The Amateurs (20 page)

A
COUPLE OF HOURS LATER AND
NOTHING
WAS GOING
their way. It was unbelievable. Stevie had no idea a golf course could change so much in the one day it took to move from practice play into the first round of competition. From a relatively benign stretch of turf, a difficult yet solvable succession of problems, to a hostile, malicious living thing–a sentient creature hell-bent on your personal destruction–within less than twenty-four hours. They’d made four bogeys in the first six holes and (almost) none of them had really been Gary’s fault.

Now they trudged towards the seventh green in silence, four over par. For the first time in the round all three players had found the green in two regulation strokes, but they were all a good distance from the hole on an enormous green baked lightning fast by the weeks of warm weather.

As they walked across the green towards Gary’s ball (both of them conscious of the fact that it took thirty-four paces to cover the distance from hole to ball. 1 pace = approx. 1 yard,
1 yard = 3 feet, so a putt of over a hundred feet) Gary noticed the unmanned TV cameras around the green, shrouded in polythene, their eyes black and lifeless and pointed at the ground, ready to be activated as soon as a match worth televising came around the course.

He crouched down behind the ball, trying for a read. It was hopeless: downhill, breaking left to right and then, about two-thirds of the way to the hole, turning uphill and breaking right to left and then–maybe–back the other way again as it got to the hole.

‘What do you think?’ Gary asked Stevie, who was crouching behind him.

Stevie tried to read the putt, but it was Sanskrit. Hieroglyphics. In lieu of something intelligent to say about the line of the putt he tried to think of something more general and inspirational. What would Martin Luther King have said? What would
Strummer
have said?

‘Nice and firm up the middle,’ Stevie said.

They both felt like what they were: two chancers who shouldn’t have been there.

Gary sighed and settled the putter head behind the ball. Not really caring at this point, he just made a nice easy slap, ignoring the break and sending it straight up the middle. The ball charged at speed downhill, looking like it had been massively overstruck. It started to veer right, looking like it would end up twenty yards offline. It turned left as it began heading uphill, slowing down dramatically now, looking like it would never reach the crest of the incline. But it did, rolling slightly downhill now, gathering pace and changing course a third time as it turned gently towards the hole. At this point, at exactly the same time, Stevie and Gary both said, ‘Aye, yer maw.’

The ball hit the cup very hard, hopped three inches into the air above it, and then plopped down into the hole with a satisfying rattle to give Gary his first birdie of the day. His little gallery burst into spontaneous cheering and applause. Stevie and Gary looked at each other and simply burst out laughing.

Suddenly Gary’s mind was racing, utterly transformed in the second it took for the ball to drop into the cup. From a hellish four over par to three over in a heartbeat. Three over wasn’t so bad. He still had eleven more holes to play. He only had to make three more birdies and he’d be level par–a fresh start from which anything might be possible. And suddenly the eleven holes that still lay before him had been transformed from an ordeal to be survived into a flowering paradise overflowing with birdie opportunities.

This feeling of transcendent power and potential was to last approximately three and a half minutes: the time that elapsed between sinking his putt on the seventh and striking his tee shot on the eighth. The eighth at Royal Troon.

The Postage Stamp.

One of the most famous holes in golf, at just 126 yards long it is the shortest hole on the Open rota and earns its name from the size of its tiny green. The green itself is surrounded by bunkers–deep fearsome maws which have devoured many less than perfectly struck tee shots and wrecked many a man’s round and sanity.

A German amateur by the name of Herman Tissies, playing in the 1950 Open Championship, found one of the left-hand bunkers with his tee shot. Five shots later he managed to launch his ball out of the bunker…and into another one. Another five shots and he succeeded in dislodging his ball from this bunker, sending it flying back into the original
bunker. Tissies managed to get out of this bunker in only three shots and holed out for a card-incinerating 15.

Even Calvin Linklater had once carded a dreadful quintuple bogey nine here.

Incredible that a straight, simple 126-yard par three–just a slap with the sand wedge if the prevailing winds are favourable–could be responsible for so much misery and fury.

