Loopy

by Dan Binchy

  He was amused rather than annoyed that the driver that had gone missing from his bag last year should reappear in such unusual circumstances. He had suspected all along that Weeshy had “borrowed” it from him after their bitter argument over a mere shilling. Had the scoundrel not been so short-tempered and insulting, the whole affair would have been amicably resolved long ago. But when Weeshy dragged the name of Her Royal Highness into it, it was a step too far. Still, the scoundrel had forgotten more about golf than anyone around this table, with the possible exception of himself, would ever learn in twenty lifetimes. To make matters worse, Weeshy had a festering grievance to nurse, and this afternoon might well prove the old villain’s last chance to settle the score.

  He was disturbed from his reverie by that idiot Martin asking if he would like an Irish coffee. How anyone in his right mind could even contemplate taking alcohol halfway through an important match was completely beyond him. Of course the man was a complete idiot. Public Relations had been bitching about him recently over the Trabane thing. Or things, rather. For he must not forget the delicate issue of the Maltings’ plant, also. It would, of course, depend on what was in the viability report. Either way, things looked bad for Trabane. It was odd that young Lynch came from there. Coincidence, he supposed. Or fate? Don’t be bloody ridiculous, he told himself. You’re getting too old for this game if you are to start worrying about fate. Your fate is in your own hands—now what was that idiot’s first name again? Liam? Larry—no, that was young Lynch! Leo? Leo! That was it! Well, if he had to talk to the blighter, might as well learn something of his opponent’s family background. Might just come in useful before the day was out.

  “Tell me all about young Lynch, Leo.”

  The flustered manager did not need to be asked twice. He embarked on a rambling account of Loopy’s family circumstances, his progress as a golfer, and that his family kept an account in his bank. It was disappointing to learn of the family circumstances. The bank recruited from a well-defined family and educational profile, and Loopy’s background did not even come close to matching either of these. It was an open secret that ABI employed gifted amateurs in sports such as sailing, tennis, rugby, and golf. They were given a job title that enabled them to maintain their amateur status while drawing a handsome salary from the bank. They were expected to do little more than entertain clients and continue to feature prominently in their chosen sport. Sir Andrew had rather hoped Loopy might qualify for one of these sinecures, but Leo Martin had seemed to make it quite clear that young Lynch’s family circumstances were such as to put that out of the question.

  He ignored Leo’s well-meaning suggestion that his opponent, though a golfer of some promise, would not seriously challenge him that afternoon. Even an idiot like Martin must surely have realized holding a three-time winner of The Atlantic to all-square after eighteen holes could reasonably be construed as a serious challenge.

  Sensing that his observations on the probable outcome of the final had not been as well received as he had hoped, Leo fell silent. He could hardly have been expected to regale his lordship with the story of how Loopy had seen him cheating and the subsequent rearrangement of Brona Lynch’s bank loan.

  Just as they stood up from the table, a braver soul than Leo asked what his lordship thought of his chances. After a long silence, he replied, “I don’t really mind whether I win or lose this one. Maybe it’s that I’m getting old, but it’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed a round as much as the one this morning. I can only thank God that good manners and sportsmanship still survive in the modern game. For once I don’t feel like an Old Testament prophet crying in the wilderness. That young man is just the sort we need to keep in amateur golf.”

  As they left the table, Sir Andrew realized that he had forgotten to interrogate Leo on the closure of his branch. To Sir Andrew it had been, until now, just another item on a crowded agenda. Having seen the placards and heard the occasional catcall, he hoped that there would be no repeat of the unruly scenes that had occurred during the morning round. It was all very well to make the game of golf available to the masses; indeed, he had been advocating this for many years; but if the masses insisted on behaving like football hooligans rather than decent, respectable golf fans, then that was a different kettle of fish.

  The club captain, in apologizing to him both as a competitor and a board director of the sponsors, had been confident that the stewards were well on top of the situation. Furthermore, it seemed that many of the later recruits to what one reporter was already describing as “Loopy’s Legion” had tired of the contest after an hour or two and headed for the attractions of Ballykissane village. As these consisted of three pubs and four fast-food outlets, he feared for their mood if they should return to the golf course before the match had ended.

