The Downhill Lie (8 page)

Three out of four CEOs said they’ve shelled out as much as $300 for a green fee, while 45 percent said they belonged to four or more private country clubs. (It wasn’t noted how many of those memberships were purchased for them by unsuspecting shareholders.)

Few CEOs in this country are young studs, but many of them golf like they are. In 2006 the number one scorer was fifty-two-year-old Jim Crane, head of a global freight company called EGL, Inc. His handicap index was 0.8, for which any twenty-five-year-old amateur (and even some pros) would kill.

In fact, of the top dozen CEO players, all but two were guys in their fifties who, except for their mountainous stock options and superb skills on a golf course, were not so different from me.

A glass-half-full type would find it encouraging that so many men in the same age bracket are playing top-flight golf. Plainly, it’s not a physical impossibility.

But as a dedicated glass-half-empty person, my reflex reaction to the CEO list was dejection. My most dependable excuse for struggling so ineffectually to master the sport—age—had been demolished in print. The only straw left to clutch was the fact that most of those corporate single-digit handicappers hadn’t abandoned golf for three decades the way I’d done.

This sort of pointless, self-excoriating meditation should be avoided by the average player. No wonder that Steve Archer, the pro who was teaching me, told me to throw away all my golf magazines.

One of these days I just might.

Day 319

Haven’t touched the sticks in almost three weeks—the longest layoff since I started playing again. In the meantime, the Q-Link refund has shown up on the Amex bill, which can only mean (or so I tell myself) that its bad karma is vanquished and my golfing fortunes will improve.

Ha! I bungle and thrash my way to yet another ragged 97.

Back home, there’s celebrity pillhead news on the Internet:

Upon returning to Palm Beach from a golf vacation in the Dominican Republic, radio gasbag Rush Limbaugh was detained by U.S. Customs for possessing a stash of Viagra prescribed in someone else’s name.

Limbaugh, whose appetite for Vicodin had previously gotten him into a jam with Florida authorities, obviously moved to my fair state for the tax benefits, golf opportunities and friendly pharmacists. He has joined four country clubs here, so it’s probably easier for him to get a tee time than it is to get laid.

Still, I’d be curious to know what effect, if any, the Viagra is having on Big Rush’s USGA handicap, which is comparable to my own.

Day 321

For the first time since college, I walk eighteen holes dragging a golf bag. The heat index is 101, according to the weather station.

Last night the course got drenched with four inches of rain, so no carts are allowed. Several of the deeper sand traps are full of water, and I actually lose a ball in one of them, which is a first. I end up shooting 92—not sensational, but I’ll take it under such arduous Saharan conditions.

Day 322

Lupica calls to say he caught Lyme disease from a deer tick that bit him while he was playing golf.

“You have ticks in your fairways?” I ask.

“Not in the fairways, you asshole. In the rough.”

“I’m not sure I want to play a course that has ticks,” I say. “I’d rather deal with alligators.”

Afterwards I wonder if I should have sounded more sympathetic.

Day 323

I take a putting lesson from the eternally patient Archer. He suggests trying a reverse-overlap grip, which seems to work. I hole a long birdie on No. 5 and finish the front nine at 43.

On the back side I stumble as usual, shooting 49. However, I par the gonad-shriveling 18th for the first time ever, which lightens the suffering.

Day 325

A new low: With a group of old high school friends, I rack up an execrable 104 at Riomar Country Club, one of the oldest courses in Florida. Afterwards I throw my visor in a trash can, in order to purge the evil mojo.

Tomorrow we play Quail Valley, and I’m scared shitless.

Day 326

Discarding the hat helped, except on the greens. My score is 93, with five three-putts. For a change, I strike the ball well off the tee, which is to be expected since I’m leaving for St. Augustine tomorrow to be fitted for a new driver.

Launch Control to Major Dork

B
ack in 1998, the Professional Golfers’ Association asked the state of Florida for $50 million to help finance a project called the World Golf Village. Disguised as a sales-tax rebate, the giveaway was pro-rated at $2 million annually for twenty-five years.