Of course, Gary Irvine knew all these stories and more. However, as he climbed the wooden steps to the eighth tee, still basking in the post-birdie glow, he chose to forget them. A slight headwind blowing into his face made his hand wander over the sand wedge and pull out the pitching wedge.

The moment he hit it, he knew he had overstruck it, and he watched, a rising nausea in his chest, as the ball hurtled down towards the back of the green, took one bounce and disappeared.

‘Unlucky,’ Stevie said.

F
UCK IT
, L
EANNE THOUGHT AS SHE ALLOWED THE
upended wine bottle to drain into her glass, one of those massive goblets that easily held half a litre. She had long since lost interest in the movie she’d rented–some American romcom thing, the kind of film the wee fat guy who ran the video shop on the high street always made some comment about when you took it up to the counter. Cheeky bastard. But he hadn’t been working tonight, so she’d gone ahead and got it anyway.

Using the remote she flipped from DVD to AUX and Dido softly flooded through the speakers. She stretched out on the couch, propped up on the cushions, resting her brimming glass on her stomach (God, she’d have to get back down that gym soon), a bit sleepy now from the wine, alone in the big living room, in the big house, as the summer darkness finally gathered outside. The day had been hot enough to move her to leave windows open all round the place and the chatter of swallows and thrushes darting in and out of the big maples that lined the street intertwined
with the music to create a peaceful murmur.

It was lovely to have the place to herself.

Leanne sipped her wine, splashing a little down her front and not really caring and realising that that meant she was drunk.

From the kitchen, a noise. Like something falling over.

She turned the music down and listened. Nothing.

Kitchen. Maybe time to make herself a wee snack. Starving. With some difficulty she levered herself up from the couch and headed down the hall. She stopped in the doorway and peered into the dark room. She thought she could smell something odd, something sweet and fragrant, and, just for a second, she felt a tiny current of fear. Then logic–buffered by a bottle of Chardonnay–kicked in. ‘Stupid,’ she said out loud as she turned the lights on.

Lee leapt out from behind the island in the middle of the kitchen and Leanne screamed.

He was wearing a black leather jacket and a black balaclava.
Like rapists wear
, her mind just had time to think before he was upon her, his hand slamming over her mouth, silencing her screams, as he wrestled her to the floor, pressing something hard into her side.

‘Shut it!’ Lee said. ‘Shut yer fucking mooth!’

The pressure on her side stopped as he brought something up to her face. It was a gun. ‘If ye make a fucking noise ah’ll fucking kill ye. Right?’

Leanne was shaking, on the edge of fainting, she could feel the wine churning in her stomach, nausea rising. Her pupils were tiny, her eyes bulging out of her head like golf balls.
Please, God, let me live,
Leanne thought.

Lee got up, keeping the gun pointed at her, and reached into his pocket. He took out a big roll of duct tape and started tearing off a long strip.

G
ARY WAS LYING ON HIS BED IN THEIR ROOM AT THE
B&B. Still wet from the shower, a towel wrapped around him as he listened to Stevie, who had taken his place in the shower, tunelessly singing ‘What You Do to Me’ by Teenage Fanclub.

Eight over par he’d finished. One of the worst rounds of the day and the worst score he’d shot since the accident. How? Apart from the atrocity in the bunker at the eighth he hadn’t really felt like he’d done much wrong. A few whiffed putts here and there and a couple of bad bounces–just half a dozen shots, but still the difference between a half-decent round and a living shithouse. The course had played tough, dry and hard, and running fast and unpredictable–like ’62 all over again Auld Bert said–with Drew Keel posting the best opening round; a three-under-par 69.

Stevie came padding out of the bathroom, a towel around his waist and another turbaned around his head. ‘Christ,’ he said, looking the catatonic Gary up and down. ‘Ah’ve left ma
razor out on the sink. Just try and not get blood all over the floor when ye slash yer wrists.’

‘Eighty, Stevie. Fucking eighty.’

‘Ach–we couldnae buy a putt and you were unlucky at the Postage Stamp. That’s all.’

‘Game over.’