  Young Lynch was already waiting on the first tee. After a quick handshake and another exchange of Good lucks, they were once more on their way. The rain had turned to hail, and the wind had, if anything increased in velocity. All in all, conditions were just about playable. Again the first hole was not without incident. Again Loopy registered a par four—which his lordship equaled by holing out a difficult chip. If the ball had not struck the flagstick and gone in, it would have rolled off the green and back down a steep slope. But it didn’t. They were still all square, and Sir Andrew noted that Loopy joined in the general applause for what was a lucky break. At the second, both played low irons conservatively to the right, and even so, Loopy thought for a heart-stopping moment that his ball was going to be blown over the out-of-bounds fence.

  Weeshy had no such qualms and called it while still in midair: “Don’t worry. Front of green, to the left. Easy chip.”

  The hole was halved in par threes and the match was still level; after twenty holes.

  At Eternity, Loopy had his one and only lucky break of the round. In his heart he knew that its length, almost six hundred yards, had to be to his advantage over the older man. Sir Andrew had yet to score better than a par five at Eternity. Ballykissane was a traditional layout with tough opening holes of par four, three, and five. Now they were teeing off on the third of these, the twenty-first hole, and all square in the match as Weeshy handed Loopy the driver. The wind was fiercer than ever, gusting from left to right and waiting to blow anything but a perfectly struck shot out of bounds onto the road.

  The instructions bellowed in his ear were barely audible above the near hurricane: “Well left, low and hard!”

  Standing up to drive the ball, he felt the old sensation return for a fleeting moment or two. The hairs on his neck prickled and a deathly calm enveloped him in a cocoon that silenced the screaming wind and the excited chatter of the spectators. He drew back the club so slowly he felt as if his arms were frozen into a series of jerky frames rather than following a fluid, flowing motion. Still in an oasis of calmness, he watched with trancelike detachment as the ball flew far to the left, low and hard, just as Weeshy had instructed. It flew over the thickest of dune grasses, where, had it dropped back to earth, it would never be found again. For what seemed like an age, it flew in a perfect parabola, borne on the wind to the safety of the fairway, rolling to a halt less than a yard from an evil pot bunker. As if that were not luck enough, it found a gentle uphill lie.

  “Same shot again,” Weeshy barked at him through the wind and rain, handing over the driver, whose leather grip he had just dried with a towel marked BALLYKISSANE GC, which he had almost certainly appropriated during the break for lunch. The rain was now bucketing down harder than ever, and some foolhardy spectators put up umbrellas only to have them blown inside out by the gale. His opponent was also on the fairway, some thirty yards nearer to the green, but had played two safe shots to get there.

  As he took a wide stance to brace himself against the gale, Loopy felt that this could be the turning point in what had so far been the closest of contests. He did his best not to think of the last time he had tried to hit a driver off the ground. He was wearing the
sweater Amy had given him that day, but it was the sensation of O’Hara’s elderly driver shattering to pieces that was at the forefront of his mind as he took his stance. If he could only get the ball airborne with Weeshy’s driver, a difficult enough exercise in itself that few golfers attempted even in friendly games, and yet keep it low and on the fairway, he should have an excellent chance of going one up and taking the lead. All of a sudden, he knew, he just knew, with a chilling certainty that if he could just get his nose ahead at Eternity, victory would be his.

  Yet hitting the driver off the fairway was a calculated risk. A perfectly executed shot would almost certainly win the hole. Against that, the slightest hint of a slice or even hitting the ball too high in the wind must inevitably send it careering out of bounds and onto the road in this vicious crosswind. The instant the driver made contact with the ball, the feedback from the clubhead back up the shaft to his hands told him that it was a cracker, similar in shape and length to his drive off the tee. The ball made a friend of the wind and used it to steal extra yards of roll as it bounded along a fairway still hard as a rock despite the flurries of rain and hail. After two mighty blows on a hole measuring almost six hundred yards, his ball lay in a valley in front of the green, less than seventy yards from the pin.

