Loopy (21 page)

“Great shot, Al, you really caught that one.”

Loopy hurried to the practice ground. He had no wish to see any more of the man he was to face tomorrow. Neumann's majestic progress toward the first green was in too stark a contrast to his feeble efforts at the same hole only a few hours earlier. Further proof, if such were required, that he had much work to do on his game between now and when he faced the blond giant the next day.

Loopy sensed Weeshy's presence rather than hearing him approach. Loopy had been practicing high long irons, the kind of second shot necessary to hold the iron-hard greens of Ballykissane. Unlike those of most modern courses, the greens here were not watered. No watering system would ever be allowed to sully this proud links, and consequently, after a spell of dry, windy weather such as Ballykissane had recently been experiencing, the greens were slick and hard. Which, of course, made them unreceptive to approach shots that were not high and loaded with backspin. Luckily it was a shot that Loopy, with his unorthodox grip and looping backswing, was able to hit with relative ease. He had just struck six in a row of such blows with his four iron and was pleased to see that the half dozen balls had finished within a few yards of each other when Weeshy's voice stopped him in his tracks.

“That's good, that's exactly the kind of shot you'll need tomorrow. It's going to blow for the rest of the week anyways if I'm any judge of the weather. The gulls are high and so are the clouds, so ye'll get no rain to soften out them greens. All to good, I'm thinkin'. Yanks don't like hard greens, anyways. They're used to carpets soaked in water, so they are. That's why that Yank destroyed the course last year and no mistake. It rained for a month before he arrived. Then he spent a week practicing. New balls, if you don't mind. Brand-new Titleists, for Jaysus' sake! Never thought I'd live to see the day. And they call him an amateur.”

Weeshy paused to signal his disgust by hawking noisily, gathering up enough ammunition to spit expertly at a dandelion two yards away from him.

“Well, I can tell you this much and it isn't one word of a lie, anyways. He's going to find Ballykissane a very different kettle of fish in this weather, and no mistake. With the greens hard as a jockey's bollocks, he's going to be in for a few surprises when he plays any of his three wedges onto them, and that's not a word of a lie either.”

This had been Weeshy's longest monologue by far, and Loopy found it strangely exhilarating. He longed to get a proper look at the club Weeshy was clutching beneath his coat but decided to bide his time.

Weeshy's next move caught him unawares. “Do you know how to play the bump and run, anyways?”

Not wanting to show his ignorance, Loopy played for time with “You mean the low chip shot?”

“All dependin' what you mean by
chip,
young fella. Here, give me your six iron and I'll
show
you what I mean.”

Weeshy handed the club he had been concealing under his coat to Loopy and hit a few low, running shots with the iron. True to their name, they were airborne for less than half the length of the shot, bumping and running along the hard ground for the remainder of the journey. The balls stopped some forty yards distant, but so close to each other that Weeshy's cap would have covered all three. The display of the short approach was worthy of a professional, but Loopy barely noticed.

Instead his gaze was riveted on the antique driver, a piece of ancient golfing memorabilia, that he held in his hand. The grip was of shiny leather. It was glued onto a shaft of steel, speckled with rust spots and scarred by innumerable scrapes and scratches. The shaft fitted over the hosel of the clubhead and was secured to it by a length of tightly wound waxed cord. One end of the cord had worked loose, leaving three inches or so flapping in the breeze. Most alarming of all, however, was that the clubhead itself, like the delicately carved hosel, was made of
wood.

He had seen photographs of such clubs, but this was the first time he had ever actually laid eyes on such a relic from bygone days. He held the clubhead up close in a vain attempt to find a maker's name on the soleplate. All that was visible was a worn number 1 and beside it something that might have read Nicoll O'Leven. Then he noticed that the hosel had several hairline fractures that ran right through it, and the scuffed wooden head had been repaired more than once as several glue-filled cracks revealed. The face of the club had a large red inset made of some hard plastic substance, which, like the soleplate, was affixed to the wooden head by four countersunk screws. It occurred to him that Weeshy's antique deserved a place of honor in a museum rather than to be substituting for the most modern driver that money could buy.