‘Over?’ Stevie said, lifting his towel and spraying deodorant into his crotch now. ‘Did you say over?
Nothing
is over until we decide it’s over! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? No and–’

‘Oh shut it. I’m–hoor–finished. We won’t even make the cut.’

The Cut: out of the field of 156 players who began the competition only the lowest seventy scores from the Thursday and Friday rounds would qualify for third and fourth rounds on Saturday and Sunday.

‘So?’ Stevie said.

‘Eh?’

‘So whit the fuck? What did ye think was going tae happen here this week, pal?’ Stevie cracked open a can of beer. ‘Did you think ye were going to come here and win it? This is the Open. No the Ravenscroft Monthly Medal. Never mind making the cut, the fact that we’re here at all is a miracle. Have ye forgotten something? Two months ago you were celebrating–fucking
celebrating
–when you broke ninety!’

‘Aye, but–’

‘“But” ma fucking erse. Just you listen to your Uncle Stevie. Now c’mon.’ Stevie threw a pair of trousers at him. ‘Get dressed and let’s go over to the bar and get the pints in.’

‘Go out drinking? Surely I should get an early night?’

Stevie sighed. He came over and sat on the edge of Gary’s bed. ‘Gary, this is what I’m talking about. Listen to me–
you
are probably not going to make the cut
. We might very well only have two nights of our lives as player and caddie in the Open Championship and you want to get an early night? The place is hoaching with golf groupies, TV celebrities, professional golfers. Aw manner o’ bams ripe for having the utter piss ripped out of them and you want to watch the fucking telly and have an early night?’

They looked at each other.

‘Well,’ Gary said, ‘a couple of pints couldn’t hurt…’

Lee ran from one bedroom to another, randomly pulling out drawers and emptying them all over the floor. He pocketed the odd bit of jewellery, some cash he found in a bedside cabinet. His heart, amplified by the card-edge of cocaine he’d snuffled up while waiting in the woods, was pounding and his mouth was dry.

He ran into the bathroom–bigger than his fucking living room–and stood there, thinking for a second. He opened the medicine cabinet and ran a gloved hand along the shelves, sending toiletries and medicines clattering into the sink and onto the floor. ‘
Mrs L. Masterson. Valium 10mg
.’ He pocketed it and looked up. On the wall was a family photograph, the hoor from downstairs, her husband and a couple of weans. The husband cunt had a big
Magnum PI
-style tache. He looked vaguely familiar to Lee.

He ran back downstairs, looking at his watch. The whole thing had taken less than ten minutes. Breathing hard, Lee skidded back into the kitchen.

Leanne was duct-taped to a wooden chair he’d dragged in from the dining room. A strip of silver tape across her mouth too. It was a hot night and she was covered with a sheen of sweat. Lee was sweating too under the balaclava as, with
trembling hands, he flipped the small revolver open and checked the chamber.

Six bullets–gold nuggets of death the size of peanuts.

Three grand–for him, Lisa and the weans.

One obstacle–squirming in a chair in front of him.

He snapped the gun shut and walked up to Leanne.

‘Ah’m sorry about this,’ Lee said as he brought the gun up to her forehead. His voice was cracked and broken and his hands were shaking. Leanne was really struggling now, her eyes bulging like mad and muffled, desperate noises coming from beneath the tape as she tried to talk, her cheeks puffing rapidly in and out and her nostrils flaring.

Lee tried to press the stumpy barrel against her forehead but she was writhing and twisting, turning away, trying to shout something, trying to tuck her head into her chest, trying to shrink, to disappear. Lee stepped back and pointed the gun at the crown of her head. He pulled the hammer back with his thumb. He rested his finger on the trigger. An ounce of pressure would do it.

A long moment passed, Leanne crying, Lee’s head pounding as he fought to clear it of a barrage of images, one in particular recurring and recurring, impossible to shake.

‘I’m really sorry,’ Lee said.

DAY TWO OF THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

S
OMETIMES IT SEEMS LIKE GOLF JUST DECIDES AND IT
has nothing to do with the player. Sometimes you can do all the preparation in the world–hours of practice with every club in the bag, fine-tuning every aspect of swing, body and mind–and you step onto the course and spray the ball all over the place.

