Walking with Jack (27 page)

Three over after eight.

Jack is really pissed now. “I can’t miss these damned birdies,” he says.

Hole 9. A 410-yard par-4.

Out of bounds up the left side. When I hand him the three-wood, I tell him that we are out here playing golf because of Ronnie Kovic and all the other soldiers who made the sacrifice. He hits another great three-wood. We have 138 left, uphill into the wind. I want a nine-iron here because there is big trouble off the back of the green. He wants a soft eight. A decent shot. Another three putts from forty feet. Damn. Bogey.

Four over after nine.

Hole 10. A 587-yard par-5.

Downwind. I want a three-wood here because if he pushes a driver left at all, it’s going to kick into the water. He wants driver. A great drive right up the center 345 yards. An easy four-iron to the green. It catches a bunker just right of the flag. A good bunker shot to seven feet. We missed the birdie putt. Made par.

Four over after ten holes.

———

Hole 11. A 193-yard par-3.

Wind behind us. He hits a terrible seven-iron. His first really bad shot. Leaves it 50 yards from the green. We need another good wedge here. He leaves it six feet short. Bogey.

Five over after eleven holes.

Hole 12. A 404-yard par-4.

We need to stop the bleeding here. Jack is still pissed about missing the birdie putt on number 10. I start talking about Springsteen again. A great drive up the highway. A hundred yards left into the wind. He flies a wedge to the bunker on the right. “Fucking pathetic, man,” he says. “You can’t hit shots like that.” I say nothing. He makes a great bunker shot to two feet. Saves par. “God, I’m playing with my head up my ass,” he says. I start telling him another Springsteen story.

Five over after twelve.

Hole 13. A 354-yard par-4.

Into a hard wind. He nails a low three-wood 300 yards right into the mayor’s office. A fifty-six-degree wedge short. Leaves his twenty-two-foot putt six feet short. Drains it to save par.

Why is Jack so damned angry right now? This is something we are going to have to talk about after the round is over.

Five over after thirteen.

Hole 14. A 564-yard par-5.

Across the wind. I have a sick feeling about this drive with the wind blowing hard left to right, which is out of bounds. “I like a three-wood here,” I say.

“No,” he says with some anger. “Driver.” He murders it. Three hundred and sixty yards right up the center. We have 204 left. Five-iron,
pushed right again. He’s not finishing his swing. He is steaming now. “Let’s make a birdie here anyway,” I say. “We’re in a green-side bunker in two on a par-5.” A strong bunker shot to four feet. He drains the putt to make birdie. Four over after fourteen.

Hole 15. A 470-yard par-4 into the wind. A big par-4.

He nails the driver again. Three hundred and thirty yards right into the teeth of the wind. He’s got a tough lie, ball below his feet for this five-iron. “I need to hit a fucking green in regulation,” he complains. “I can’t keep missing these greens.” Thirty-foot putt for birdie. Missed by two feet. Saves par.

Four over after fifteen.

Hole 16. A 397-yard par-4.

I am fighting myself not to want this round to be finished right now. I have to keep my mind on one hole at a time. But I want this to be over now. With the wind behind us, we are going to have it in our faces on 17 and 18. He fans his driver for the first time. We need a break here among the trees. My heart is in my throat. We missed the trees, but the ball is in a hole. Only 125 yards left. The ball flies too low. It is off the back of the green. We need another good wedge here. “You’re against the grain, Jack,” I tell him. “Run it up there hard. Finish the swing.” Bad shot. Forty feet left. Three putts. Bogey.

Five over after sixteen.

Hole 17. A 175-yard par-3.

I’m nervous about this shot. Water right. Trees left. A big wind in our faces.

Our playing partners, both seasoned veterans on the tours, miss the green.

Jack is up last after that bogey on 16. He nails it to fourteen feet. Two putts for par.

Five over after seventeen.

Hole 18. A 462-yard par-4.

Dead into the wind over water on the left. I want Jack to go up the right side obviously. But he nails his driver right over the short line, across the water into the center of the fairway. A hundred and fifty-six yards left. Amazing really into this wind.

He hits a nice knockdown nine-iron to twenty feet. Two putts for par.

Five over after eighteen.

