Chapter Nineteen
Miracles
We gathered on the first tee on Saturday morning as instructed. I had considered having Jim and Johnnie (Beam and Walker, that is) over for breakfast. Instead, as a good little loyal employee, I settled for my usual Captain Crunch and low fat yogurt. I was not so sure about Earl. He looked a bit green around the gills. I think he might have an early morning visit with a friendly Bud or two.
In a surprise to no one, Elwood showed up in entirely inappropriate attire. He had on his pinstriped suit pants, a button down white shirt and highly polished dress wingtips. We convinced him to lose the tie and bought him a pair of golf shoes. Since we were using Chuck’s personal account, we also rented Elwood the best set of sticks the clubhouse had. I had them throw in a sleeve or two (ok, a dozen or two) of Titleist’s finest for each of us and a really cool golf hat for me. We got a camo style hat for Earl and a ridiculous cap for Elwood (“Golf is the Only Four Letter Word My Mommy Let’s Me Use”). After briefly savoring these immature small victories, Earl and I settled in for what was sure to be a really long long round. We already warned the starter to skip a group behind us. We were certain we would be searching for Elwood’s ball (and probably Elwood himself) in the water and the woods most the day.
“Elwood, have you ever played before?”
“Not much, but I did read a book on how to play last night. I understand how to grip the club and address the ball.”
“Hey. I read a book last night that helped me grip my club and address my balls too. It had mostly pictures in it.”
While I was chuckling at Earl’s witticism, Elwood stepped up to the tee. He readjusted himself more than a dog trying to lie down and finally settled over the ball. His final positioning was not really all that bad. He must have paid attention to Chapter Two last night.
While I was checking the distance to the large plate glass window in the house to the immediate right of the tee, Elwood took his swing. I winced, closed my eyes and listened for a shattering sound. A loud ‘thwack’ was followed by a moment of total eerie silence. The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was the starter uttering an amazed, “What the fuck?”
Elwood said something like, “The Y vector over rotated about three degrees.”
I gazed down the fairway at a ball nestled dead in middle of the morning dew about two hundred fifty yards out. I was speechless.
Earl quietly asked, “What was the name of that book?”
The rest of the round proceeded in much the same manner. Elwood played brilliantly. He shot an eighty-one and beat us each by more than ten strokes. He never once smiled or acknowledged our amazement. He just kept muttering some gibberish about moments of inertia and momentum transference. For the first time in my life, I wished I had paid less attention to Dee “Boom Boom” Profundus sitting in front of me in physics class and more attention to the physics instructor.
I drove the golf cart over to Elwood’s car and dropped him off. I had to ask, “Elwood, I have never seen anything like that. No one learns to play like that from a book. So what’s the deal?”
It was barely noticeable. Had my bullshit antennae not been on the highest frequency, I might have missed the very quick and slight smirk on his face as he drolly said, “I’m not taking any questions at this time.” He managed to jump in his car and put it in gear before I could fully pull my seven-iron out of my golf bag.
Again, the little voice inside me kept saying me something wasn’t quite right here. I vowed to keep a closer eye on our genius MBA, Elwood.
MBA - Moron$ Ba$ and A$$ Page 20