John D. MacDonald
So Sorry
After dinner I walked up to t he suite Harry Crebson and Mart Snyder shared on the second floor of the Upland Club. The Upland always puts up the big boys who come each year to compete in the Southland Open. It is only a quarter mile from the first tee and very plush.
I represent Miramar Sporting Equipment of Los Angeles. You know the line. Get ten more yards distance from the Miracle Ball. Improve your swing with Marvel Irons. Twelve of America’s top-flight pros use Pesky Watson Woods. Actually the line is as good as any, and you can’t go far wrong buying them.
It was in the nature of a little consolation party for Joe Sarant who had failed to qualify. The Upland course on which the Southland Open is always played is a long hilly course with narrow fairways, high trapped greens and plenty of shrubbery. Joe’s hook had gotten out of control and his qualifying round had been something to put on an adding machine.
As I had expected, Mart Snyder and Harry Crebson had invited Hal Lovelord and Jimmy Ratchelder over. Joe Sarant and I were the outsiders. It was practically an even money bet that one of the four in the room would knock off the $7500 they give you for being best man.
You know them all. Mart Snyder is a thin, dark, expressionless man with ulcers. He’s been on the circuit for thirteen years now and in spite of his dead pan, he’s always tied in knots. Harry Crebson is the big blonde guy who started to knock them dead just after he got out of the army. He has freckles and a grin. Hal Lovelord is a Canadian who has a vague expression, a dim wispy mustache and a deadly eye on the putting green. Jimmy Ratchelder is, of course, the plump pink little guy with the shrewd grey eyes who has made more out of tournament golf than any man in the last twenty years. It’s a business to Jimmy — pure and simple.
“Buy yourself a drink, Dave.” Harry Crebson said to me. “Right there on the table.”
I grinned at the group, mixed a weak rye and sat on the couch beside Lovelord. “How many of you boys are going to join the big happy Miramar family?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t use a Marvel iron to club your thick skull,” Mart Snyder said.
“Now that we’ve got that out of our way,” Jimmy Ratchelder said, “let’s get back to the discussion which Dave Able so rudely interrupted.”
“Oh, lay off the guy Jim,” Crebson said.
“Lay off who?” I asked. “The new course champion?”
“Yeah,” Crebson said. “Jimmy’s all upset about our little Japanese friend who got the sixty-three this afternoon. I say to hell with him. He’ll blow up.”
“But suppose he doesn’t?” Jimmy asked, his button mouth pursed.
The boys were talking about Tommy Suragachi of Oregon. A big tournament attracts all sorts of people who think they can get hot and take a big one away from the boys who know how. Some of them are very spectacular for a while, but generally the grueling pace of a long tournament grinds them down into quivering lumps that couldn’t put a ball into a cup with both hands and a snow shovel!
The press hadn’t noticed Tommy, a slim, nervous acting boy, until he had banged out that miracle round of sixty-three, beating the course record by one stroke. Then the press had picked him up. He had played golf before the war and had been a caddy. He served with the infantry in Italy during the war. He had brought himself and his clubs to the tournament on a bus. He was being staked by a whole bunch of Japanese farmers on the West Coast who had kicked in a little bit apiece. Apparently it was a very little bit because Tommy Suragachi was living in a down-at-the-heels tourist cabin a mile and a quarter from the course.
“If he doesn’t,” Mart Snyder said dryly, “he’ll beat us tired old men.”
“We got to make sure he doesn’t,” Jimmy Ratchelder said. We thought he was kidding at first, but his tone was very serious.
“How are you going to do that?” Lovelord asked. “Kick his drives into the rough?”
We laughed but Ratchelder didn’t even smile. “You men better think about the game and what it means to the country rather than make cheap jokes.”
“Just what do you mean?” I asked.
“Golf is one of our biggest national games. It will hurt the game and hurt this one. It may be that some of the us if a Jap wins a big tournament like private clubs that have tournaments now will cancel them if they find they’ve got to put up a Jap in the club.”
“Japs don’t bother me a bit,” Harry Crebson said. “They were pretty handy to have around in Italy.”
“Do you want a Jap beating you and winning this tournament?” Snyder asked, obviously siding with Ratchelder.
Crebson yawned. “I don't want anybody beating me, boys, unless he happens to play more golf than I do. I got a couple of kids to feed. And my old lady eats like a horse.”
“If this Sura-something wins,” Jimmy said, “they’ll have a national holiday in Japan. What the hell was the use of licking them if we’ve got to make heroes out of them?”
“You take this too seriously,” Love-lord said in his prim manner. “The odds are greatly against his winning any part of the prize money, you know.”
“I know one way that would stop him quickly,” Jimmy Ratchelder said. “If the four of us resigned from the tournament and demanded the entrance fee back, they’d force him to quit.”
“Use your head!” Mart Snyder snapped. “That would make a martyr out of him. If he keeps coming, all four of us ought to get a chance to take a hack at him. All we have to do is play the best we know how.”
Crebson laughed. “Brother, I do that anyhow!”
“Besides,” Snyder continued, “the public might take the wrong slant on it. They wouldn’t realize that we were doing it to help the game. They might think we were doing it because we were prejudiced or something. I’m not prejudiced against him.”
“Neither am I,” Jimmy said. “I just don’t think that a Jap ought to be given a chance to win the Southland Open or any other major tournament. Maybe they should be allowed to play in some of the small city tournaments on the public courses.”
Crebson winked at me and said, “Well, to hear that you boys aren’t prejudiced sure makes me happy. It surely does!”
“I don’t like that smart-aleck tone of voice, Crebson,” Jimmy snapped, his round pink face getting pinker.
Crebson grinned at him, “Then get the hell out, friend.”
“This is my room too!” Snyder said coldly. “And he’s my guest. He stays.”
“You’re acting like children,” I said.
“We surely are,” Crebson agreed. “Goodnight all. Crebson needs his beauty sleep.” He walked into the bedroom and closed the door. Joe Sarant had passed out on the couch near the liquor table.
I stood up and said, “I got to run too. Thanks for the drink.”
Mart nodded at me. Hal Lovelord stood up and came along. As I closed the door I heard Ratchelder say, “Mart, the other way that we can—”
Hal Lovelord walked downstairs with me. He had a puzzled look on his face. At the foot of the stairs he said, “I wonder how much good it does the game to have a man like Ratchelder win tournaments?”
Suddenly I found that I liked the vague Canadian with the wispy mustache. I said, “Jimmy’s a smart man, Hal. You’ve got to give him that.”
Lovelord wandered away still looking bothered. I went out to my car and drove down to the cabins where Suragachi was staying. The light was still on in his cabin. I had the funny feeling that I was making up for what Jimmy had said. He opened the door as soon as I knocked at it.
He was a lean boy with dark, expressive eyes, hollow cheeks, and a tight look around his lips and chin.
I shook hands heartily, saying, “Can I come in for a minute? I’m Dave Able of the Miramar Company.”