The Downhill Lie (15 page)

Rotten-bad mojo.

I feel lucky to make it back to the clubhouse.

Day 564

A farce at Lago Mar, beginning on the first hole where I dunk two balls. The sh_ _ _ _ have set in so stubbornly that Big Al refuses to watch me hit any irons, fearing that through some funky osmosis he, too, will be infected.

The round is notable for the most ridiculous bogey that I’ve ever made; that possibly anyone in the history of golf has ever made. It occurs on the par-513th, where I:

(1) Hook my drive to the soggy bank of a drainage canal;

(2) Sh_ _ _ an 8-iron back across the fairway and over two small hills;

(3) Sh_ _ _ a 6-iron into another fairway, where the ball comes to rest beneath a tree;

(4) Bump a low 9-iron into a grassy mound, which redirects the ball toward a wooden footbridge upon which it bounces not once but twice before landing improbably on the green;

(5) Where I come within a half-turn of sinking the downhill thirty-footer for par.

At one point during the carnage, Leibo shows up to check on my progress. He has spent the morning undergoing a nuclear stress test, which he would have failed if he’d been wired up while watching me flail with a wedge. It’s been an inauspicious debut for the new 56 degree Vokey.

After only a few holes, Leibo excuses himself, saying he has an important meeting with his tax accountant. This might be true, or it might be a polite fiction. In any case, he’s not there to observe my clutch finish, three-putting the 16th, 17th and 18th holes.

The tournament is eleven days away, and my game’s in the proverbial shitter. I call my book editor, and recount the day in gruesome detail.

“Hmmmm. It sounds like things are getting ugly,” Peter says, with a hint of hopefulness.

No Such Luck

B
oat captains in the Florida Keys won’t let you bring a yellow banana aboard because it brings bad luck. This is a known fact.

Believing is everything, and I believe mojo is real. If I get skunked on two consecutive days during a fishing tournament, my hat goes into the nearest garbage can. If that doesn’t bring back some positive karma, I’ll switch brands of candy bars, forsaking my regular Skors for a Milky Way (always bring two, sometimes three; never just one). And if
that
doesn’t work, I’ll substitute a baked ham sandwich—or, if extreme measures are necessary, roast beef—for my customary turkey sub.

This behavior is every bit as twitchy as it sounds, yet it produces results. What you eat, what you wear, even what you put on your head are all proven factors in a day’s sporting fortunes. Example: I own four particular T-shirts that consistently bring good luck on the water. Frayed and faded, they’re juiced with such heavy mojo that I’ll use them until they tatter to lint. Conversely, if I suffer an exceptionally bad day of fishing in a brand-new shirt, it will be consigned to the rag bin.

Upon returning to golf I was pleased to learn that many players are as superstitious as fishermen. PGA pros often carry sentimental items for luck—Jim Furyk keeps his golf shoes in a tote bag from the University of Arizona, his alma mater; Lorena Ochoa marks her ball with a coin engraved with her favorite prayer from the Old Testament. Some pros use only balls bearing a certain numeral, while others avoid specific numbers as unlucky; David Toms, for instance, refuses to hit a No. 2 ball off the first tee.

Even Tiger Woods has his rituals—he uses head covers knitted by his mother, and he always wears red on Sundays. Tiger could easily afford to discard his shirt after a crummy round, or even after a crummy shot, but most amateurs can’t.

No matter how poorly I’ve scored, I still haven’t tossed any $80 Cutter and Bucks in the Dumpster at the end of a day. During rocky stretches I’ve switched hats, tees, ball markers, gloves, bandannas, spikes and even sunglasses, but high-end wardrobe I cannot bring myself to jettison. Unlike my fishing clothes, golf duds aren’t cheap. Another factor is marital harmony—because many of my shirts were presents from my wife, I’m reluctant to start throwing them away on an impulse for fear of being branded as ungrateful and possibly nuts.

