship—quite the opposite in fact. His caddy, the fractious Weeshy, seemed to have coached him well, and none was better versed in the vagaries of Ballykissane than that old reprobate.