Miracle on the 17th Green (9 page)

Obviously golf is not a craft that anyone ever masters, but one moment in my apprenticeship stands out.

It was in my fifth pro tournament, Bruno’s Memorial in Birmingham, Alabama. Looking at a flyer lie in the rough, to a green that sloped sharply from front to rear, and a flag cut in the very front, I did
something I had never even considered doing as an amateur. I hit the ball smack into the center of the greenside bunker. On purpose.

From there I blasted to four feet, and cleaned up my mess for par.

It was just a par, but it felt like a lot more than that.

Earl knew what it meant, too, because as we walked off the green, he stuck out his hand, looked me in the eye, and said, “Travis, welcome to the Senior Tour.”

After playing the game for forty-two years, I felt like a serious golfer. No gimmes. No mulligans. No bullshit.

Time for a golf quiz.

One question. Thirty seconds. Here goes.

You’re in the second round of a tournament. You shot even par the first day, and come out on fire on Saturday, going four under in the first five holes. And let’s say, for the sake of argument, that after a solid drive on the par-5 6th, you find yourself 205 yards from a small green, protected in front by water. Whatever little wind there is is from right to left.

What do you do? I’m asking, because in my sixth event, the Dallas Reunion Pro-Am, I found myself in this very situation. The clock has just started ticking.
What do you do?

Do you go for the green and try to get to five or even six under par for the nine, or do you lay up and try to walk away quietly with your
par? Remember, you’re four under par. You’re smoking. Do you keep the pedal to the metal and risk a crash, or do you ease off the gas until this nasty little stretch is safely behind you?

Tick. Tick. Tick. You’re down to fifteen seconds.

So what will it be? The lady or the tiger? Greed or caution? The chump change in Bob Barker’s sweaty fist, or what’s behind the lovely high-heeled Carol and door number one? So what’s it going to be, punk? Are you feeling lucky? Are you feeling talented?

There goes the buzzer. Time’s up. Put your pencils down and pass your papers to the right.

You decided to lay up, didn’t you? The more you mulled it over, the more it seemed like the only thing to do. After all, you thought, you’re already four under for the nine, why push your luck.

I made the identical choice. So I’ll tell you what happened.

Since I was only 140 yards from the start of the water, I hit a soft pitch to the water’s edge. Then, wanting to make sure I wasn’t going to get wet — I’m playing this hole conservatively, after all — I hit my second wedge a little strong and rolled it five feet off the back of the green. Then, after a so-so chip, I’ve got an eight-footer to save par.

I miss the putt and walk away not so quietly with a bogey.

By playing sensibly and intelligently, I had taken a possible eagle, or very likely a two-putt birdie, and turned it into a goddamn bogey, and completely blown my frame of mind.

You see, I had practiced and practiced and truly gotten to be a
better golfer
. Now, I had to learn to get used to the fact, or as the pros like to put it, I had to get “comfortable” with it.

I mean, why in the world, when the wind isn’t a factor, would you not go for a green that’s only 205 yards away, except for the fact that you’ve suddenly found yourself four under par and are starting to weird out and ask yourself all kinds of irrelevant questions?

“It’s like you’re embarrassed about being good, Travis,” said Earl after the round. “Almost ashamed of it. And so as soon as you get three or four under, you start waiting for the golfing gods to turn around and punish your ass. Travis, it’s no crime of nature for you to be good at something … particularly something as essentially meaningless as golf.”

Plus, if I can wax philosophical for a paragraph, there’s an even more fundamental principle involved here, and it applies to everything from what you decide to do for a living, to making an omelette, which is that there is nothing so consistently dangerous, not to mention more likely to mess with your head and leave you muttering into your beer, than playing it safe.

Of course, I could be wrong.

When I look back on what took place at the BellSouth Classic in Nashville, Tennessee, on the first weekend of June, I can see now that Earl was dropping one hint after another about how it was going to end. But fortunately at the time, I was too caught up in the events myself to understand any of them.

For starters, there was Earl’s slight, but detectable, limp. Maybe I wasn’t looking closely enough, but in seven tournaments, I hadn’t noticed Earl do that before.

Even more curious, however, was that Earl, who has never exhibited even the slightest tension on the golf course, and after a decade of being shot at in Southeast Asia considers the whole notion of athletic pressure insulting, was more nervous than I was.

Yes, I had just birdied three holes in a row and, yes, I was tied for
the lead of a pro tournament for the first time. But still, it was only Saturday. The way I saw it, I should at least wait until Sunday to start choking my brains out.

And then there was Earl’s
extreme urgency
, which seemed a little misplaced under the circumstances. Even after I had birdied 15, 16, and 17, Earl was still riding me like a jockey going to the whip in the homestretch. “We got to have one more birdie, Travis,” said Earl as we approached the 18th green. “We just got to.”

Now, I appreciate the value of a birdie as much as the next person, and I understand the need for working a hot hand for all you can get, but why, I wondered, was it so important right now?