I feel like collapsing. Jack is not at all happy with his round. On the drive home, I just close my eyes and tell him, “Look, man, I’m proud of you. I know you wanted to play better.”

He cuts me off. “I gave away six shots out there, man. I putted like an idiot. I only hit like eight greens in regulation.”

“I know that. But here’s my take on it, okay. We came down here and shot a 90 in our first tournament and missed the cut. Today in our second tournament we shot five over par, 77, and made the cut. I say we should be proud and thankful. We had no disaster hole to fight back from. We might tomorrow. One drive out of bounds and we’re going to have to find out what we’re made of. You played with some big boys today, and you held your own. They beat you by two strokes. So can we just take it easy now for tonight? Watch the Eagles play, and be thankful.”

“Yeah, I guess so. But I need to play better, man.”

“And you will. Okay? You will. Tomorrow.”

It’s a day.

Up at 4:00 for our 8:40 tee time in round two at Cypress Lakes. Outside the humidity seems to have fallen a bit from yesterday.

Last night during the Eagles game I asked Jack if he had seen the fellow with the necktie. “A throwback to old Harry Vardon. Which reminds me, I might tell you my Vardon stories all the way around tomorrow.”

“Good by me,” he said.

“And let’s be thankful for something tonight.”

“What’s that?”

“When your mother called, she was very happy. Whenever you do something that makes your mother happy, that’s a good thing. Good night. Sleep tight.”

He said good night and turned down the volume on the game.

“Oh, and one more thing,” I said. “Let’s keep it simple tomorrow. All we have to do is hit more greens in regulation and get closer on our first putts.”

“Okay, go to sleep.”

“Oh, and one more thing, Jackie. That putt we ran fourteen feet past the hole, uphill, and against the grain—what green was that?”

“Five.”

“Are you sure? I thought it was 3.”

“It was 5. I’m going to watch the second half now.”

At the range this morning I was thinking about what Charlie Woodworth had written to me last night after our round yesterday. “Golf is not a straight line.” Meaning I must expect setbacks today. Maybe a hooked drive on the 1st tee and a triple bogey that tests us
right out of the blocks and forces us to bear down hard and make birdies. I didn’t want that. Or maybe I did.

Of course it didn’t matter one way or the other what I wanted. It was up to Jack. And from the 1st hole, where he tapped in for par after a deep drive and a perfectly struck sand wedge, he was in his own world, playing with the calm confidence of someone who believed he had as much right to be on this tour as anyone. He birdied the first par-5 after hitting a gorgeous six-iron second shot that carried 224 yards over water, to a narrow green, and then ran off a string of easy pars while I talked with him about Teddy, recalling the time I had accidentally nailed the poor dog in his chest with a golf ball on the first swing I took with a rescue club that Jack had given me for Christmas. And how Jack had once jumped into a pond to save his life after he had fallen through the ice. The more we talked about Teddy, the more relaxed Jack became. It was a picnic, and the one under par he recorded for the front nine included a forty-five-foot, downhill, double-breaking putt for an eagle on the par-5 8th. He rolled the ball into the center of the cup fifteen seconds after I asked him if he would please sink the eagle for his mother. I wish Colleen had been here to see that. And how handsome he looked in the black jacket I’d bought him at Carnoustie when he put it on as rain moved in. I was thrilled to see him marching beside me in that jacket with the Carnoustie emblem over his heart that marked the place where this journey of ours began.

The only disagreement we had today was on the 10th hole, a 572-yard par-5 with a narrow fairway that sloped severely left to water. Instead of taking the drive up the right side, he hit it dead center of the fairway, and when we both saw the ball kick hard to the left, we were certain it was in the water. It was a red-staked hazard, meaning if we were in the water, we would take a drop and lose that one stroke. When we got to his ball, we found that it had come to rest in the weeds just short of the water. Jack wanted to punch it out. I tried to persuade him to take a drop and the stroke penalty and then hit our third shot toward the green. He overruled me and knocked an
awkward wedge out of the weeds but still short of the fairway. From there we faced an impossible shot to the green—257 yards, uphill, over towering trees with more water running up the left side. I urged him in the strongest possible terms not to try to reach the green from where we were. I was pretty sure that we were standing at the point in our round where the wrong decision would prove ruinous, and I wanted to run a low four-iron harmlessly up the hill in the direction of the green. Jack overruled me again, and then somehow he hit one of the most marvelous golf shots I have ever witnessed. The ball flew up straight over the treetops, all the way to the green, where it landed softly. Both our playing partners called to Jack, “Great shot. Great shot, man.”

