The Downhill Lie (16 page)

Early on, our team was looking strong. Leibo and I covered efficiently for each other; even when we both stumbled, we scored. Both of us three-putted for bogeys on the par-514th, yet we still won it. Heading into the tough final stretch, we led by 3½ points and, for the first time all day, we felt in control.

The most humbling stretch of the course is the last four holes, and I was getting a stroke on each of them. Translation: Choke-mania.

I three-putted No. 15, which cost us a point. On No. 17 Leibo’s tee shot veered into the lake, so it was up to me to carry the load—and I blew that hole, too.

Meanwhile Roger had gotten downright deadly on the greens. He was using a Viagra-blue ball and putting sidesaddle, a style popularized by Sam Snead in his later years. It worked rather well. Approaching the last tee, he and Rob now were only one down.

Both struck nice drives, as did Leibo and I. It was my second shot that was extraordinarily vile, an ankle-high screamer that slammed into the second of three bunkers below the elevated green. With no trouble at all, I blasted my ball into one of the other traps, and from there flung it cleanly over the putting surface.

Leibo’s third shot, a short lob, dropped sweetly on the front edge, bit for one teasing nanosecond, then rolled all the way back down the hill and stopped near his feet. He shook his head, pitched up again and nearly holed it for a par.

With the pin location on the first tier, my only chance of saving victory was a sixty-foot downhill chip from the rough above the upper level. As far as I know, that ball is still rolling.

Roger, who was also stroking, canned his par putt and won the hole for his team. The match ended in a 5–5 tie, which stung as badly as a defeat. “We dropped 3½ points in four holes,” Leibo noted glumly. “That’s not too good.”

He was more annoyed with himself than with me, but he was also too classy to state the obvious: I flopped when he needed me to hang tough. I was, in fact, baggage.

Mercifully, there was no documentation of individual scores. Because of the best-ball format, one (and sometimes both) of us picked up if the hole was settled before we could putt out. The way I’d collapsed in that third match, I’d have been lucky to break 50.

It was withering to recall that only six months earlier I’d played those same nine holes at 4-over-par—whatever happened to that guy? Where the hell did he go?

“We’ll get ’em tomorrow, doctor,” Delroy said with a consoling nod, and lugged away our bags.

Later, beers in hand, Leibo and I approached the scoreboard to assess the damage. As incredible as it seemed, we were only three points behind the leaders in our flight.

“A miracle,” Leibo murmured. “We actually have a chance.”

Even after walking twenty-seven holes, I wasn’t as tired as I’d hoped to be. Sleep came fitfully, once again with visions of sh
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.

The next morning, we arrived at Quail Valley early. To get the mojo juices flowing, I purchased a new hat and a new glove. The Mind Drive capsules had been a total bust, but I swallowed another one in the hope that an accrued dosage might work better.

Two nine-hole matches remained, and the opener began on No. 9, a dogleg par-4 that in previous rounds had given Leibo fits. Our opponents were a father-son team that was doing well in our flight. Senior was a sharp putter; Junior was raw power.

It was another magnificent day, clear and calm, the fairways shimmering with dew. We had the honors and, knowing I was a basket case, Leibo told me to go first. He said it would be good for my confidence. I considered teeing up with my left hand, as the Leadbetter coach had suggested, but my fingers were too shaky; both mitts were required to erect the ball properly.

The hole starts uphill, banks downward to the left and then rises again to a knoll where the slender green is situated. I purposely set up off center, aiming to shave the corner, clear the crest and get a friendly roll on the downslope. Stunningly, that’s what happened. I hammered the piss out of the ball, leaving myself 108 yards to the flag. The tee shot is worth recounting only because it proved to be the highlight of my whole match, and I squandered it.

What followed was a skulled punch, a bladed pitch, two flails in a bunker and a sheepish pickup. Leibo barely missed a six-footer for par, and already we were down a point.

On the following hole I made six-for-five, which helped us not at all. Next came a par-3 that I’d been playing well—and sure enough, I landed a 5-iron inside of Junior’s ball. Because I was getting a handicap stroke, a two-putt would have won the point for us.

The green was devilishly fast, and I was facing a twenty-footer. “Just tap it,” Delroy said, and I took the advice literally.

