The Downhill Lie (14 page)

“Maybe it’s like kryptonite,” Leibo muses.

Personally, I don’t care if it’s a freaking gum wrapper, as long as it helps me sink a few putts.

Meanwhile, Peter Gethers, my editor, phones for a book update. I inform him that, despite hours of practice, my game isn’t improving; in fact, there’s been steady erosion in the scoring department.

“I haven’t broken 90 in three months,” I admit.

“Really?” Peter means to sound sympathetic, but he doesn’t fool me for a second.

“The prevailing view,” I say heavily, “is that the worse I’m playing, the better it is for the book.”

“Yes,” Peter says, “that’s the tragedy of this entire undertaking, isn’t it?”

Day 528

It might be true love.

Playing for the first time with Rossa, I make five pars and a birdie—and commit only one three-putt, which was entirely, totally, completely my own damn fault. Not Rossa’s.

I would’ve broken 90 handily if it weren’t for three triple-bogeys, which offset my putting heroics. Next time I’ll try not to let Rossa down.

Day 531

She’s a goddess—on the first hole I drain a twenty-five-footer to save par. Can’t hit a driver or a wedge to save my soul, but all day long Rossa valiantly carries the load.

Because of the unusually warm, dry winter, a fish kill has occurred at Quail Valley. The skies and shorelines are once again dark with hungry turkey buzzards, which squabble with the resident eagles over rotting carp carcasses. Neither Delroy nor I is clear about whether the USGA considers dead fish to be “loose impediments,” so on No. 14 I end up chipping—successfully—from a crispy hash of scales and bird-pecked bones.

I would have carded an 89 except for a penalty stroke on the 18th green: The ball, which lay in some fluffy fringe, moved a half-turn as I squared the putter behind it.

Again, not Rossa’s fault.

Day 533

A new experiment on the practice range: Teeing the ball with my left hand.

This was suggested by Steve Wakulsky, my instructor from the Leadbetter Academy, responding to a plaintive e-mail in which I’d laid out the symptoms of Exploding Brain Syndrome, or EBS.

Wakulsky agreed that I overstuff my skull with golf tips. “Obviously the analytical left side of your brain is too attached to your swing,” he said. “You freeze over the ball because you are using the left side of the brain to swing your club.”

Because right-handers are dominated by the left hemisphere of the brain, Wakulsky said, teeing the ball with the left hand should activate the right (and more creative) hemisphere, triggering a freer, calmer swing.

While conceding that the theory “might sound a bit wacky,” Wakulsky said it has helped some golfers overcome EBS.

And initially it seems to work for me, which is a bit scary. The drives that I hit after teeing up left-handed definitely seem straighter and longer than the others.

I might also be hallucinating, which is a whole different problem.

Day 535

“It was a fun day.”

The f-word, from Tiger himself, after winning his seventh consecutive PGA tournament with a ho-hum 66 at the Buick Invitational. He is now 124 strokes under par for his last twenty-eight rounds of PGA golf.

Over a comparable stretch, I am approximately 560 over par. Maybe I should try teeing up with my tongue.

Day 538

It’s no easy feat to hit ten fairways in regulation and still shoot 97. I could blame the weather (45 degrees at tee time), but the sad truth is that saucy Rossa and I are quarreling on the greens. The spat included a dismal string of three-putts.

What happened to the mystical powers of Titallium? I wonder. And where is Rossa’s “exceptional forgiveness”?

The rest of my short game is a wreck, too, despite all the practice. On the third hole, a seventy-yard bunker shot soars far beyond the hole and over a hill, where it strikes the foot of a woman on the practice green near the clubhouse. She is unhurt, and sympathetic to my plight.

Although the Member-Guest tournament is only six weeks away, Leibo insists he’s not worried.

“I don’t want to embarrass you out there,” I say.

“You can’t embarrass me. It’s not possible,” he says. “I don’t care if you show up wearing nothing but—” and here he describes a lewd ensemble that features, among other things, two strategically placed jingle bells.

“Remember,” Leibo says, “our mission is to have f-u-n.”