As the weekend of the Member-Guest drew closer, I hurried to tidy up my karmic mess. I sorted through my stash of designated water balls, purging the most scrofulous. I consigned to a closet several hats that had let me down during the finishing holes of potentially respectable rounds.

Finally, I removed from my golf bag a medallion featuring the creepy visage of a hairy, bloated Irish troll. A gift from Leibo, the tag came from Whistling Straits, a sadistically demanding course in Kohler, Wisconsin. Leibo had half-jokingly warned that the souvenir (which resembled a leprechaun who’d been dipping into Barry Bonds’s private vitamin jar) might possibly be an agent of bad mojo—and, in fact, my game had been sputtering ever since he’d given it to me. I unclipped the medallion and stowed it safely out of sight.

As for good-luck charms, I owned none. It had been so long since my last semi-decent round of golf that the accoutrements from that day had lost their magic, or were lost themselves. The quarter that I’d used to mark my putts was either in a soda machine or Quinn’s piggy bank, while the Titleists that had performed so ably now slept with the carp at Quail Valley, or lay plugged deep in snake-infested flora.

Hope arrived one February afternoon when, on the way to the Keys, I stopped to visit my mother. As we were chatting in the kitchen, I noticed a small plastic bag on the table. The bag was old and brittle-looking, bearing the logo of a local jewelry shop.

“What’s this?” I asked her.

“Dad’s watch. I was wondering if you wanted it.”

In the bag was a handsome but simple wristwatch that I recognized right away. It has a gold-and-steel band, and the back is etched with my father’s initials, K.O.H.

The watch is visible in a framed photograph of Dad standing beside a large blue marlin that he caught in the Bahamas. It’s the same watch he was wearing on the night he’d collapsed and died at home. Mom had kept it all these years.

Once someone broke into the house and stole most of the family jewelry, which wasn’t much but included some irreplaceable heirlooms. Although the thief found Dad’s wristwatch, he didn’t take it. When my mother got home she spotted it on top of the dresser, where the intruder had left it.

We all wondered why he’d swiped everything but the watch, which was worth about $1,500. Police detectives told Mom that professional burglars avoid items that are engraved, because they’re hard to fence. The explanation sounded plausible, although I was aware of many cases in which the crooks were not so cautious.

For whatever reason, my father’s watch had survived the ransacking.

“I thought it might be nice for you to have,” Mom said, “though I know you like the one you’ve got.” She leaned closer to check out mine, an old stainless Submariner with a faded black face.

“This is the one Dad gave me for Christmas,” I reminded her, “just before he died.”

She seemed surprised, and touched. “And you’re still wearing it after all this time?”

“Yup.”

She smiled and squeezed my hand, which always gets to me.

“I’d like to have this one, too,” I said, “if you’re sure.”

“Lately I’ve been going through all his things—”

“I’ll keep it, Mom. Maybe someday I can give it to Scottie or Quinn.”

“It still works,” she said.

I slipped off my watch and put on my father’s, which was a bit loose on my left wrist. A jeweler could make it snug by removing a link or two from the band.

“Looks good on you,” said Mom.

“I’ll wear it,” I promised, and placed the watch back in the plastic bag. I was thinking about the upcoming tournament—if anything might bring me good luck on a golf course, it would be carrying something personal that had belonged to my Dad.

And if that didn’t work, so what? Wearing the watch would make me think of him, which couldn’t be bad.

After dinner I said goodbye to Mom and drove down to Islamorada. The next two days were filled with some of the best tarpon fishing I’d experienced in a long time. Upon returning to Vero Beach I immediately took Dad’s watch to a shop and got the band adjusted.

After thirty-one years it was strange to see a different time-piece on my arm, but it had the weight of major mojo. I locked it in a safe until the day of the tournament.

Day 566

Leibo calls up singing, “Shanks for the Memories.”

It’s no joking matter, as he will see for himself during the tournament.