After remaining at even par through sixteen holes, we collapsed at the end with a three-putt bogey on 17 and a double bogey on 18 after hooking a drive into the water.

When we shook hands at the end of the round, there was no smile from Jack. He was steaming mad at himself. We just shot three over par against a tough field of players on a tough course, and in pouring rain for a few hours, and he was not satisfied at all. Maybe this is good. Because we threw away three strokes on the last two holes and you should never be satisfied with that kind of play. Tomorrow on to the Houston National Golf Club for a noon practice round. Thursday we start our next event there.

Somewhere off the Frontage Road, about three miles from our Studio Plus here in Gunpoint, there is a driving range straight out of the movie
Tin Cup
with an open field of weeds and a guy who calls
himself a pro dispensing lessons from his lawn chair with a cat curled on his shoulder. My theory is that he was once a good player because every time you drive past, he’s got another client, and these clients are always driving very expensive automobiles. He could be a drug dealer, I suppose, but I prefer to believe that he was once a fine player with professional prospects who is now living in reduced circumstances and trying to squeeze a meager living from the game he loved and devoted himself to before the game wrecked him with despair. As a favor to me, Jack agreed to stop here this morning and hit a few balls before we drove to the Houston National for our practice round. I thought this would be the perfect place to speak with him about being grateful, and I told him the script for the pro’s life while he tried to nail the armadillos racing across the field with knocked-down nine-irons. “He chased the dream,” I said. “He could hit fifteen greens in regulation every time out because of his natural ballstriking ability, and so he believed that he should be shooting in the red numbers. And he believed the game should be easy because when you’re hitting almost every fairway from the tee and every green, it is an easy game. Sound like anyone you know, Jack?”

“Maybe,” he said.

“It was easy out there for you yesterday for a stretch of about two hours. And on number 10 you made a shot that very few people in this game could ever make. The truth is very few people would ever even attempt to set up a birdie from a third shot 257 yards uphill over tall trees. You went for that shot because you want to be great, I know that.”

“I could have shot seven under par yesterday,” he said.

“Sure,” I said. “Or that shot on 10 could have clipped a branch at the top of a tree and we’re in a world of trouble. Maybe we end up shooting another 90, and we’re embarrassed again. That’s golf.”

Instead of answering me, he put some music on his iPhone. But he didn’t plug in his headphones; instead, he dropped the iPhone into the grass so we could share the music. U2. Music that had been the sound track of our years together before he left home. I stood
beside him for a while, hitting soft eight-irons, sliding into the rhythm. From time to time he would stop and glance over at the old pro giving his lesson from the lawn chair. For the last few days I had been thinking that all I wanted Jack to learn here in Texas was how to fight hard in his life for the things that matter to him. But now that didn’t seem to be so important to me. It was something deeper. “You know,” I said, “if I hadn’t been named a First Team All-State wide receiver when I was a senior in high school, I would have gone to Vietnam like a lot of the guys I graduated with instead of college. And I’ve never been grateful enough for that.”

I paused and hit a couple more balls before I went on. “I was teaching at Colby College back in the day, as you say, before you were born. Nell was born there and she was perfect in every way. She was born in the same hospital where one of my students was being treated for cancer. A beautiful girl, a sophomore, I think. It was throat cancer, and the first thing they had to do to her before they began radiation was pull out all her teeth. It tore my heart out. And I told myself that I had so much to be thankful for and that I would always be grateful. But I wasn’t content teaching at Colby. I wanted to be at Harvard, you know? I think that’s what I want you to learn here, Jack. If you can go through your life being grateful instead of always asking for more, you’ll be in good shape. And tomorrow if we miss a birdie putt, maybe you give yourself ten seconds to be angry, and then you’ll feel some gratitude just for the chance. Because when you’re grateful, you’re calm. And if you’re calm in this game, with your skills, you can go as far as you want. End of sermon.”