The ball rolled perhaps six feet. Under more casual circumstances it might have been humorous, but not at that moment. I ended up three-putting, so we halved the hole.

From then on it was a nonstop bloodbath. My next four tee shots were, in order: dunked, topped, sliced out of bounds and beached on the bank of a drainage ditch. Mojo-wise, the new hat was worthless; even Dad’s gold watch couldn’t spark a rally.

Before long, my role in the match diminished to that of a ghost. Senior and Junior forgot about me, and concentrated exclusively on beating Leibo. Occasionally Delroy would have to remind them, for their own safety, that I was still walking the course.

On the next-to-last hole, the 520-yard par-5, I recovered from a poor drive with two good shots in a row—a veritable hot streak. Leibo and I were both eying birdie attempts in the fifteen-foot range, and feeling better. That’s when Junior pitched in for an eagle from thirty yards.

Delroy turned to me and shrugged. “It’s just not your day, captain.”

With one hole remaining, we were now down by 3 and playing for pride. After Junior pushed his tee shot into the water, his father loudly topped one that sputtered 175 yards on a surreal, flawless vector, straight to the green.

“You’ll have to teach me that one,” Leibo said, stepping to the tee. Despite a vicious crosswind off the lake, he fired a laser twelve feet from the pin.

I followed with a towering 4-iron that caught a thermal and drifted off line, plopping into the neck of a greenside bunker. Having failed to execute a proper sand shot all day, I amazed myself by floating it softly out of the trap; the ball hopped gently down the hill and rolled to within ten feet of the cup.

Said Leibo: “You actually looked like you knew what you were doing on that one.”

Sinking that sucker would have been an inspiring finish, but it wasn’t necessary. Leibo easily got his par, Senior three-putted and we took the hole—a puny morale booster after a doleful morning.

During our lunch break, Leibo scouted the leader board and reported that we’d fallen to last place in our flight. Although we weren’t mathematically eliminated, the odds of rebounding to victory were slim. “We have a better chance of getting abducted by aliens,” Leibo said.

The last match started on No. 16, the long downhill par-3. Our opponents were two brothers, say Mickey and Malcolm, neither of whom made the green. Nor did Leibo.

I struck another acceptable 4-iron but the wind strangled it. My ball stalled in the least desirable location of the putting surface, with no smooth line to the hole. To make the putt, I’d have to scoot it forty feet over a hump, across an intruding burr of fringe.

Delroy, who had remained upbeat in the face of almost-certain defeat, told me to pitch the ball. It was a shot I’d never before attempted, practiced or contemplated. Moreover, I’d recently watched Phil Mickelson, who owns one of the great short games of all time, try the same play and chunk a small crater in the green.

Without hesitation, I chickened out and reached for my putter. The result wasn’t pretty; I might as well have used a shoe. I scrambled for a 4, which was as good as a par, and we halved the point. On No. 17, another stroking opportunity, I made a five-for-four to keep the match level.

Approaching the tee at No. 18—for me, the most ungovernable hole at Quail Valley—I vowed not to repeat the previous day’s meltdown. Then, uncannily, I did just that.

The only difference in my hapless shot sequence was that this time I employed a fairway wood instead of a rescue club to locate the front bunkers. My subsequent moonshot over the green was a carbon of the one I’d launched in the third match.

Fleeting redemption occurred, under pressure, on the next par-5. Malcolm and I were both stroking, but his approach was dead on the stick, as usual. For a 14-handicapper, he was freakishly accurate with his long irons.

Fifty feet from the hole, I was praying just to park my lag somewhere in the same zip code. For once I thought my pace was perfect, yet the ball coasted four feet past the cup. Malcolm missed his bird but he was in with a five-for-four, which meant we’d lose the point if I didn’t save my par.

“Left center,” Delroy said. “Don’t quit on it, pro.”

Thunk.
Back of the hole. I remember nothing but the sound of the ball landing in the cup; my brain was blissfully blank.

“Now
that,
” said Delroy, “was a putt.”

Leibo gave a congratulatory knuckle-bump and said, “You saved us on that one.”

A small luminous moment, in a day of many failures.

