The Last Drive
Chapter I
There had been a friendly argument before the foursome got started that Saturday afternoon in June. Carson Phillips, retired from the army with the rank of colonel, and possessor of a fortune ample enough to allow him to regard the monthly check from Washington as just a little added pin money, had hotly resented the insinuations of his two nephews, Harry and Fred Adams, concerning the relation between a man’s age and his golf score.
“So you’ll be kind enough to divide yourselves between us!” he snorted. “Do you hear that, Fraser? A wonder their impudence doesn’t choke them. I’m hanged if I wouldn’t play their best ball — I’ve tamed wilder lads in the service—”
Fraser Mawson smiled and nodded his head, held with the poise and air of authority acquired by thirty years of experience at the New York bar.
“As a matter of fact, Colonel,” he agreed, “you’d probably give them a run for their money. I’m rather a better lawyer than golf player, but — impertinence! So you want to let us old fellows down easy, do you, boys? We’ll show you! Won’t we, Carson? Shall we give them a trimming?”
The soldier nodded, and straightway produced a silver coin from his pocket and sent it spinning in the air, with a “Call it, Harry,” directed at one of the young men, who stopped laughing long enough to pronounce the word:
“Heads!”
But it fell with the eagle up, and, having thus won the honor, the Colonel motioned to the waiting caddies and turned to lead the way to the first tee.
They found a crowd there ahead of them, for it was a clear, brilliant June day, and the links of the Corona Country Club was one of the most convenient and best patronized within easy motor distance of New York. For the most part they were men, and you might have found among them the possessors of many well-known names in the business and professional world of the metropolis. Not the least prominent were the members of the foursome with which we are especially concerned. Colonel Carson Phillips, fifty-six and straight as an arrow, was a fine figure of a man with his clear-cut, bronzed features, steady gray eyes and military bearing; Fraser Mawson, also a little more than fifty, one of the most popular men among his own profession as well as a welcome addition to a jolly corner in any of the exclusive clubs, was perhaps a little less distinguished in his appearance, but still a handsome man; and Harry and Fred Adams, brothers, and nephews and heirs of the Colonel, twenty-four and twenty-six respectively, were engaging young fellows with a great deal of foolishness still clinging to them, and all their accomplishments so far developed of a purely social nature. They were spending a week at their uncle’s country home, not far from the Corona club, back in the Jersey hills; and Fraser Mawson, who had handled the Colonel’s business and legal affairs for the past twenty years, was down for the week end.
Silent nods and low-spoken greetings, not to disturb the pair who were driving off, were exchanged as they reached the first tee. Everyone knew Colonel Phillips, open-handed and good-natured old warrior that he was; and there were friendly smiles for him from men like Bolton Cook, the Colorado millionaire who was waking up a section of Wall Street, Harrison Matlin, corporation attorney; John Waring, widely known as a travel lecturer, and Canby Rankin, a wealthy southerner, who had become interested in the detection of crime as a pastime and performed it so well that his talents had more than once pulled the New York Police Commissioner out of a hole. The Colonel and Rankin were old friends, and now they joined each other for a low-toned conversation while most of the others in the crowd swung drivers and irons at blades of grass to limber up.
In thirty minutes or so the foursome’s turn came, and Mawson and the Colonel teed up. With a short, nervous swing, all forearm, Mawson got a ball 180 yards straight down the middle of the fairway. Then the Colonel. His style was slashing and business-like; you might have thought he was using a cavalry sword on an adversary in the heat of battle. A slice carried him into a trap on the right, 200 yards away. His two nephews followed, with the gracefulness and assumed carelessness of a generation who plays thirty-six holes in the daytime and dances thirty-six numbers at night; they got long straight drives. As the four men started off down the smooth turf side by side the Colonel turned to call over his shoulder to those assembled at the tee:
“We’re going to show these youngsters! The match will end on the fourteenth green!”
And with a wave of his hand and a smile he strode ahead beside Mawson. With what suddenness would the answering smiles and shouts have died away if they had known what the next hour held in store!
The Colonel’s optimistic enthusiasm was reinforced by an astonishing 3 for the first hole by Mawson, who reached the green with his second, a long iron over a trap, and sunk a twenty-footer. The two young men took fours; Colonel Phillips needed six.
“That’s alright,” observed the old soldier cheerfully as they headed for the second tee. “If I don’t do it my partner will. One under par! Do you still think we’re too old to make it interesting, Fred?”
“A miracle, sir,” laughed the elder of the two young men. “To my certain knowledge Mr. Mawson never made that hole in less than five before in his life. Confess it, Mr. Mawson!”
The lawyer was nervously swinging his putter back and forth, nipping the tops of the blades of grass. “That three was a little unusual,” he admitted. “But it’s the Colonel I’m looking to. Slicing is something new for you, Carson.”
“Been at it for a week,” frowned the soldier in reply. “Some devilish trick that’s caught me unawares. Totally undiscoverable. I had Mac go around with me yesterday, but he could find nothing wrong; advised me to try my brassie off the tee. I am doing so. You saw. Worse than ever.”
“The honor is still yours, gentlemen,” came from Harry Adams as they reached the tee. “Let’s take this one, Fred, miracle or no miracle.”
It was a short hole, a midiron over a lake, and three of them laid their balls neatly on the green. It was a half in three, with the Colonel barely missing a fifteen-footer for a two. On the next, a two-shot hole, the Colonel used his brassie again from the tee, and again he sliced badly, into the rough. No miracle came to assist Mawson, and the elder pair lost the hole four to six. The fourth was something over five hundred yards. Once more the Colonel went far to the right; he chopped out of some underbrush, gritted his teeth, called for his brassie, — and sliced out of bounds. They lost the hole by two strokes, and became one down.
On the way to the fifth tee the Colonel grew highly voluble. “I’ve been led forty miles on a false trail out in Luzon,” he declared in deliberate disgust, “and I’ve seen twelve-pounders suddenly kick up their heels and grin in your face. Also I’ve had experience with women. But for pesky, petty, unholy tricks, nothing can equal golf. Incomprehensible. Satanic. All at once, from nowhere, I acquire this damnable slice. Cause not to be found. For fickleness women are hopeless amateurs compared to a golf club.”
“Use an iron, sir,” suggested young Harry Adams respectfully.
“You should have fought it out with the driver,” put in Fraser Mawson, busying himself with the selection of a new ball. “Don’t give in to their whims. You see that the brassie is even worse. Something in your stance or grip or stroke.”
“I didn’t suppose it was the way I combed my hair,” observed the Colonel in wrathful sarcasm.
The younger pair had the honor now, and each got a long straight one from the tee. Mawson’s nervousness appeared to have increased, and he topped badly, dribbling along into a hazard. The Colonel hesitated a moment, took out his brassie, then handed it back and called for his driver. As he teed up and took his stance his jaw was set and his eyes were grim. He did not take his golf with the poignant earnestness with which the famous Mrs. Battle played bridge, perhaps, but he had sworn to beat “the youngsters” and like a good soldier he put his brave old heart into it. Slow back, an easy, well-timed swing, and away went the ball, straight and true as a bullet, 220 yards down the fairway. The Colonel watched it tensely till it came down, then relaxed, straightened and grinned happily.