Jock had taken the bitten stem of the briar out from between his teeth and had looked at it steadily. Then he had spat over the railing of the caddie house, and said mildly, “Good day to you.”
Arden’s stocky back had been stiff with anger as he had walked away. And that was another door closed tightly.
No matter. Arden liked to have a man crawl on his knees. Crawling might be necessary.
He went down to the dining room, and ate sparingly; then he returned to his room, undressed and went to bed.
His body yearned for sleep, and yet his tired mind, chained tightly to worry, revolved in a tight spiral that made sleep impossible. When, many hours later, he slept, it was to dream that he was in the bottom of an enormous sandtrap. Each stinging, blasting stroke sent the ball high up the steep face of the trap, only to have it stop, roll back and lodge exactly where it had been before. Sweat stung his eyes, and he sobbed as he swung...
His caddie was a solemn youth of fifteen, with the shy awkwardness of adolescence. The vast crowds of gay, hurrying people, the men with the radio packs, the solemn officials, the carnival atmosphere — all gave Jock Drew a feeling of taunt nervousness. The big course was faultlessly clipped and tailored. Jock saw on the big board that he was matched with a man named Kelly. He noticed that Kelly was seven strokes behind the leader. That was good. It meant that they would travel with a slim gallery. He hadn’t met Kelly before and they shook hands on the first tee.
Kelly was a slim, dark boy, with smiling lips, nervous eyes, and good strong wrists and hands. “How’s it going, pops?” he asked.
“Fair, lad. Just fair.”
The nervousness clung, but when he stood by the teed ball, the familiar grip of the club in his hands, a certain amount of confidence returned. After all, this was the tool of a trade that he had followed for over thirty years. Other men called it a game. To him it had been a livelihood, and a hard and bitter one at that.
The first hole was a 335 yard par four, straight out, with a high trapped green. There was knowledge in Jock’s muscles. Knowledge of the breaking point. You can push just so hard, and so far — and then your game comes apart like wet cardboard. His swing was as grooved as though the throat of the club traveled in a narrow steel track. At the last instant came the snap of sinewed wrists, and the white ball, cleanly and sharply hit, sped out over the deep green of the fairway, striking the ground a little more than two hundred yards out, rolling long with the little tail he put on. Two fifty to sixty, thereabouts, he judged. Respectable. And straight.
Kelly smashed out with the resiliency of young muscles, the whipcord of young wrists. It sped low, then began to rise, floated, soared, dropped near Jock’s ball, and rolled far beyond it.
Jock began mechanically to trudge toward the ball. This was the last day. These steps would be retraced only once more. His legs were like dull wood, and there was a glowing pain under his heart.
With 85 yards to go, he asked for the seven iron, lofted one that was white against the morning sky, seeming to hang for a moment before it arrowed down to disappear beyond the high leading edge of the green. Kelly had a chip shot to the green. Jock sunk his eight foot putt, while Kelly ringed the cup for a heartbreaking miss.
Walk, stop, judge, take the club, swing, and walk again. Jock moved like a mechanical doll in a weirdly complicated game, moving in green infinity, lulled almost to apathy by the constant drain on his strength.
And yet, as he walked, all the training of thirty years was at his call. A flicker of wind, a grain of the grass, the subtle trickery of a slope — he knew them well, and each shot played to take advantage of the enormous number of variables. Because that is all golf is. Man against variables. Variables of swing, of impact, of green and fairway and rough. In tournament play there are other variables — courage, tension, and fatigue.
On the seventh — that incredible par three at the Crest Club, a two hundred and thirty-eight yard hole, where the drive must carry a full two hundred and fifteen yards, or else fall into the raw gully that cuts across the deep green of the fairway — he thought for a long time, and discarded the long iron in favor of the number four wood. He teed the ball well back toward his right foot, and hit it explosively. It went out on a direct line, and he didn’t breathe until it began to rise, and he knew that it was floating dead in the air.
As they watched, it struck against the side of the green, bounded high, bounced once on the green, trickled in a line that curved slightly to the right and disappeared into the hole. The caddie let out a wild yelp of glee, and then covered his mouth with his hand and looked ashamed of his outburst.
Kelly used a three iron. Jock saw that the muscles were tight ovals at the corners of Kelly’s jaw. In his eagerness to birdie the hole and thus lose only one stroke, Kelly cut viciously at the ball, cutting a shade too far under it. The ball towered to an incredible height, fell short, missing the brink of the gulley by inches, losing itself down in the clumps of shrubbery. The rules permit another ball to be driven, plus the one-stroke penalty. Kelly put the second ball on the green, missed his putt and took a five.
Four strokes dropped on one hole.
Word of the hole in one got back to the gallery. By the time they had reached the fourteenth, the crowd was over a hundred. And many who saw the posting of Jock’s score on the big board joined the gallery because they sensed drama.
The eighteenth at the Crest Club is a hole to break the hearts of men. In kindlier days it was a par five. For the last four years it has been a par four. You stand on the tee fifty feet above the fairway level, and for three hundred and ten yards the fairway stretches but, straight and true. But it narrows as it goes. Three hundred and ten yards from the tee, there is a spot as big as a wide green. But it isn’t the green — the green is down a slope off to the right, two hundred and twenty yards further. The green itself tilts back away from the fairway, and beyond it is a wide creek.
The theory of the hole is that you drive three hundred and ten yards straight out. Next you find some miraculous club in your bag that will enable you to put the ball onto a sloping green two hundred and twenty yards further. Then you take two putts.
If your drive is short, then you must play over a line of pines, playing a controlled slice that will send you bounding down the slope to be gobbled up by the deep traps in front of the green — if go that far.
Each time be played the hole, Jock Drew forced himself closer to the limits of control. A man cannot hit a golf ball with all his strength and know where it will go. That tiny bit of reserve strength must be used for the type of control which causes a variation of an eighth of an inch in the angle of the clubhead, to result in thirty yards of angle by the time the ball is two hundred yards away.
He had learned one thing. He had learned that even with the deceptive height, to drive the full three hundred and ten yards brought him dangerously close to the limits of control. He knew that he had a choice. He could either play a short drive to the left of the fairway to give him clearance to go over the trees, or he could take a chance and play far to the right, getting close enough to the trees so that he could play low between the shaggy trunks.
He played to the right. And when he got to the ball he found that a huge tree completely masked the green. All or nothing. In the old days he would have pitched cautiously out of danger, played for a five on the hole. But that sort of golf was not the kind that wins. Not today.
The caddie’s eyes widened as he asked for the number three wood. He set himself carefully, and when he swung, he pulled the club head across the ball, from the outside toward the inside. The ball, struck fairly, whistled close to the trunk of the tree. Jock did not have the strength to run to where he could see its flight. He stood, his eyes half closed, listening to the gallery. If he heard that descending sigh, he would know he was in trouble. He heard a full-throated roar of approval.