Then, on other days, you turn up tired and rusty, stumbling out of bed just in time to make it onto the first tee as your name is called, and the ball goes where you want it to every time. The pitches check where they should and the putts drop.

Today was turning out to be one of those days.

‘Christ, look what the facking cat dragged in…’ Coffey had said as Gary stumbled bleary-eyed onto the tee. He’d been right: a ‘couple o’ pints’ hadn’t hurt at all. Neither had the two bottles of wine with dinner in the clubhouse. Nor the whisky and Cokes they’d moved onto afterwards. Nor the tequila slammers…

Gary could feel his brain tapping against the inside of his
skull as he moved his head. Make the cut? He only cared about playing the first few holes without fainting. Birdies? He was just thinking about surviving each swing of the club. As anyone who understands the psychological intricacies of golf will tell you, this is just about the perfect mental state in which to play the sport.

He birdied the first, second and third and–just to be different–eagled the par five fourth, hitting a towering 230-yard three-iron onto the green and holing a slippery, downhill thirty-footer.

Five under par for the round after four holes. Down to three over for the tournament. Word got around the course that the local boy was playing some golf and by the time they got to the seventh green, his loyal gallery–Cathy and Sadie, April, Dr Robertson and Bert–had been swollen by a couple of dozen golf fans.

Among them was Nick Parr, one of the BBC’s on-course reporters. Parr had been roaming the fairways with his hand-held mike and cameraman, looking for anything interesting happening before the big guns teed off in an hour or so. When Gary’s birdie putt on the seventh also smacked straight into the centre of the cup, taking him to six under for the round, Parr looked at the name on the red bib Stevie was wearing. ‘IRVINE’ it said. He ran a finger down his player sheet. ‘Irvine, Gary (A), Ravenscroft G.C. Ardgirvan.’ A local boy then.

‘Excuse me,’ Parr said to the small woman in the blue sweater who was jumping up and down and cheering, ‘do you know that lad?’

‘That’s my son!’ Cathy shrieked delightedly. ‘That’s his fourth birdie so far! And an eagle at the fourth!’

‘Really?’ Parr said.

As Cathy and Sadie hurried off, following the others
towards the eighth tee, Parr spoke into his headset microphone to his producer Debbie Reynolds, who was in the BBC’s mobile studio parked at the media centre. ‘Debbie? It’s Nick. You might want to have a look at the eighth. Local boy making a bit of a run of it. Six under after the first seven.’

‘OK, thanks, Nick.’

As Gary climbed the worn, wooden steps onto the Postage Stamp tee the black lenses of the cameras dotted around the green swivelled up to frame him.

‘Rowland? Bob? Have a look at this,’ Reynolds said into her microphone.

In the BBC commentary box overlooking the first and eighteenth fairways Rowland Daventry and Bob Torrent, the BBC’s stalwart commentators, jotted down a few notes as she filled them in–Gary’s score today, the day before, his home club, etc.

‘OK, Debbie, got it,’ Daventry said.

‘Let’s go then,’ Debbie said. ‘Cameras 14, 12 and 21.’ The red lights on the cameras around the Postage Stamp lit up and Gary Irvine made his first ever TV appearance.

‘Over to the eighth tee now, the famous Postage Stamp,’ Daventry purred on-air as a shot of Gary conferring with Stevie over the yardage book filled the screen. ‘Claimed many a victim over the years. Bob, you’ll remember Herman Tissies, the German player.’

In the control booth Reynolds heard the word ‘German’ and held her breath, thinking,
don’t do the accent, don’t do the accent…’

‘Oh yes,’ Bob said.

‘Made a fifteen here, back in 1950 I think it was.’

‘That’s right. Out of one bunker, back into another…’

‘Und for him, ze war vas over!’ Daventry said.

Reynolds closed her eyes. ‘Oh shit,’ someone said as the
control-room staff started taking bets on how many calls of complaint there would be–a favourite sport whenever Daventry was live.