Although the PGA was hardly hurting for dough, its request for government funding was quickly approved, the Florida Legislature being infamous for drunkenly throwing tax dollars at wealthy sports franchises. Between 1994 and 2001, $559 million in public money was earmarked to subsidize new pro baseball parks, football stadiums, basketball arenas, hockey palaces and even the headquarters for the International Game Fish Association (an impressive place, if you’re a fan of taxidermy).

Eventually Florida voters became pissed off about the tax handouts and the legislators got spooked, but by then the World Golf Village—basically a Disney World for golf fanatics—was already a done deal. Built on the outskirts of America’s oldest city, St. Augustine, the project has an IMAX theater, an eighteen-hole putting layout, a teaching academy, two championship courses, a perpetual hole-in-one contest (first prize: two tickets to the Masters) and the World Golf Hall of Fame. The sprawling property has become a major tourist draw, and is spawning high-end housing developments on all sides.

Among the myriad attractions inside the World Golf Village is a retail megastore called the PGA Tour Stop, showcasing every upscale line of clubs, putters, balls, shoes and apparel. On the second floor is where a player can be measured, timed and fitted for a new club, or for a whole set.

“You
have
to go,” Leibo told me. “I can’t wait to see you on the launch monitor.”

The launch monitor is a device of modern invention used by golf-club sellers to electronically analyze the swings of potential customers. In my case, I’d be tested on a driver, the most difficult club in the bag to hit. It’s also the most expensive club in the bag, because frustrated golfers—which is to say, all golfers—are eternally shopping for a new model.

I asked Leibo how the launch monitor works.

“You hit some balls into a net, and a machine measures your clubhead speed, the ball spin, the launch angle, everything. It’s unbelievable,” he said.

I told him that I’d reached an age at which I really didn’t want my launch angle measured.

“I’m going to call today and make an appointment,” he said brightly. “We’ll drive up there together.”

A few days before the trip, I started experiencing launch-performance anxiety.

“What if I can’t make a decent swing?” I said. “You know how badly I play when strangers are watching.”

Leibo told me to relax. “You’ll hit about sixty balls. There’s bound to be one or two good ones.”

For moral support, I phoned Lupica, who’d recently purchased a high-tech Ping driver after being assessed on a launch monitor.

“It’ll change your life,” he assured me.

Leibo and Al Simmens accompanied me to the World Golf Village for my Thursday afternoon club fitting. We arrived an hour early and purchased some golf shirts at the PGA Tour Stop.

Then I retrieved my Callaway Big Bertha from the car and we headed upstairs to the testing bay.

“Ask for Keith,” Leibo said. “I told them you’d need somebody with a sense of humor.”

While Keith was finishing with another customer, I practiced hitting a few balls. The net was so large that it was impossible to miss. It was also impossible to tell where the shots were going.

Keith came in and observed me for a few minutes before introducing himself. He placed one of the balls on a rubber tee in front of the launch monitor, a compact camera-like box mounted at a level slightly below my knees.

“Give it a try,” he said.

I hit several in a row, while Keith studied a color monitor that displayed a flurry of numbers and three-dimensional shapes after every shot. His expression was that of a cardiologist staring at a flatline EKG.

“You’re hitting it hard left,” he reported, “
really
hard left.”

“That’s weird. I usually have a big slice.”

“Well, that last one was twenty-seven yards left of center,” he said, “and some of the others were worse.”

I glanced at Al and Mike. They were sitting in patio chairs, enjoying every ugly minute.

“You did hook a few the last time we played,” Mike reminded me.

“That first grouping got a zero rating,” Keith said, which meant the shots were so wildly scattered that there was no statistical pattern. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a zero rating before,” Keith remarked, shaking his head.

And where, I wondered, was his famous sense of humor?

Gamely I hit a half a dozen more drives, but Keith remained pensive. He called in another pro to review the results.

“How bad is it?” I asked.

“Have you thought about taking up fly-fishing?” Keith asked.

“Or maybe bowling?” said the other guy.