  His opponent was well short of the green in three with a testing pitch over a greenside bunker. Normally Sir Andrew would play a bump and run to the green. He could almost play the shot in his sleep, and anyone who regularly played links courses had to master it. In conditions such as today’s, it was ideal because the wind did not affect its low trajectory. This time, however, a yawning bunker intervened between his ball and the green, ruling out any chance of playing his favorite shot. He had no choice but to execute a high lob into the wind and make it land on the putting surface. From where he was, to pull it off would require both a delicate touch and the luck of the devil.

  To his credit, he nearly succeeded. Cut upward with an elegant swing, smooth as silk, the ball obediently climbed high into the sky. Then the wind grabbed it at the top of its arc, stopped it in midair for a split second, and flung it back into the bowels of the bunker. Because it was still raining, the sand had become sodden wet, making an already difficult escape even more so.

  Loopy was next to play. With a clear run to the pin, he played the low bump and run through the valley and up the slope. The ball scuttled along the ground like a rabbit, coming to a stop within ten feet of the flagstick. This left him with a putt for a birdie four.

  His opponent had already played that many shots and was still lying at the bottom of a deep, wet bunker. Hands on hips, Sir Andrew surveyed his situation with obvious distaste. He looked at the shot he would have to make out of the bunker from every angle, assessing his chances of leaving his ball close enough to the flag to get down in one putt for a six. Then he glanced briefly at Loopy’s ball on the green. Whether he did not want to risk the embarrassment of failing to get the ball out of the bunker, or he did not want to gift Loopy the psychological boost of making a birdie at the longest hole on the course in appalling conditions, no one would ever know. With a wry smile, he walked over to Loopy’s ball, picked it up, and handed it to him.

  “Well played, young man. I concede the hole.”

  The referee intoned solemnly, “Mr. Lynch goes one up with fifteen holes to go.”

  This was greeted by whoops of delight from those hardy souls who had deserted the village bars to brave the worst the elements could throw at them. The referee again appealed for order, “Quiet please!” as they moved to the next tee.

  The Linhursts appeared out of the crowd to congratulate Loopy. Edward said, “Keep at it. You have him on the run now!” while Amy whispered, “You look fantastic in that sweater!” As she walked away, she turned and blew a kiss in his direction—which made him feel even better about going one up in the most important match of his life.

  Reporters who were present for the final day of The Atlantic were in agreement on at least two issues. It was the worst weather in living memory, and the battle was won and lost on the twenty-first hole. Ironically they had come to a similar conclusion about the previous year’s final when Al Neumann had destroyed his lordship’s chances—and canceled out his lead—by hitting the third green in two. But that feat had been achieved in perfect conditions. Today the reporters were all of one mind that Loopy’s play with the driver off the fairway into the teeth of a crosswind was a match-winner.

  What finally won the day for Loopy and his caddy was the long par three. Two hundred and eighteen yards off an elevated tee to a green surrounded by a moonscape of dunes thickly coated with grass and weeds. The narrow, two-tiered green was necklaced with deep bunkers. Right beside the seashore, it was today playing almost directly into the wind, with no place to hide. Any shot, high or low, was going to feel the full blast of the gale, and landing anywhere but on the green was a lottery. One might be lucky enough to find a reasonably good lie on dune grass that had been trampled down by the spectators, or just as easily find the ball so deep in the grass that hacking it out regardless of where it might end up was the only option.

  They had halved the preceding holes, and Loopy still retained his slender one-hole lead as he sized up the tee shot to the distant green. The flag fluttered stiff in the gale as he pondered which club to play. Nothing less than a driver or a fairway wood had any chance of reaching the putting surface. At the back of his mind was the comforting thought that his opponent might not be able to reach the green with any club in his bag.

  “What do you think?”