“Och, it's old, sure enough. But give it a few swings and see how it goes, anyways.”

Loopy teed up a ball and, because he was afraid the clubhead would shatter into a hundred wooden fragments, swung the club more gently than usual. Much to his relief, the clubhead remained all in one piece. The sound it made as it impacted the golf ball was weird. Instead of the sharp metallic click that he was accustomed to, the wooden head and plastic inset gave off a dull, unfamiliar thud. It was more the sound of an ax felling a tree than a golf ball being driven straight and true.

For that is what it did. It took off on a low trajectory straight as an arrow, never more than twenty feet off the ground. On landing, it scurried forward farther than he would have thought possible, until Loopy thought it might disappear into the gorse that marked the farthermost boundary of the practice ground. The shot was greeted by an awed silence from both player and caddy. Wordlessly Loopy hit another ball with much the same result. Then, with a growing realization that this relic from the past could well be his salvation on the narrow fairways of Ballykissane, he hit another dozen in quick succession. As he paused to get his breath back, Weeshy took the club back.

“That's enough for today, if you please. We don't want to tire her out too much on her first day back. I'll look after her until tomorrow, anyways. Clubs have been known to go missing y'know, and I wouldn't like to lose her now. She's been around too long for that to happen. You can have a loan of her for the tournament, anyways, seeing as how she seems to like you. Just remember she's a woman—and God knows, they can be fickle enough at times. Treat her right by swinging her easy and slow and she'll do anything you ask her. Try to bully her, though, and she'll land you back in the heather where you were this morning.”

Weeshy put the club back into its canvas sack and laid it carefully on the grass beside the golf bag. From it he picked out the six iron he had been using earlier and handed it to Loopy.

“Now let's see if you can play that bump and run, because if you can't, now's the time to learn. Not when you're up against that Yank tomorrow.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A muffled hiccup signaled O'Hara's arrival. He watched intently as Loopy stroked a succession of balls toward his golf bag some fifty yards distant. He noted with satisfaction that his erstwhile pupil both in school and on the golf course seemed to have mastered the subtleties of bump and run under Weeshy's watchful eye. The delicately struck approaches flew straight and low, landing about halfway and then bouncing forward and scampering along the turf, before trickling to a halt inches from the bag.

O'Hara could wait no longer. Turning to the caddy, he asked nervously, “How did the driver work out in the end?”

“Fine!” Weeshy, who had become increasingly chatty with Loopy, did not waste words on strangers such as O'Hara. Then he relented, adding almost affably, “We're working on the bump and run, as ye can see.”

O'Hara watched a few shots and remarked, “He seems to be getting the hang of it alright, doesn't he?”

Weeshy was noncommittal. “Let him hit the last few balls anyways and then we'll call it a day.”

With the last ball struck, Weeshy picked up his driver, still shrouded in the canvas sack, and tucked it inside his overcoat.

“Don't be fooled by today, young fella. It's goin' to blow like hell tomorrow or I'm a Dutchman. Remember, if we beat the Yank anyways, there's still another match that evening. You'll be wanting to hit a few balls to warm yourself up before we start at ten o'clock, for it's going to be cold and windy for the rest of the week, you can bet on that anyways. Make sure the lad has enough clothes on him. Nothin' worse than a cold golfer.”

With that, Weeshy was gone.

O'Hara, stifling yet another hiccup, asked, “How did you
really
get on?”

“Not bad! Weeshy arrives with this driver of his. It's about a hundred years old I'd say, and he won't talk about it. I mean,
her.
”

“Her?”

“Yeah, he calls it her. Said she's a woman and if I treat her right, she'll look after me.”

“Maybe he's right at that.”

O'Hara chuckled as Loopy continued excitedly, “I hope so. She really worked for me, y'know. At the start I thought the wooden head was going to fall apart the moment I hit the ball. If it had, he would have murdered me for sure. But, no, it held together okay. It's much heavier than the other one, so I have to swing it easier.”

“Distance, how about distance?”