They pretended to be kidding. A second color monitor displayed the computer-imagined path of each of my drives on a simulated fairway—the white lines wriggled hither and yon in a chaotic tangle, as if someone had detonated a plate of linguini. A few of the shots flew so low to the ground that they had no measurable launch angle at all.

“That’s awful,” I said, and not even my friends disagreed.

A third club fitter arrived to join the huddle around the tracking equipment, and by now it felt like I was observing my own autopsy. The consensus in the testing room was that my hands were rolling over before impact, turning the face of the golf club inward before it struck the ball.

So I checked my grip, realigned my stance, slowed my downswing and gradually started launching the ball—thwack, thwack, thwack—to a well-frayed spot in the net.

Watching the display screen, Keith perked up. “Your angle of attack is good,” he reported. “So’s your ball speed and your spin rate.”

“What’s his clubhead speed?” Big Al asked.

Keith said it was 98 mph, which is great for a fastball but only slightly above average for an amateur golf drive. Keith sent one of the other pros to get a couple of drivers with different shafts.

“Yours is too stiff,” he explained.

“That’s not what his wife says,” Leibo volunteered from his patio chair.

The other clubs didn’t swing any easier than mine, but the data from the launch monitor indicated that I was striking one of them higher and straighter. To prove it, Keith took me out to the range, and forty minutes later I was the proud owner of a new $399 Callaway Fusion with a regular flex shaft.

The club was only six cubic centimeters larger than my Big Bertha 454, and had barely a half-degree more slant to the face. Nonetheless, I was irrationally hopeful that the new purchase would cure my chronic problems on the tee.

Unfortunately, the shop was out of Callaway Fusion drivers with the specifications I needed. Keith said he’d ship a new one in two weeks.

On the long, winding road out of the World Golf Village, I realized that I hadn’t screwed up the nerve to ask what my launch angle was, or what it was supposed to be.

Knowing, I suspect, would not have sent my confidence soaring on gilded wings.

Day 330

The day after subjecting myself to the launch-monitor experience, we tackle the Palencia, a scenic but tricky course north of St. Augustine. I score atrociously, yet I drive the ball fairly well with the Big Bertha—so well that I’m having regrets about ordering that new driver.

Day 332

I’m flabbergasted to learn that players at my handicap level aren’t permitted to take a score higher than a 7 on any hole, according to the rules of the United States Golf Association. That means I shot an adjusted gross of 100 the other day, not 103.

For some reason I don’t feel like turning cartwheels.

Day 336

Back at Quail Valley, I smack a once-in-a-millennium 4-iron to within thirty feet on the treacherous 18th hole…and smoothly three-putt for a bogey.

Later, on a whim, I pick up the phone to track down David Feherty, the brilliantly twisted golf analyst for CBS. We’ve never met or even spoken, but I’ve heard through mutual friends that he’s read some of my novels. I locate him on the road, between tournaments, and he listens with great patience but evident concern to the story of my golfing relapse.

“The only real mistake you can make is caring,” he says. “Don’t worry, though, I’ll get you de-toxed and then you won’t give a shit.”

“I feel like quitting again every time I play,” I admit, “then I hit one good shot, and all I want to do is go out and play again.”

“Yeah,” Feherty says sympathetically, “it’s like a drug.”

Day 338

I haven’t broken 90 in three months, and it might never happen again. I seem stuck on the desolate plateau of mediocrity that has claimed so many golfers.

My USGA handicap index is now 15.6 and rising faster than Floyd Landis’s sperm count.

Day 339

I hit six greens on the front nine, birdie No. 7 after a shockingly efficient lob wedge, and still make the turn at 42, thanks to several feeble three-putts. True to form, I crumble on the back nine and slump off the course with a 92.

One sunny note: I was even on the par-5s.

Gulag California

W
hile vacationing with my family near Laguna, I ventured to a daunting seaside links course called Monarch Beach. The hotel concierge had assured me that I could play a late round alone; otherwise I’d never have left my room. The idea of golfing with strangers on a strange course was mortifying.