On No. 13, I went exploring. Instead of pulling my drive into a necklace of cruel fairway bunkers (my usual route to the flag), I sliced it completely out of sight. I told Leibo and the two brothers to play on ahead; I’d catch up later.

My ball had settled in a sandy knot of weeds near the edge of a citrus grove. I tried blasting a rescue club, and the shot dribbled all of forty yards.

For my next trick, I’d have to shoot the ball virtually straight up in order to clear a steep hill, the crown of which was adorned with young oaks. Even better, the angle was completely blind.

Delroy waved down and called out, “Aim here, between these trees!” Then he hastily ducked for cover.

This time the rescue club lived up to its name. I ran to the top of the hill in time to see my ball drop close to the green, behind a small mound. I wasn’t out of the hole; not yet.

“Welcome back,” said Leibo, when I caught up to the others. “We thought you got lost.”

Because I couldn’t clear the knoll any other way, I was forced to reconcile with the Vokey wedge. It was the same simple pitch that I’d practiced maybe three hundred times on the range, with occasional competency; one of several rudimentary shots that had mysteriously vanished from my meager arsenal in the days before the tournament.

Dreading another sh
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, I silently recited what Steve Archer had told me: Turn, don’t slide, away from the ball.
Turn, don’t slide.

And I assume that’s what I did, because the ball dropped thirty feet from the flag and stuck like a dart. Then, with uncommon deliberation, I gutted the putt for a bogey.

Leibo hooted. “We call that a Daniel Boone!”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you were in the wilderness the whole time.”

Ba-da-boom.

The sparkle of the moment dimmed when Mickey nailed his par, leaving Leibo with a dicey fifteen-footer to halve the hole.

No problem. With two to play, we were only one down.

Nobody bungled the par-514th, so all four of us were looking at birdies. My putt was by far the longest, forty-five feet downhill, breaking three balls left to right.

Delroy told me to let it rip. “Your partner’s in good shape, mon. Don’t hold back.”

My line turned out to be perfect, although the speed was a bit muscular. The ball struck the back rim of the cup and popped into the air like a piece of toast, leaving a sickening six-footer for par. “You got no luck today,” Delroy sighed, “no luck at all.”

Before my stomach had time to knot, Leibo calmly stepped up and stroked his ball. It rolled eighteen feet to the lip and hung there, Delroy shouting, “Let him in! Let him in!”

Thunk.
The ball dropped, and the point was ours.

Leibo smiled. I sagged with relief. Delroy made a fist and gave us a nod.

With one hole remaining, the score stood even. We probably had no chance to win the tournament, but it would have been grand to take the last match.

The final battleground was No. 15, a 386-yard par-4 that plays uphill, and almost always into a bracing wind. Peppered with bunkers, the hole carries the number two handicap rating at Quail Valley, although many members believe it is the hardest of all. Frequently it’s the cruelest.

Leibo split the fairway as usual. I opted for drama, rolling my hands and duck-hooking my drive into a waste bunker the size of Rhode Island. Leibo whispered, “Don’t worry, nobody’s reaching this green in two today.”

Wrong.

Both Malcolm and Mickey hit epic drives, followed by epic second shots that put them nicely on the putting surface, within birdie range. It was deflating, but we didn’t wilt.

That would come later.

I made a rare smooth swing in the gritty sand, and clobbered my rescue club about as far as I could into that whistling wind. The ball landed on the steep side of a depression, sixty yards from the stick. Leibo was much closer and contemplating a short lob—his specialty.

Instead of tempting fate with another wedge shot, I reached for the 7-iron. Some might call it cowardly; I prefer the word “resourceful.” In any event, I punched the ball too cleanly. It rolled through the break and off the green, cozying in the kinky fringe. A save from there would have been difficult for a scratch player.

Like me, Malcolm was getting a stroke on the hole. It meant that Leibo needed to sink his pitch or at least drop it close enough for a tap-in, to put pressure on the other team.

What he did was something I’d never seen him do—raise up on the downswing, which caused him to squirt the ball into a bunker. The shot was painful to watch. It reminded me of me.

Leibo was seething at himself, but in truth the hole was mine to win or lose. A par by Malcolm was as good as a birdie, so our only chance was for Malcolm to three-putt, and for me to sink my shot from the edge of the green.