Enough with that word.

Emerald Pity

I
was comfortable playing golf exclusively at Quail Valley. As treacherous as the course could be, it was familiar—like an irascible but occasionally softhearted drill sergeant. At Quail I had butchered every hole and also parred every hole, so there were few surprises; no bunkers I hadn’t dimpled, no lakes I hadn’t bombed, no trees I hadn’t clipped. Each hazard was an old acquaintance.

Nothing inspiring ever happened when I took my shaky game to another course. On strange fairways, my swing defects became magnified; on strange greens, my putting stroke turned gelatinous.

So I was perfectly content to stay at Quail and flail away in peace, by myself. Lupica wouldn’t hear of it. He said that I was missing out on some great experiences, that no golfer could appreciate the glory of the sport without exploring new venues.

“Another couple years, I’ll be ready,” I said.

“See, that’s what I’m talking about. You’ve got a very poor attitude.”

As it happened, Lupica was coming to Florida to cover the Super Bowl for the
Daily News.
He insisted that I make plans to meet him at a club in West Palm Beach called Emerald Dunes, another celebrated Tom Fazio design. Formerly one of the top public courses in the nation, it had been purchased and made private by a group including John Haas and Frank Chirkinian, the former sultan of CBS Sports.

Among other achievements in broadcasting, Chirkinian revolutionized the way television covers professional golf. Today the cups on all greens are painted white because Chirkinian figured out that white cups made the holes more visible to TV viewers—and to the golfers. The use of videotape, crane-mounted cameras and blimp shots were all Chirkinian innovations. It was none other than he who started the now universal practice of listing players’ scores in strokes over and under par.

Known at CBS as “the Ayatollah,” Chirkinian reigns with imperiously gruff affection over Emerald Dunes, and his stories (some fabulously unprintable) were worth the visit.

But I played execrably—couldn’t chip, couldn’t putt, couldn’t pull it together and break 100. Worse, I was lousy company for my partners. Lupica’s friend, Henk Hartong, christened me “Eeyore” because of all my bellyaching.

Upon returning home, I announced for about the nineteenth time that I was considering re-quitting the game. My wife listened patiently, said all the right things and then went back to chopping the salad.

I walked to my office to read the news on the Internet. Judging from the headlines, lots of people in the world had had a much worse day than I did. In Baghdad, 130 innocent men, women and children had been blown to bits by a car bomb; their offense was to be Shiite Muslims, shopping in a public market. Closer to home, near the central Florida town of Deland, search teams had pulled the twentieth body from the matchstick rubble left by a series of hellish tornados. Among the dead was a boy of only seven, the same age as my youngest.

Reading about those tragedies, I felt small and corrupted with self-absorption. Short of cardiac arrest (or a poisonous tick bite), nothing of mortal significance is likely to occur while one is whacking a small dimpled sphere across gentle green grass under a warm tropical sun. Only a miserably manic soul—and I’m not alone—would allow such a pleasantly inconsequential distraction as golf to be ruined by a scorecard.

Yet every weekend, thousands of otherwise rational men and women are cursing, kicking at divots and smashing expensive milled putters against the trunks of immovable hardwood trees. These players go home in a toxic funk to inflict gloom upon their loved ones until the following Saturday, when they rush back to the golf course and do it all over again.

Trying to be good at something isn’t a bad idea. But, in the turbulent and random scroll of life, topping a tee shot is a meaningless if not downright comic occurrence. A few players I know appreciate this truth; they shrug off their flubs and placidly move along. Such inner peace is as enviable as it is elusive.

My goal in golf was to attain a modest level of proficiency. Put another way: I didn’t want to play like a total putz. That’s not asking for the moon, but, on days such as this, the dream seemed slippery and faraway indeed.

Becoming a decent player certainly requires dedication, but letting one’s self morph into a profane and volatile depressive is unsound, not to mention unappealing. I definitely needed to get a grip.

Over the phone, Leibo cheered me with a restorative anecdote about a mutual friend, Tony Rudolph, who that afternoon had launched a 3-wood a distance of minus three yards.