I paid the green fees, rented some clubs and hit a few balls into a net. Then I checked in with the starter, who cheerfully announced that I’d be paired with another player. I broke into a sickly sweat, but it was impossible to back out of the game—the guy was standing right beside me, putting on his glove.

He was a stocky, amiable fellow in his forties whom we will call Mel, some sort of account executive from Tennessee. I smiled gamely, but on the inside my gut was torquing. I was
not
ready for this.

When the starter turned and waved in another direction, I tasted bile. “We’re gonna put you guys with two other singles,” he said to Mel and me. “You don’t mind, do you? Have a great round!”

Whereupon we were introduced to Craig and Don. Craig was tall and athletic-looking, also in sales. He sported cantaloupe-colored bell bottoms, which I could only assume had snuck back into style.

Don was no less fit, though more reserved and less festively attired. He and I shared a cart, which was equipped with detailed GPS mapping of the entire course. The overhead screen displayed precise yardage from the cart location to all major hazards, as well as the greens. I’d never golfed with the assistance of orbiting satellites, but Don seemed familiar with the technology.

The starter screaked a yellow Sharpie across our scorecard, highlighting the many holes upon which we weren’t allowed to drive off the cart path. I gave the wheel to Don and crept off to call my wife, in the craven hope that one of the kids had sprained an arm or possibly split a lip while surfing—nothing dire, just serious enough to give me a plausible excuse for bolting.

Fenia didn’t answer her cell, so I whispered an urgent message: “I’m trapped, honey! They stuck me with three other guys and I can’t weasel out of it!”

Back at the starter’s box, I noticed with alarm that my new companions were drifting toward “the tips”—the black, or championship, tees.

According to the scorecard, Monarch Beach measures 6,601 yards from the black tees and has a Slope Rating of 138, which is cowing to a golfer of my stunted abilities. On the other hand, my home course was 6,540 from the blues, so, I reasoned, how much tougher could it be?

After inquiring about my handicap, Mel said, not in a transparently condescending tone, “You probably want to play from the whites.”

I’d like to believe he was sincerely trying to spare me some embarrassment, but the
machismo
gene clicked on. “That’s okay,” I said, “I’ll just hit from wherever you guys are hitting.”

There was nothing to lose. Apparently I’d already been pegged as the duffer in the group, and nobody was betting any money on the round.

Still, teeing up in front of three younger, vastly more experienced golfers was a bowel-wringing experience. It didn’t help that I was the only one wearing sneakers and playing with rented sticks.

Then something strange and unexpected happened: Mel yanked his first drive into a hill near the out-of-bounds markers, while I pounded mine straight down the middle of the fairway. My new companions seemed as surprised as I was, and implicit in the tone of their congratulations—and my acknowledgment—was the certainty that my shot was merely a happy fluke.

I bogeyed that first hole, but so did they. As we waited on the next tee, Craig asked Don what his handicap was.

“Zero,” Don replied.

“Wow.”

“I used to be a teaching pro,” he added. “I’ve still got my PGA card.”

Perfect, I thought. I’m partnered with a professional. Without further ado, I stood up and launched a screamer hard left. The ball struck a tree—possibly numerous trees—before caroming out of the shadows near the cart path. The other guys spanked perfect drives.

That’s how the afternoon went, good holes and bad holes, the usual roller coaster. Nonetheless, I managed to hang in there with Craig and Mel; Don, as expected, was kicking our asses. Every now and then I’d ask for a tip—how to carve a wedge off a downhill lie, for instance—and he’d respond politely but not expansively. Clearly his teaching days were over.

Play was brutally slow because the course was jammed. The cart restrictions rendered the GPS range finder practically useless, since everyone had to schlep on foot across the fairways to reach their balls. On these treks, Craig, Mel and Don each brought a veritable bouquet of irons, so as to be prepared for any distance and any possible lie.

Not having so many shots in my bag, I usually grabbed one club. Sometimes I guessed right and sometimes I guessed wrong. Often it was the proper choice, struck poorly.

On the sixth hole, by sheer dumb luck, I knocked a 9-iron about eight feet from the pin and sank the putt for a birdie. I proceeded to double-bogey the seventh, par the eighth, then mutilate the par-5 ninth to finish the front at 46.