‘Anyway,’ Daventry continued as Gary began teeing his ball up, ‘let’s see if this young fellow can do better than old Herman the German. Name of Gary Irvine–och aye, good Scottish name that–local lad, one of the very few amateur players who made it through the qualifying process, comes from Ardgirvan just up the road. Some wonderful courses between here and there, Glasgow Gailes, Prestwick…’

In his den up in the loft, with the
Racing Post
in his lap and a mug of tea in his hand, Ranta turned the volume up as a shot of Gary lining up his shot filled the huge flat screen.

‘…real golfing country,’ Daventry continued. ‘Now, I’m just reading that he made an eight here yesterday, not so good. But he’s going great guns this morning. Six under par through seven holes. Let’s see if he can keep it up.’

A hush now as Gary settled the clubhead–a nine-iron today, the wind stronger in his face and the pin at the back of the green–behind the ball.

He swung. Hard.

‘Smoke ma dobber,’ Stevie said, unaware that millions of viewers were hearing him, as the perfectly struck shot rocketed off dead on line. The camera swung up off the tee, tracking Gary’s ball as it sailed high into the blue.

‘He’s given that some,’ Daventry said.

The TV coverage cut to a second camera positioned at the side of the green. Two seconds passed and then the ball smacked down twelve feet past and a couple of feet to the right of the hole.

‘Sit down!’ Gary barked.

The ball bit hard into the turf and spun back and to the
left, the moan of the crowd rising in pitch as it trickled back down towards the hole, tracking, tracking.

‘I say,’ Daventry said.

‘Come oan, come oan, ya fucking…’ Ranta said, on the edge of his seat now.

‘Shit, that’s close,’ Coffey whispered to Koon.

The ball grazed the hole and curled around it, finally coming to rest an inch from the lip.

‘OOH YA FUCKING HOOR YE!’ Ranta screamed, fist pumping.

‘Well, well, well,’ Daventry said as Gary, smiling, picked up his tee peg. ‘Must have had his porridge this morning…’

Ranta looked at Gary’s smiling face on his TV screen and felt a tingle between his shoulder blades, a sensation familiar to all gamblers.

A hunch forming.

Findlay Masterson pulled into his driveway and turned the engine off. ‘Right,’ he said, breathing in deeply.

He went through his strategy: go in, see the body, run out screaming and hysterical, find one of the neighbours, get them to call the police and take it from there. He’d come home from a trip to Glasgow to visit his son, he’d walked into the house to find that the place had been burgled and his wife had been shot dead. No, how would he know she’d been shot? He just found her lying there in a pool of blood. Don’t plan it too much. He had a rock-solid alibi. He’d be fine. Breathe deeply. Breathe deeply.

He got out the car and walked to the front door. He put his key in the lock, his hand shaking badly.

He stepped into the hallway and put his bag down. It was quiet.

He walked slowly down the hall, glancing left into the living room. Nothing there. All neat and tidy. He swallowed, took a deep breath and turned into the kitchen.

There, on a kitchen chair, was his wife.

She was eating a sandwich.

‘Hi there,’ Leanne said. ‘Did ye have a nice time?’

Ranta was putting his jacket on and looking for his car keys when his mobile rang.

‘Aye?’

‘It didnae happen,’ Masterson barked.

‘Eh?’

‘That thing that was meant tae happen? That thing that cost me fifteen fucking grand?
It didnae fucking happen
.’ Masterson punched the roof of his car in frustration.

‘Is that right?’ Ranta said calmly.

‘Aye it’s fucking right.’

‘Well, I’ll have to look into that.’

‘You fucking better.’

‘Findlay?’ Ranta said, very,
very
calm now.

‘Whit?’

‘Ah’m sensing how upset ye are, and ah’ll find out what’s happened, but do yourself a favour, eh? Don’t forget who you’re speaking to here.’

Ranta hung up and dialled Alec. He got voicemail.

‘Alec? We’ve a wee problem. Phone us back on the mobile. Ah’m away over tae Troon tae catch a bit o’ the golf. Looks like this boy fae around the corner is playing up a storm.’