Miracle on the 17th Green (12 page)

“How you hitting ’em Travis?” Trevino asked.

“Not too bad, Mr. Trevino,” I said.

“Cut the crap, McKinley,” said Trevino with a cackle. “If he’s so goddamn respectful,” Trevino asked the crowd, “why’s he trying to take food out of my kids’ mouths?”

By now the sun was going down and the range was filling with warm, golden light. Although I was worried about why I couldn’t hit the ball straight, and if I would still be seeing the line tomorrow, and if I’d ever be seeing Sarah again on a regular basis, I was suddenly overcome with a sense of well-being I hadn’t felt since I was a kid.

To put it simply, I felt happy. Whole.

Hitting balls on my left was Hiroshi Ishi, a really fine Japanese player from a little fishing village outside Tokyo, who barely speaks a word of English. On my right was the legendary Trevino, a former driving-range hustler who has won seven majors and untold millions.

But on that beautiful late afternoon our vast differences seemed beside the point. We were all doing exactly what we wanted to do, exactly where we wanted to do it. We were professional golfers and immensely proud of it.

The Senior damn Open at Pebble Beach.

Friday was a slightly tenser, more nerve-racking version of Thursday. Kind of like a bicycle tire with ten pounds more air in it. I hit a few more greens, sunk a couple more putts, and shot a one-under par 71. That got me through to the weekend, six strokes behind leader Bob Eastwood. I wasn’t tearing it up, or doing anything even remotely miraculous, but I had survived the cut.

It was on Saturday, another perfect California morning, that I made my move.

The strange happenings began on the par-4 3rd hole, when I got a little too jacked up on the tee and snap-hooked my drive into the deep, gnarly U.S. Open rough.

Three shaky shots later, I was looking over a circus sixty-footer with
more breaks, dips, and rises between me and the hole than between me and Sarah, and as I stood over the ball, I was just hoping to somehow two-putt and escape with my mental health. Dialing in about sixteen feet of break, I sent the ball on its way, and after what seemed like about ten minutes the ball slid into the back of the hole, like a dog that had found its way home. “Now that’s what I call a world-class five,” said Earl.

With the near disaster behind me, my round turned as if on a hinge. From that point on, I felt so incredibly serene and quiet inside, it was as if I were sleepwalking, or standing outside myself altogether. Either that or someone had spiked my Gatorade with Prozac.

I didn’t make another bad swing all day. I didn’t have another negative thought. I was in every fairway, on every green, and hitting my irons so stiff I was looking over makable birdie putts on every hole.

With a clear white line once again showing the way, I rolled in nine of them, five on the front, four on the back, for an eight-under-par 64.

Jim Colbert passed me near the scorers’ table and didn’t say a word.

And so that evening as Earl and I sat quietly in my hotel room, me nursing a beer and trying to reread a two-month-old airline magazine, and Earl smoking one of his beloved Cubans and perusing the
Wall Street Journal
, I was the sole leader of the U.S. Senior Open.

Tied for second two strokes back, were a couple of fellows you might have heard of — Raymond Floyd and Jack Nicklaus.

Earl and I spent Saturday night trying not to freak out. We couldn’t watch television because I was on every channel, and it was hard to do much else, because the phone never stopped ringing.

First it was ABC, CBS, and NBC. Then CNN, ESPN, and the Golf Network. I even got a call from Radio Free Europe, but the one call I wanted, from Sarah and the kids, never came, and every time I called home all I got was that coldblooded answering machine.

As far as my interviews went, I pretty much told them all the same thing. “I’m not insane yet,” I said. “I know there’s no reason to expect I can hold off two of the best golfers to ever play the game on one of the hardest golf courses in the world in the final round of a major. I just don’t want to embarrass myself in front of fifteen million people.”

After about six of these sound bites, Earl couldn’t take it anymore.
“I hope you don’t really believe all that modest politically correct bullshit you’ve been serving up for mass consumption,” he said. “You shot a sixty-four today, and now you’re going to roll over?”

Earl finally unplugged the phone and was about to leave me to my anxiety when there was a light knock on the door.

“Who the hell is it now,” Earl snorted to himself, “Bill and Hillary?”

Actually, it was Lee Trevino, looking all decked out and kind of weird in a jacket and tie, apparently just having got back from some corporate function.

“Mr. McKinley, I don’t know if you remember me,” said Trevino, “but I was practicing next to you on the range the other day.”

“I deserve this,” I said.