The circus shot was all the more incredible because Tony was hitting off a pristine lie in the middle of the fairway. “I don’t know how he did it,” Leibo said, “but he swung down and hit the ball dead into the ground. It bounced straight up in the air, with backspin.”

They used a handheld range finder to verify what they’d witnessed with their own eyes. Initially Tony’s ball was 204 yards from the hole; after he bludgeoned it, the new yardage measured precisely 207 on the same line.

“We were crying,” Leibo said, “we were laughing so hard.”

Of all my butt-ugly golf shots, I had yet to hit one backwards.

So there was that to be grateful for, too.

Day 543

Overheard at a local sporting goods store, from a man slightly older than me, being fitted for new clubs: “Tiger Woods and I are exactly the same height.”

And we should give a rat’s ass because…?

Day 544

After only two weeks, Rossa, the tramp, betrays me.

I sink a thirty-foot teaser for a bird on No. 2, but then it’s all downhill…and uphill and sidehill, including a memorable four-putt meltdown on No. 5.

Afterwards, Quinn accompanies me to the practice green for an informal father-son contest. He’s got his pint-sized blade, and I’ve retrieved the Scotty Cameron from time-out in my locker.

Rossa? She is dead to me now.

Day 548

I consult with Bill Becker about how best to dispose of the scarlet harlot. “I don’t believe in the destruction of equipment,” he says, “but I do believe in watery graves.”

“The lake?”

“Absolutely. You have to put it someplace where there’s no chance that you two can ever get back together.”

“The putter’s in my locker,” I say.

“You’ve gotta get it out of there,” Bill advises sternly. “The 10th green is perfect.”

He’s right: Water on all sides.

Yet, upon arriving at the golf course, I cannot bring myself to send Rossa to sleep with the fishes. I ignore her as I remove my golf shoes from the locker.

Today I have a nine-hole playing lesson, in which I hope to display my odious short game for Steve Archer’s professional appraisal. On the first hole we both hit nice drives that roll to a stop near a very large alligator, sunning by the lake.

“That’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen out here,” says Steve.

It’s at least eight feet long; maybe nine. A real tank.

Gators are common on Florida golf courses, providing a mobile dimension to the concept of “lateral hazard.” The largest ones are the most fearless; they are remarkably swift on land, and have a brain the size of a Brussels sprout.

But in my twisted world, the sight of a ravenous territorial reptile that outweighs a golf cart can only be a positive omen. Sure enough, I start striking the ball better than I have in weeks.

It’s not until the fifth hole that I finally sh
___
a pitching wedge. Then, on No. 6, I uncork a 9-iron on a flight path like that of an Iranian RPG.

Being the savvy instructor that he is, Steve promptly repairs both my swing and my head. On No. 7 I stick a 9-iron eight feet from the cup. Although I miss the birdie, I cruise home feeling that it’s a tolerable pastime, this golf.

Day 549

My good-luck gator is still lurking near the first fairway, and I’m hoping he sticks around until the Member-Guest tournament. Under his cold stare I par the hole, then scramble onward to an 88. Scotty Cameron and I are homies again—I three-putt only two greens, and drain a couple of timely ten-footers along the way.

The only flat note: I dunk three consecutive drives into the water on No. 3, terrorizing a flock of ducks that have come to Florida to escape winter. The bombarded fowl fly off in a frenzy, reorganize at a safe altitude and vector due north.

Even iced, Lake Erie must be looking pretty good.

Day 550

A low-pressure system rumbled through overnight—I put the exact time as 3:30 a.m., because that’s when my knee and hip began to play dueling bongos. My grandmother wasn’t making up stories when she said she could track barometer fluctations by the pain in her arthritic joints.

Day 552

After weeks of loyalty, the Cobra driver forsakes me in a cold wind. Still, I recover often enough with a borrowed 56 degree Vokey wedge that I decide to order one from the pro shop.

If nothing else but for mojo maintenance, I ought to have at least one Titleist club in my Titleist carry bag.