“Not all that much difference. The ball flies very low and it lands much earlier. But then it takes off like a bat out of hell and runs and runs.”

Another stifled burp preceded O'Hara's observation. “Sounds like just the kind of thing you want to be able to do if the wind comes up, like Weeshy says it will.”

“Yeah, absolutely. Same with the bump and runs. Weeshy has me hitting them really low with a six iron. The ball runs along the ground nearly as much as it flies. Even when it
does
fly, it keeps low, real low.”

“Just look at how I poked the ball along in front of me and I damn near beat you. You hit the ball okay, but every time it took off, it was blown away to hell.”

“Into the rough. Weeshy told me if I took the wedge out of my bag tomorrow, he'd take it off me and split my skull with it.”

O'Hara thought this hilarious. “Let me tell you something. I'd say he meant every word of it. I'd stay with the chip and run, if I were you. Now get changed. You'll need to put on a collar and tie as I'm sure you remember that your friend and benefactor, Edward Linhurst, is treating us to dinner tonight and for the next three nights as well at The Royal Hotel, no less. So put on a clean shirt and tie and let us be off without delay to join the great and the good. No more boiled mutton and soapy spuds for us, my lad. Attired in our very best bib and tucker we shall see what culinary delights await us.”

Loopy could not help but notice that the more O'Hara had to drink, the more flowery his language became. Loopy hoped that for once this mellow mood would last throughout the evening and not degenerate into surly ill-humor. He really liked his old schoolteacher and thought of him as the father he would have wished to have had. He was kind and wise and had helped Loopy more than anyone else he knew, but at times late at night in the bar of Trabane Golf Club, Loopy felt that he had more than repaid that debt. Those were the bad times when O'Hara, transformed by drink into a loudmouthed, argumentative bore, would find himself shunned and abandoned by all but Loopy. The task of driving O'Hara home had been Loopy's for some time, and his duties did not end there. There followed the job of persuading the schoolmaster not to have a last nightcap, then helping him upstairs, undressing him, and putting him to bed. All in all, Loopy decided, the balance sheet, as of now, read about even.

The Royal Hotel was reassuringly familiar. This time Loopy marched confidently past reception and was heading for the dining room when he heard an agonized cry.

“Jaysus, we're surely going to have a drink before we eat. You go ahead and make sure we have a table, if you want, but for God's sake come back to the bar. Didn't you know no one worth their salt sits down to eat their dinner before nine o'clock!”

Loopy had a word with the headwaiter, who agreed to call them when a table became vacant. It was just after eight o'clock. Back in the bar, O'Hara had found a table by the window. It looked out on the ocean where a fading sun was starting to slip below the horizon. The wavelets that had earlier gently lapped the shore were now being whipped into sizable waves that crashed relentlessly onto the beach. Weeshy was right. The wind was already getting up.

O'Hara seemed oblivious to all of this. He was engrossed in a newspaper, clucking like an old hen as he read, and taking a sip every now and then from a whiskey that the barman had set before him. Clearing his throat, he read aloud without any preamble, “‘The holder of the Atlantic Trophy, Albert Neumann of Harvard University, has returned to defend his title. It will be remembered that not only did he win last year but also set a new course record in The Plate, a contest that precedes the tournament proper.'”

Loopy interjected, “That was in fine weather. He didn't break eighty today, or so Weeshy told me on the practice ground.”

“Good news, good news. Now, do you want to hear the rest of this?”

“I suppose so.” Loopy got the impression that he was going to hear it anyway, regardless of what he wanted. Like most schoolteachers, O'Hara liked the sound of his own voice—and did not welcome interruptions.

“‘… the tournament proper. This is contested between sixty-four invited amateurs, some of the best in the world. Despite the presence of several international players both past and present, it is expected that the American will reach the finals without too much difficulty. There he is seeded to meet Sir Andrew Villiers-Stewart, a member of Royal County Down who holidays annually at Ballykissane and is therefore familiar with the difficult world-famous links course. It will be remembered that he just failed to beat Neumann in last year's final and hopes to reverse the result this time round.'”