All things considered, I felt all right. I hadn’t scored nearly as wretchedly as I was capable of. Still, it was a relief to hear Don say that he wouldn’t be able to play the back nine because he had a long drive back to Palm Springs. Briskly I chimed in with an alibi of my own—an adoring family, waiting back at the hotel.

Mel and Craig waved so long and headed for the 10th tee. I shook Don’s hand and wished him a safe journey. Then I scurried into the bar for a Coke.

It had taken two hours and thirty-five minutes to play those nine holes—a death trek for a golfer debilitated by social reticence and acute swing-thought anxieties. Yet somehow I’d endured—hitting from the tips, no less—without the aid of sedatives or booze. No tirades, seizures, casualties or collateral damage.

The first round of the British Open had been played earlier that day at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, and the group in the bar was still buzzing about a spectacular shot that Tiger Woods had made on the 14th hole.

That night I caught the replay on ESPN—a blind 4-iron, 209 yards straight into the cup. I recalled the hilarious 4-iron that I’d hit on the ninth at Monarch Beach that afternoon—arcing high into a Pacific headwind before stalling like a decrepit warbler, then plummeting into a pond.

For the remainder of our vacation I avoided the golf course as if it were a toxic dump, although I awoke early every morning to catch the live Open coverage from Liverpool. When Woods broke down on the 18th green after winning the tournament, I got choked up, too. His grieving for his late father made me think of mine.

Tiger and I have nothing in common except that neither of us would have picked up a golf club if it weren’t for our dads. Tough old Earl Woods surely would have been beaming at the sight of his supernaturally talented son collecting an eleventh major championship at the tender age of thirty years.

I can’t be certain what Odel Hiaasen would think of me, his eldest offspring, slashing and cussing my way around a golf course again at age fifty-three. I suspect he’d be pleased that I was trying.

Day 351

A sleek new King Cobra Speed driver arrives, courtesy of Feherty, who has a commercial deal with the Cobra line. I rush out to the range and instantly start launching balls at a trajectory that resembles a space shuttle blastoff. The new club has a loft of 10.5 degrees, which is plainly ill-suited for my swing.

Later, UPS delivers a box from the Callaway company—the Fusion driver for which I’d been “fitted” at the World Golf Hall of Fame. Giddy with anticipation I’m not.

Day 353

Nine dismal holes with the Fusion.

It’s weighted for a fade, which would be helpful if I was still snap-hooking the ball as I did that day on the launch monitor. Unfortunately, my slice has returned in a breathtaking way, exaggerated to farcical effect by the expensive new driver.

I receive an e-mail from Lupica: “I’m trying to shorten my swing.”

“Yeah,” I write back, “and I’m trying to shorten my memory.”

Day 356

The new
Golf Digest
features a full-page advertisement for “Mind Drive,” an herbal capsule that supposedly clears the brain and dramatically improves one’s golfing abilities.

From the promotional material: “Mind Drive helps keep you calm and focused so you can concentrate on your game, eliminate distractions, increase consistency and lower your score.”

The ad doesn’t reveal the ingredients in this wondrous product, but rousing endorsements are offered by Ryan Palmer, D. A. Points and Vaughn Taylor, three young PGA touring pros. The most well-known blurber is Phil Mickelson’s one-time swing coach, Rick Smith, who’s quoted as saying: “Mind Drive ensures you get into the Zone, taking your game to the next level and achieving consistency.”

Oddly, Mickelson himself doesn’t chime in on behalf of Mind Drive, nor does his name appear in advertisements for the miracle capsules. It’s hard to believe that Smith wouldn’t have told his star pupil about this exciting breakthrough, especially after Mickelson’s heartbreaking collapse on the final hole of the 2006 U.S. Open. Maybe Phil has a different coach for homeopathic consultations.

I dial the 800 number for Mind Drive and order sixty capsules for forty bucks. The guy on the other end offers to sign me up for the lifetime home-delivery program, but I tell him that I’ll wait to see if the stuff really puts me in “the Zone.”

