Loopy (27 page)

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 inadequate 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.

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 smattering 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.