“All I need from you is two pars every nine holes,” he says. “Two pars, okay? You can sh_ _ _ it all day long and I don’t care as long as you give me two pars.”

“That’s more pressure,” I mutter.

“You fucker! I’m trying to take the pressure off!”

“I know, Mike. I know.”

Day 568

By e-mail the USGA delivers word that my handicap index now stands at 16.1, which converts to 19 strokes at Quail Valley—a new high, just in time for the tournament.

I’ve been told that some golfers are secretly pleased if their handicaps spike before a major competition; that a few actually conspire to that goal, submitting higher-than-typical scores with the aim of sandbagging their team into an easier flight.

Silly me. I’ve been trying to play better, not worse.

Every day at practice, I feel like a drowning man. Then I come home and see the snapshots of my father that are pinned to the corkboard. I pay special attention to the photo in which Dad is splashing cleanly out of a bunker, a skill that I’ve recently mislaid. In another picture, he’s beginning a downswing with what appears to be a 9-iron, and displaying a textbook rotation of the shoulders. With a form like that, there’s no way to sh_ _ _ a golf ball.

No way.

Day 570

The whole clan goes to the range, where the mighty Quinn dominates with his driver, and his commentary.

“Did you see that shot, Dad?”

Then: “Hey, did you see that one?”

Then: “Dad, look at this! Look at this!”

Then: “I love golf. It is the greatest sport.”

Quinn’s ebullience draws the notice of several older players. Some look amused and some look suspicious, as if I’ve overdosed the kid on Flintstones vitamins.

We relocate to the practice green. Fenia doesn’t have a putter, so I slyly fetch the exiled Rossa from my locker. They bond instantly.

I feel like Oprah.

Day 572

Another dubious achievement: I hit twelve of fourteen fairways, yet post just one measly par. This requires creative ineptitude with the irons.

On No. 11 I clobber a freakishly long drive, 298 yards as paced off from the nearest sprinkler head. From there I strike what looks like a perfectly adequate sand wedge. The ball lands softly in the center of the green and proceeds to roll…and roll…and then roll some more. It comes to rest off the putting surface in a sidehill cut of fringe, from where I make bogey.

Even my lone par is a fluke—a forty-foot lag on No. 6.

Seventy-two hours until the tournament, and I’m flopping like a gigged frog.

Day 573

One last lesson before match play, and the results are inconclusive.

Steve Archer says the accursed sh_ _ _ _ are the result of sliding rather than pivoting away from the ball. He theorizes that I’m doing this because the pain in my right knee makes it uncomfortable to rotate the hips.

Unfortunately, there’s no time to get an artificial joint implanted. Tomorrow is the official practice round.

Strokes of Fate

T
he practice day of the 2007 Men’s Invitational Member-Guest began with a Mind Drive capsule and flashing blue lights: A cop pulled me over, in front of the gates of the country club.

He clocked me at 59 mph, and it would have been faster if I hadn’t been stuck behind an eighteen-wheeler. The officer was very decent about it, letting me off with a warning.

“Have a good day of golfing,” he said, which is not usually how my traffic stops are resolved. It seemed to be a good sign.

Sure enough, Leibo dropped a fifteen-foot birdie on the first hole. I thought we were off and running, but we were just plain off.

On No. 4 I topped my drive down to the ladies’ tee box, banged a 3-wood up near the green, then chunked an easy pitch. Our partners, whom we will (to protect the innocent) call Tom and Tim, were solid players—long off the tee, steady with their irons, and very quiet. Leibo said we were lucky they weren’t in our flight. “We’d be getting smoked,” he whispered.

My putting was unimpressive, yet on the front nine I delivered my promised two pars, including a swell up-and-down on No. 6. On the back side I parred two more holes, and it should have been three.

On No. 14, a downwind par-5, Delroy urged me to go for the green with my second shot: “No holdin’ back, mon.” With his range finder he shot the distance to the pin at 208 yards. I creamed the 22 degree rescue club, but the ball caught a front-side bunker on the fly. There I got a chance to display my unspeakably hapless sand game, and ended up with a sad bogey.