The Q-Link fiasco is still fresh in my mind.

Days 358–360 / Bridgehampton, New York

Mike Lupica has invited me to the Noyac Golf Club, where he’s a member. The slope from the whites is a challenging 138. The course is very pretty, the slender fairways bordered densely with old oaks, and not a tract house in sight.

Among these woods is where Lupica was assaulted by the Lyme-carrying tick, but that’s the least of my worries. I’m off to a terrible start, swinging like a lumberjack, which is appropriate since I spend most of the morning in the trees.

At one point we encounter the course superintendent, whom Lupica engages in a lively dialogue about the length of the rough, which Mike feels is unduly punitive. I don’t hear the entire exchange, but it ends with the superintendent threatening to fire off a letter of complaint to the club big shots about Lupica’s smartass attitude. Mike doesn’t seem especially worried.

The back nine begins more promisingly, with me nearly sinking a fifty-foot blast from a sidehill bunker. Then comes the customary Hiaasen choke. Blessedly, Lupica and son Alex seem to have quit keeping score. I three-putt so many greens that I disgustedly bag the Scotty Cameron and borrow Mike’s putter, with positive results.

Of the three drivers in my bag (out of pity, Lupica has waived the fourteen-club rule) the most useless in my hands proves to be the Fusion for which I was fitted at the World Golf Hall of Fame. I can’t hit the thing worth a damn. However, young Alex Lupica borrows it and knocks the ball a mile, straight and true. He is also sixteen years old, an age at which all things are possible.

The next afternoon, Lupica loans me a freaky blue Ping putter, which works pretty well for nine holes. When we’re done, Lupica insists that I drive one ball off the 10th tee with his beloved G5. To our mutual astonishment, I crush it 272 yards, according to the markers on the fairway sprinklers. Now I’m completely confused. Should I add a Ping driver to my growing collection?

Late the following afternoon, we head out for one last masochistic nine at Noyac. This time we’re joined by Mike’s eldest son, Chris, who has the ideal outlook for golf—it’s all comedy, so why take it seriously? I scrape out a 44, which isn’t bad.

Afterwards, in the pro shop, we watch Tiger Woods sink a birdie to win the Buick Open with his fourth straight 66. Of all people, Rudy Giuliani walks in the door and snaps at his playing partner, who’s glued to the television.

The former New York mayor is a new member at Noyac, and will soon be running for president of the United States. The arduous campaign is not likely to improve his handicap index, currently hovering around 18.

Outside, in the parking lot, we spy Giuliani’s jet-black Escalade, the driver catching some Zs while his boss tackles the back nine. Before zipping my clubs into the travel bag, I present the fade-weighted Fusion to Alex Lupica. His dad hands me the blue Ping putter, and we call it even.

Later, in the shower, I check myself for ticks.

Day 363

Back in the familiar confines of Quail Valley, I par five out of the first six holes. Then I pull my usual crash-and-burn on the back nine, carding big fat 7s on No. 10, No. 17 and No. 18.

I finish with a lackluster 91, the toll including four dispiriting three-putts. The blue Ping let me down, or perhaps it’s the other way around.

Still no sign of the Mind Drive pills in the mail, but Feherty has generously express-shipped another Speed Cobra driver, this one lofted at 9.0 degrees.

At this point I’d be willing to try a slingshot.

Day 364

Ominously, clouds of turkey buzzards have appeared at Quail Valley and the air is ripe with death. Because of the extreme summer heat, some of the jumbo carp and tilapia have floated up dead in the lakes, attracting hungry vultures from as far away as downtown Orlando. It’s a good day to aim clear of the water.

I shoot 46–44 with eight pars (including the tough 17th), two triples and three doubles. I’d been cruising toward breaking 90 when I was once again slaughtered by No. 18—four-putting the cruelly tiered green for another closing 7.

Overall, though, it wasn’t a horrific day. Except for that last hole, the Ping putter performed honorably. I also drove the 9.0 Cobra fairly well, so I make a note to call Feherty and thank him.