Day 556

It’s too chilly for practice, so I stay home and thumb through golf books, another rookie mistake.

On page 117 of
Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons
is an illustration indicating the “correct location of calluses” on a golfer’s left palm. Hogan’s diagram shows eight calluses, but my hand has only seven—and the one on my ring finger appears to be slightly off the mark.

To a stickler like Hogan such details were important. Most golfers would never think of counting, much less mapping, their calluses.

I call Al Simmens to tell him I’ve only got seven.

“That’s it,” he says with a laugh. “Your game is done.”

Big Al has never added up his calluses, and he expresses a high degree of skepticism about the inquiry. By way of advice, he says, “Number one: Stop reading these books.”

I track down Leibo, who was deranged enough to play a tournament in today’s arctic blast. He reports having only one callus on his left hand.

“Hogan says you’re supposed to have eight,” I tell him.

Leibo sighs. “I hate golf and I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

I locate Lupica by cell phone in Boston.

“Did Hogan wear a golf glove?” I ask.

“No! Why do you think I don’t wear one?” Lupica says. “He was my hero.”

I confide to having only seven of the eight requisite calluses.

“The Missing Callus,” he muses. “It could be a
Da Vinci Code
sort of mystery.”

“But I wear a glove, so why do I have any calluses at all?”

“Maybe you’re squeezing the club too tight. Hey, you know what else? Hogan had an extra cleat on one of his golf shoes!”

“You’re kidding.”

“I don’t remember which shoe. He ordered them specially from London, I think.”

That figures.

Day 558

After making a nice par, I hear high praise from Delroy: “Walk tall, pro.”

Then I fall steadily to pieces over the remaining holes. With only seventeen days until the tournament, my game continues a hellbound descent. The more hours I spend practicing, the worse I seem to get, a demoralizing correlation that flies in the face of universal golf wisdom.

The orthopedist can’t see me for three weeks, which kills my last-ditch scheme of scoring a medical excuse to bail out of the Member-Guest.

Day 560

There are more enjoyable ways to pull a groin muscle than by schlepping one’s own golf bag, but this is what I deserve for slicing so many shots into impassable locations.

After eight holes I gimp back to the clubhouse, then head home in hopes of spousal sympathy. My wife regards my injury with the clinical detachment of a combat nurse, and to my dismay prescribes only rest.

Day 561

I have a semi-encouraging conversation with a fellow named Jack Chapman, who gave up golf for twenty-five years and later returned to the sport with some success. The difference between Jack and myself is that he was a scratch player when he mothballed his clubs, while at the time of my retirement I was mauling par. Stellar genetics are another factor: Jack’s father, Dick Chapman, was an extraordinary amateur golfer who won the 1940 U.S. Amateur Championship, the 1951 British Amateur and during his long career played in nineteen Masters tournaments, tying Charlie Coe for the amateur record.

Jack and I are watching the Accenture Match Play Championship on television. Uncharacteristically, Tiger Woods is wildly pushing his tee shots into lakes, cactus patches and other hazards. Except for their extreme distance, his drives look creepily like my own.

At one point Tiger is down four holes to Nick O’Hern, but magnificently battles back to square the match. Then, on the first playoff hole, he misses a four-foot birdie putt—an unexpected sight that Jack and I can hardly absorb. Tiger drops the match and snaps his winning streak of seven consecutive PGA tournaments, raising the possibility that he might, after all, be mortal.

Day 562

Emergency lesson with Steve Archer.

The mission: To confront a virulent new case of the sh_ _ _ _, The Swing Disorder That Must Not Be Mentioned By Name.

We play nine holes, and although I par the last three in a row, the sh_ _ _ manifests itself often enough that Steve is visibly alarmed. By late afternoon he’s got me chipping short wedge shots using only my right hand. “You need to do a lot of this,” he says. “I mean a
lot.”

In addition to the sh_ _ _ _ and some weak lag putting, the third most distressing thing we witness on the course is a mangy seagull stripping a fish from the talons of a bald eagle—our majestic national bird, being mugged by the avian equivalent of a garbage rat.