On No. 16, the elevated two-hundred-yard par-3, I banged a 5-iron about twenty-five feet past the cup, then three-putted for another wasted opportunity. Leibo did the same—one of six exasperating three-putts for him. Usually a wizard with the blade, he seemed vexed by Quail Valley’s slick greens. “It’s like putting on the top of my head,” he muttered, tapping his shiny dome.

He finished with an 84, and I had a 93—hardly a banner day, but still a personal milestone: the first time I’d played a full round in the company of two total strangers.

No physical violence, equipment abuse or glaring breaches of etiquette had occurred. Not once had I struck my ball out of turn, tromped on a competitor’s putting line or spit during somebody’s backswing. Leibo said that I might easily have been mistaken for a real golfer.

Afterwards, at the kickoff cocktail party, team pairings were handed out. Leibo and I were in the “Masked Bobwhite Quail” flight, based on an assigned combined handicap of 21—a number that we never quite figured out, even after a couple of cocktails.

Tournament handicaps were based on 90 percent of a player’s normal handicap, with a differential of no more than 10 strokes between teammates. Mike’s USGA index of 5.8 converted at Quail Valley to 7, which was reduced by 90 percent and rounded down to 6. Add the maximum 10 strokes and my handicap as his partner should have been 16, 3 below my Course Rating.

For some reason I’d been listed at 15, a discrepancy that I dismissed as insignificant; even with a higher combined handicap of 22, our team would have been slotted in the same flight. Leibo, a wily veteran of best-ball events, tried to explain that the shorting of even a single stroke could potentially cost us several points during the tournament.

A more confident player might have raised the issue with the authorities, but in my brittle mental state the last thing I wanted was another distraction. It seemed fanciful to imagine the final outcome boiling down to a razor-thin handicap disparity. For me, the mere completion of forty-five competitive holes without incident or intervention would rate as a triumph of sorts.

Eventually Leibo and I gave up trying to decipher our handicap status, and turned to the gambling festivities. He said it would be poor form not to bet on ourselves, no matter how astronomical the odds, so we put down $30 in the name of team spirit, and threw another $200 into the flight pool. I also made side bets on two teams in the top flight, each of which had a scratch player.

When the wagering slacked off, the entertainment portion of the program began. The club had hired not one but two stand-up comedians to face ninety-six tired, hungry, thirsty golfers—a brutal gig, even with an open bar.

Leibo and I slipped out shortly after the second comic took the microphone; the guy might have been uproariously clever, for all I know, but what could be funnier than the prospect of two days of tournament golf when you have no short game whatsoever? That was the real joke, and I was my own punch line.

That night, after re-reading some philosophical passages from Dr. Bob Rotella, I finally drifted off to sleep. Serenity and self-confidence did not embrace me. By 2 a.m. I was wide-awake again, tossing restlessly and tormented by flashbacks of sh
_ _ _ _ _
wedges.

Fishing tournaments were nerve-wracking, too, but nothing like this. In the backwaters you have the comfort of sequestration; there’s but one angler to a skiff, and you can put as much geography as desired between you and your rivals. The isolation removes all risk of being humiliated in front of your peers; a sloppy cast with a flyrod is likely to be witnessed only by you and your guide, who might or might not offer commentary.

In a golf match, though, players compete side by side. Civilities must be maintained; certain events acknowledged. An opponent’s good shot requires a sincere-sounding congratulation, while a flub becomes a shared yet politely unmentioned experience. There’s no privacy in tournament golf, no tidewater refuge from embarrassment or shame; only naked and undeniable reality, as evidenced by the location of your ball.

Every time I closed my eyes I saw myself banana-slicing a drive into the big lake on No. 9. In desperation I took half an Ambien, which turned out not to be a brilliant move. When the alarm beeped at 6:30, I was a zombie.