“I can’t stay, and I know you got to get some bad sleep,” said Trevino, “but I just wanted to wish you guys good luck tomorrow. Remember, there’s a reason you’re leading this tournament by two strokes, and it’s not luck. You’ve worked as hard on your game as anyone out here.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said, “no matter what happens.”

“And one other goddamn thing,” said Trevino.

“What’s that?”

“Call me Lee.”

July twenty-first.

Early Sunday afternoon, about twenty to two.

Pebble Beach.

The last threesome of the U.S. Senior Open.

Raymond Floyd. Jack Nicklaus. And yours truly, Travis McKinley. This is as about as real as it gets.

Or should I say unreal.

Brent Musberger and Peter Alliss were in the tower. The Kodak blimp was lazily circling overhead, and if I’m not mistaken the man leaning over the ropes strung tight around the first tee, wearing a tartan kilt, a tam-o’-shanter, and a “Travis Rules” T-shirt was Bill Murray.

And waiting ominously like a video angel of death about halfway down the side of the first fairway was Bob Rosburg, the former
PGA champion, who would be tracking us for the entire eighteen holes.

For those who don’t squander vast amounts of their leisuretime on TV golf, Rosburg, called “Rosi” by his colleagues in the booth, is famous for pumping up the drama of even the most boring finish by mournfully whispering,
“Oh, he’s just dead!”
about any shot that rolls even slightly astray.

I was just taking a few last freaked-out practice swings and trying not to hyperventilate when Earl snorted, then sighed, “Oh shit.”

I turned around and saw what he was reacting to. There standing at the front of the ropes, having flown in from Chicago that morning, was the entire surviving population of Winnetka McKinleys, from Pop to Sarah to Elizabeth to Simon and Noah. It was a sight so welcome I thought for a second it was a mirage.

“It was his idea,” said Elizabeth, lifting up a blushing Noah. “He threatened to go on a hunger strike if we didn’t come.”

They had arrived with so little time to spare I barely had time to kiss and hug my way down the line before nervous officials were calling and waving me to the tee.

“Isn’t this great?” I said to Earl as we headed back to the center of the tee.

“Wonderful,” said Earl with disgust, as he handed me a driver. “What’s the matter, your dog doesn’t like to fly? I’m just going to say one thing and then we’re going to move on. This is not a family reunion. This the final damn round of the U.S. Open.”

Just to let Earl know I had everything under control, I stepped up
to my drive — as the overnight leader I had honors — and, as if I were alone on the range, blistered my first drive down the center of the fairway.

“You’re The Man!” shouted Murray as my ball rocketed off the face of my driver. “And there are not a lot of us left.”

The next three hours or so were the most exhilarating of my life. They were also the most excruciating and heartbreaking.

For eighteen holes, I didn’t take a relaxed breath. I didn’t step up to a single tee shot that I wasn’t afraid I might shank, or pull back my putter without the fear of a stub. I had no business being out there in the final threesome with two of the greatest golfers to ever play the game, and all of us knew it. I was in so far over my head I should have been carrying a periscope.

To keep me from being utterly overwhelmed by my surroundings and opponents, Earl had decided the night before that, after a quick handshake on the first tee, I wouldn’t make eye contact or talk to either Nicklaus or Floyd the rest of the round. “We’re not out here to relish the experience, or so thirty years from now you can plop your
great-grandchildren on your arthritic knee and tell them that one Sunday you went head-to-head with the Golden Bear and the Great Raymondo. We’re here to win. Just like them.”

Whatever you say, Earl. And Earl was right about them trying to intimidate me. In fact, on the very first tee, Floyd, in an obvious gibe at my one soggy triumph, turned to me and said, “Doesn’t look like rain today, Travis. Not a cloud in the sky.”

“It’s a good thing,” Earl answered for me, “because I didn’t even pack a rainsuit.”

My biggest problem was my oldest problem, the putter. Under the extreme pressure, my ability to read the line was coming and going on every other hole. On some I saw the line with dazzling clarity. On others the green was
swimming
at my feet. Some holes, I rolled the ball like Crenshaw, knocking in field-goal-length putts. On others, I putted like a 14-handicapper choking his brains out over a four-footer that decides who pays for the hot dogs at the turn.

Ironically, the result of all this Sturm und Drang was about the same as a steady succession of pars. An unexpected benefit was that my personal emotional roller coaster was distracting to Nicklaus and Floyd.

I may have been throwing up on myself every couple of holes, but I refused to go away. And as we stood on the 17th tee, I was, as Musberger informed viewers in the dramatic stage whisper reserved for such occasions (I’ve since watched the telecast on tape a couple, three times) “still very much in the hunt.”