Chapter Twenty-Seven
Who are You?
It was another Chamber of Commerce world class late spring day with sunny skies, a temperature hovering around eighty and a slight cooling breeze from the north. Dad was in great spirits and looked ten years younger than his sixty-eight numerical years. Jay was in great physical shape and seemed as happy as I had ever seen him.
“All right, boys. It is a great day with a great group of dudes to play the greatest game ever invented. Let’s get it on!”
Dad, Jay, Jack, Chuck and I mounted the first tee box. Anyone with golfing knowledge might be emitting a slight gasp at this point. Did I really say we were a five-some on a Saturday morning? Yup! Chuck had a lot of pull at the club. It didn’t hurt that his grandfather (Oral – I kid you not – thank God that’s not Holly’s grandfather’s name; as in Oral Head - but I digress again) was a founding member. Chuck was able to bump a group of commoners to get the FIVE of us an eight a.m. tee time.
Jack was first up. He looked like a movie star playing a golf pro. He didn’t have a hair out of place on his head or a crease out of place in his trousers. Was I really looking at the crease in his trousers? I think I needed to get my testosterone levels checked!
I had never seen him take a swing with a golf club. We had trashed talked each other for several days. He gave as good as he got verbally, but would his ball striking match his ball busting? In a word, “Yup.”
He swung back way past parallel on the top and dropped the club head with amazing speed onto the stationary sphere. The ball took off like it stole something and kept on going. Heads popped up like prairie dogs all around as club members within earshot were startled by the sound.
My brother and I exchanged amazed glances. “Jay, I hope you brought enough cash to cover us.”
The round continued like this with Jack out driving us by ten to twenty yards on each hole. Dad rode with Jay, I rode with Chuck (sucking up is an art form) and Jack had his own cart. Good thing, since he was constantly in front of us. We had teamed Jack and Chuck together taking on me, Jay and Dad in best ball format (take the best individual score on the hole for the team). The fifty dollar bet was inconsequential for all of us, but the forward bragging rights for the winners were priceless.
Jack kept up his Phil / Tiger imitation throughout the front nine. Dad did his best to break his concentration with his corny jokes (e.g. “The best way to keep your head down is to focus on the ‘Tit’ in Titleist. Two golfers were standing on a tee box overlooking a river. One turned to the other and said, ‘Hey, look at those idiots fishing in the rain.’”). He didn’t get many laughs and it didn’t slow down Jack one bit. By the end of nine (the turn for us PGA wannabes), our team was only down three due to my incredible string of lights out putting. I mean, I was sinking them from Greensville (trust me, that’s a long putt).
The breeze picked up on the back nine and actually graduated into the windy category. Jack was still knocking the white off the ball, but, by the eleventh hole, it was drifting off the straight and narrow. There were more than a few that looked like they might find a watery grave or join the acorns in the forest. But, as it is with those that God had blessed with great looks, great charm and great talents, Jack also possessed more than his fair share of great luck. As we would catch up with Jack’s cart, we’d find that his ball had nestled in the rough about a foot from the hazard or hit a tree and bounced back into the fairway.
However, my luck was running hot too. My putter continued to be my new best friend. A chip-in from thirty yards on the seventeen won the hole and put Team Mick down one going to the eighteenth tee. Eighteen is Asheville Acres’ signature hole with a large lake fronted by a moss covered rock waterfall residing about two hundred and eighty yards down the right side. The narrow fairway on this par four is bounded on the left by a sharply rising grassy hill that ends in a bluff twenty feet above. There are fountains that shoot up randomly toward the heavens behind the large rolling green. All in all, a stunning finishing hole.
We were further stunned by Dad’s tee shot. He is not normally a long hitter, but is usually straight. I think he tried to hit it a bit too hard and pulled a long extremely high shot to the left. It landed on top of the bluff and stayed there. He muttered something that sounded like a cross between “Fudge” and “Fiddlesticks.” I tried to not look shocked.
Chuck and Jay hit their normal boring two hundred yards down the middle shot. I crushed one about two forty (that’s a crush in my world) onto the right side of the fairway. I knew I could make at least a par from there.
Jack stepped up to his ball. I tried to detect any sign of nervousness. A slight sheen of sweat on the upper lip? A tremble in his hands? A twitch in either butt cheek (not that I looked very closely or for too long, did I)? No, no and no. He looked cucumber cool. If this guy was as lucky and confident as an accountant as he was a golfer, we might never be audited.
Jack took his usual mighty rip. As the ball rocketed off the clubface, I think the golf gods decided to give us mere mortals a slight sliver of a break. A huge sudden gust of wind caught the ball and veered it to the right. It looked like it would land just short of the waterfall in the rough. It carried about a foot, or so, too far and hit on the hard outcropping in front of the falls. The ball bounded high in the air and into the surrounding rocks.
“Shit.” So Mr. Cool was human after all.
“I think I saw where that went. I’ll see you at the green.” It might have been my imagination, but I thought I saw a slight sheen, a tremble and twitch as he took off.
Dad hit into the waterfall from the top of the bluff and his day was over. Chuck hit his ball about ten yards short of the green. Jay hit a “pull head up before club comes down” topped shot that squirmed like a dying snake about six yards down the fairway.
So, it was up to Mick. I took a deep breath, swung a smooth and easy four hybrid and heard a satisfying clicking sound. The ball Steve Millered it (flew like an eagle), landed on the front of the green and rolled right toward the pin stopping three feet in front. With Jack in the hazard and me relatively sure to make the putt, we were going to be tied, at worst.
Three of us arrived at the green together and looked back toward the waterfall. Dad was still carefully picking his way down from the bluff. Jack’s cart could be seen behind the waterfall, but no Jack. Suddenly we heard a whack and saw a ball come flying out of the rocks.
“What a shot!”
“How’d he do that?”
“Who is this guy?”
“Crap. It almost went in.”
“Quit your bitchin’ and moaning, you pussies, and pull out your wallets. That’s my partner!”
I swore to myself, at that very moment, that I would never play golf with Jack again… unless he was on MY team.
So Jack settled in as our MBA success story. The books were in perfect balance (whatever the heck that means). I was able to give Jack more responsibilities and relax some of my oversight of his work. His financial update presentations were slick, concise and, yes, somewhat humorous. Anyone that can keep me awake talking about this stuff (much less make me smile) is a genius. The Shareholder was happy, the staff was happy, and once again, things were humming along. The only downers were the constant “I told you so’s” that Chuck gleefully uttered on the frequent occasions he brought the MBA subject up. Prick.
MBA - Moron$ Ba$ and A$$ Page 28