In the shower I let hot water drum on my sore hip for five minutes. Then I gulped an Aleve and a Centrum, and put on my father’s wristwatch. Leibo noticed as soon as he got in the car, and asked why I hadn’t worn it on the previous day.

“I didn’t want to waste any good mojo on a practice round,” I explained.

Leibick nodded. “Good idea.”

This time we made it to the golf course with no interference from law enforcement. A sign near the practice green announced the putting speed on the Stimp Meter at 12.0, which is slightly slower than a .45 caliber bullet.

Lining up for the breakfast buffet, I realized that I’d again misplaced my focus-inducing Mind Drive capsules, which Leibo found amusing. After a short search I spied one on the carpet near my locker, wiped it clean and downed it with a glass of orange juice.

The first of the day’s three nine-hole matches started on No. 14, a reachable par-5 when the wind is favorable. However, the morning was dead calm and I was swinging like a stoned circus bear. The first two competitive golf shots of my adult life dribbled harmlessly along the fairway, and I was out of the hole by the time the others reached the green.

Our opponents, whom we will call Dick and Dave to preserve their privacy, revealed themselves as solid hitters and keen-eyed putters. Quickly they went up 2–zip. “We got ’em right where we want ’em,” Leibo cracked, but I couldn’t relax.

The scoring was straightforward: Best ball won the hole and one point; in the case of a tie, each team received a half-point. Another point was awarded for winning the match.

Because of my handicap rating, I would be “stroking” on four of the nine holes, which meant a bogey was as good as a par, a par was as good as a birdie, and a birdie was as good as an eagle. The objective is to capitalize on such opportunities, but whenever I was stroking, I was choking.

On our fourth hole, I missed a three-footer that would have won a whole point. The putt wasn’t exceptionally difficult, but I stood over the ball with rubbery arms for what felt like slow-motion eternity—and then I pulled it.

Not exactly grace under pressure.

On the very next hole, I drained a thirty-footer that turned out to be meaningless, and on the hole after that I twice knocked my ball in the water. It was a shambling gagfest.

Leibo picked up the slack as best he could, but Dick and Dave were unflappable, save for one glorious moment. We were down 5–2 with two holes remaining when Leibo dumped his tee shot in a collection area on a sneaky uphill par-3. I sh
_____
my 6-iron into a distant stand of dense, spiky cover that Delroy implored me to avoid, on account of snakes. I found my Titleist (unplayable, of course) and snatched it out of the vines.

Trudging toward the green, I was surprised to see Leibo with a putter in his hand. His ball lay at the bottom of a grassy slope, at least seventy feet from the cup. I’d figured he would try a lob and hope to hold it on the glassy green, which sloped away dramatically.

Putting from such a scruffy, faraway lie seemed dicey, but Leibo knew what he was doing. The ball trundled up the hill, coasted down the crest, kissed the stick and dropped for a bird. It was a beautiful thing to see.

Leibo grinned. I clapped. Delroy let out a cheer.

Dick and Dave were stunned, but gracious.

The magic didn’t last. We demolished the next hole and dropped the match 7–3. By way of a summary, Leibo said, “We played that nine like a couple of ax murderers.”

He was charitable to employ the collective pronoun. It was I who had murdered our chances, failing to scrape out a single par. Not one.
Nada.

Under the circumstances, though, my composure was exemplary—I didn’t cuss, shriek, howl, sob, gnash, froth at the mouth, throw any clubs, break any clubs or feloniously insert any clubs. No matter how poorly I was striking the ball, I marched the course with a grim and unflinching stoicism that would have made my Norwegian forefathers proud. I behaved as a true gentleman golfer, which isn’t easy when one is playing like a spavined troglodyte.