  Weeshy shrugged his shoulders, grimaced, spat on the ground, and handed him the driver before whispering into his ear, “Whole duck or no dinner, we might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb! Bring it in from the left, anyways. Take your time, though, I think the tide’s changing.”

  From the mixed metaphors Loopy gathered that his caddy was in favor of playing the brave shot and taking the game to his opponent rather than playing safe. For once Weeshy had not indicated how far left Loopy should lay off into the wind, and the reason for this quickly became apparent when the wind suddenly dropped noticeably. As Loopy stooped to tee up his ball, he decided to wait for another moment or two to see if the wind would drop even more. He remembered how changing from a driver to a three iron at the fifteenth had won him the match against O’Donnell. That, too, had been a turning point, when Weeshy predicted that the wind would drop for a brief moment as the tide turned.

  The par-three fourteenth he was standing on was the hole before that, and just as exposed to the elements. If he could hit the driver while the wind was at its lowest ebb, then his chances of hitting the green simply had to improve. As he took a few practice swings more than usual, he sensed that the wind was strengthening again, so without further ado he aimed well to the left, toward the foreshore, and hoped for the best as he smashed the ball off the tee. Like a kite on a string it soared out toward the breakers crashing on the beach, then caught the wind and drifted lazily onto the back of the green. The shot was greeted by the loudest applause yet and, despite the pleas of the referee, a cacophony of wild whoops from the Trabane contingent. Their ranks were now swollen by several visibly tipsy supporters who sensed that a famous victory was within their grasp.

  “Good man yourself, Lynch!”

  “Come on, Trabane, c’mon, the village!”

  When Sir Andrew took his stance, the wind had regained most of its earlier fury, a point not lost on Weeshy to judge by the smugness of his grin. The ball never had a chance of reaching the green. It was lucky to find a playable lie from which the best Sir Andrew could do was to hack it onto the front edge of the green, leaving a forty-foot putt up a three-tier green. As he was still farther from the hole than Loopy’s first shot, he putted up to within six feet of the cup, an excellent effort in the circumstances. Loopy left his birdie put six inches short, and his lordship made his second concession of the afternoon by picking up his ball and saying, this time wi
th no trace of a smile, “Your hole.”

  The referee tried to make himself heard above the excitement of the crowd. “Laurence Lynch wins the hole and goes two up with four holes to play!”

  In ever-worsening conditions, the next three holes were halved in one shot over par, and the match ended on the seventeenth with the announcement “Laurence Lynch wins the match by two and one!”

  There followed the most amazing scenes ever witnessed in the long history of Ballykissane and the Atlantic Trophy. Bottles of stout and noggins of whiskey appeared from nowhere. Undeterred by wind or rain, the celebrations began there and then, accompanied by snatches of song and bursts of prolonged cheering.

  “C’mon, the village!” was a cry taken up by a knot of burly, excited men who heaved Loopy up on their shoulders. Despite the pleas of the referee for order and decorum, they bore him away on a lap of honor around the green as photographers jostled with each other to record the occasion.

  They finally set Loopy down in front of the clubhouse, where the presentation was to take place. A roped-off area seemed awash with blazers, green for the members of Ballykissane and blue for the high command of Allied Banks of Ireland. Someone was trying desperately to get the microphone to work, as it emitted piercing whistles and ear-shattering shrieks. These were not quite loud enough, however, to blot out the chants of “Save our bank, save our Bank!” that vied with the more raucous “Good man yourself, Lynch, ya boyo!”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Irish Rover was not the sort of place that featured in any directory of Good English Pubs. It was a place where the Irish in Birmingham congregated to exchange information about jobs to be had, horses to be backed, and, at weekends, money to be spent on lukewarm English bitter beer. It was always quiet in midweek, when Sean Lynch found himself nursing a small beer and lighting a fresh cigarette from the stub of the last one. He picked up a copy of the Irish Post that someone had left behind. As he sought the section where news of Trabane might feature if anything of interest had happened in the village over the past week, a headline caught his eye: “Trabane Boy Wins Atlantic Trophy.”