And finally there was Earl’s Cheshire cat grin when I did in fact sink that last ten-foot putt at 18 to take the outright lead, and the way he said under his breath, “Pebble Beach, here we come.” Pebble Beach, America’s most spectacular golf course, was going to be hosting the U.S. Senior Open a month later, but the only way I was going to get an engraved invitation to that dance was by
winning
a tournament before then, and despite my tiny one-stroke lead, this hardly seemed like a sure thing, or even close to it.

By that evening, all of Earl’s nervousness had vanished, and throughout dinner he barely said a word. In fact, he was so uncharacteristically quiet, I finally had to ask him if he wasn’t going to give me some kind of inspirational pep talk for the next day’s round. “You know,” I said, “something in the guru/sports psychologist vein.”

“The way you’re putting and swinging, Birdie Man,” said Earl with a smile, “you could win this thing in your sleep.”

“Oh well, then I’m not too worried,” I said, “although I’m beginning to get a little worried about you.”

“I know what you mean,” said Earl, “I worry about myself every day. That’s what keeps me sharp.”

Despite being a tad mysterious, Earl’s low-key behavior helped me relax. I had no trouble falling asleep, and once I did, I slept soundly.

Until three in the morning, when I was awakened by the cataclysmic sound of the sky being ripped open like a grocery bag. I stumbled out of bed and looked out the window. I couldn’t see the terrace, it was raining so hard. And three and a half hours later, when I got up for good, it was still coming down in sheets.

I’m sure at this point, Ben Hogan would have scowled at the porous sky and demanded in no uncertain terms that it knock the shit off, so that he could go out and win his golf tournament without any damn meddling from on high. And no doubt, Jack Nicklaus would have viewed the prospect of getting his first pro win in anything less than regulation as equally repugnant.

But I’m not Ben Hogan, and I’m not Jack Nicklaus. I’m Travis McKinley. So if any of you had been in room 1215 at the Nashville Ramada that morning, you would have witnessed the highly undignified sight of a grown man in his baggy underwear falling to his knees on the motel broadloom and embarrassing God with half a dozen fervent prayers sprinkled piously with hallelujahs and amens, to keep that precipitation a-coming … “O mighty clouds,” I’m ashamed to say I said, “please feel free to empty thyselves indefinitely upon these parched parts.”

Five minutes later, my prayers were interrupted by Earl calling to extend his congratulations on my
first … pro … win
. Two hours later, I got the call from the tournament office. Would I please come over to the course and pick up my trophy and my check for $165,000.

Don’t you just love this country?

I figured this was sufficient reason for waking up my heirs in Winnetka.

“One hundred sixty-five thousand dollars,” said Simon groggily. “You know what that means?”

“What?” I asked.

“You’re yuppie scum.”

“Can’t you just see me at the helm of a big burgundy Beemer?” I offered.

“Don’t make me puke,” said Simon. “Congratulations, though.”

Where did my children acquire these embittered pinko values, I wondered. From me, I realized.

“You’re not scum, Dad,” said Noah, “you’re just rich.”

“Your daddy’s rich and your mama’s good-looking,” I sang, bursting into Gerswhin. “Can I talk to her?”

“She had to deliver a baby,” said Noah. “You know Mom.”

“And where is she delivering the baby to?” I asked, success having made me witty enough for your average four-year-old.

“Stop it, Dad,” said Noah, who is definitely not average.

“You tell her for me, okay?” I said. “I’ll call Elizabeth.”

“Okay, Dad,” said Noah. “I’ll tell Mom.”

After I called Elizabeth, Earl and I picked up the hardware and the
software and headed directly to Nashville’s most expensive nouvelle restaurant, where we behaved like any other pair of rich middle-aged friends addled by good fortune. We ate too much. We drank too much, and talked and laughed much too loud. It was wonderful.

Despite my windfall, it turns out I wasn’t nearly as wealthy as Earl, who revealed for the first time that on a good day his stock portfolio was worth between one and one and a half million dollars. I still wrote him a check for $33,000.

Maybe it was the wine or the good company or both, but after a while I started to get emotional. “From now on, Earl,” I said, “instead of calling me Travis, I think it would be best if you could just refer to me as the current champion of the BellSouth Classic.”

“It would be my great honor,” said Earl, who was clearly as moved as I was. “But that’s quite a mouthful, don’t you think? Particularly when you add the asterisk on account of it being a rain-win.”

“Why don’t you just kiss my asterisk,” I said.

“Here’s to the U.S. Senior Open,” said Earl, lifting his champagne.

“To Pebble Beach,” I said, meeting his glass. “I’m going to bring that course to its knees!”

“Oh, Jesus,” groaned Earl. “May we not live to eat those words!”

If a bank had been open that late, we would have laughed all the way to it.

I tried to call Sarah when I got to the hotel, but she still wasn’t back from the hospital, which left me feeling seriously unrequited. To cheer
myself up, I went down to the front desk, made a copy of my $165,000 check, stuffed it in an envelope, and had it Federal Expressed to my old pal Mike Kidd in Chicago. Oh, and I added an incredibly catchy little slogan:

“Kiss my ass.”