The second death march of the day began on No. 3, a treacherous, bunker-pocked par-5 with a formidable carry over a broad lake. Our new adversaries were, for the purposes of this account, Jimmy and Joe, big bombers who hydrated themselves with one beer per hole. Joe puffed cigars, wore knickers and smacked the ball a country mile; later we found out that his team had won this tournament three years earlier.

I started off wretchedly, plowing my drive into the water. I struck the second one well, then killed a 3-wood to the front of the green. I was lying four and still very much in the hole, which we ended up halving. Delroy grinned and said, “There’s still a lot of golf to play. Anything can happen.”

Gradually, I started swinging better and even saved us a half-point here and there. On the sixth hole Leibo gutted another birdie putt, turned to me and winked. “Game on,” he said.

The match was dead even when we approached the final hole, a 165-yard par-3 over water. The infamous “Gale Valley” wind had kicked up perniciously, and the flagstick was tucked far back on the green. Delroy said the shot was playing at least 185.

Some sort of heavy mojo was in the air. From the tee I could see one of the bald eagles, hunkered over a fish at the edge of the lake. On the opposite shore was my good-luck gator, snoozing in the sunshine. I glanced down at my wrist and sentimentally tapped the face of Dad’s watch.

Delroy handed me the 4-iron, a weapon that in my possession produces a startling variety of flight patterns. For once I hit it both high and straight, the ball stopping eighteen feet from the flag. A momentary silence enveloped the tee box; nobody, least of all me, seemed able to absorb what they’d seen.

It was Delroy who finally said, in typical understatement, “That was the right club, captain.”

Walking toward the green, Leibo reminded me that I was stroking on the hole; a par was a birdie. Then he added, “You’re gonna hate me for saying this, but it’s the truth: The hardest thing to do in golf is try to two-putt for a win, just cozy it up to the hole. But that’s what I want you to do, okay?”

The hardest thing in golf? Is that all?

“I wish you hadn’t told me that,” I said.

The other team wasn’t in bad shape; Jimmy had skied one into the lake, but Joe’s ball was on the back fringe, no more than twenty feet away. He stroked a superb putt that barely missed on the low side, and we gave him the par.

I did a convincing imitation of a Lamaze patient while Delroy, a genius at reading greens, studied my line. “Right edge,” he said. “It’s downhill but into the wind. Play it like a flat putt.”

A flat putt for a flatliner. Perfect.

Teetering over the ball, I felt fuzzy. I tried to visualize the ideal path and speed, but what appeared in my mind’s eye was the image of my Titleist speeding away crazily, like a raindrop sliding down a windowpane.

I held my breath and struck the ball.

My aim was true, but I didn’t give the damn thing enough gas. It died three feet from the cup. When I glanced anxiously at Leibo, he shrugged—no gimme, but safe. He had a ten-footer for birdie, and I was confident that he’d bury it and get me off the hook.

But, startlingly, Leibo’s putt didn’t drop. The whole match depended on mine.

“Back of the hole, pro,” said Delroy. “Don’t be short.”

If I’d learned anything about my golf game during the past eighteen months it was this: The longer I stare at the ball, the more likely I am to botch the shot.

So I made a brisk and radical decision to take my brain out of the process—a strategy that I highly recommend. With uncharacteristic resolve and no cognitive activity whatsoever, I stepped up to the putt and sank it for the win.

Leibo was ecstatic. “How’s the old sphincter now, partner?” he crowed.

Delroy chucked me on the shoulder. “Good putt, mon.
Good
putt.”

Winning felt terrific, but I knew it was a high that couldn’t last. What I didn’t know was how low I could go in the other direction.

Our final match of the day was set on Quail Valley’s devious back nine, and pitted us against two more guys (call them Rob and Roger) who were impossible not to like. On the second hole I pounded a big drive and—avoiding the 56 degree wedge as if it were a hot poker—I stubbed what was meant to be a cute 7-iron punch. Quite by mistake, the shot morphed into a bumpy eighty-yard putt that died pin-high. From there I made par and we won the hole.