Muleskinner BluesChapter 24
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That weekend, the girls and their folks accompanied me to the three-day tournament. Fred and Terry had worked with the team, and we were ready. All of the team was playing some good golf. This was another stroke play event, with the best overall school score taking the win, plus there was individual trophies for best scores, longest drives, most fairways hit, most greens hit, and fewest putts. All we had to do was perform.
Thursday night we walked the course twice. The first time we made notes for each hole and then went back and made notations as to club size to use on each hole with the anticipated landing areas. All of us used different clubs depending on the way we used each club. We ended the evening driving several buckets of balls. Terry worked with me on my short irons, making sure I felt the distance of each stroke. We even did some sand trap work, and finally we putted a while.
Friday was exciting. There were six schools represented. This match was for superiority of our conference. So far we had risen from the bottom to about the middle of the pack. After a good early breakfast, I drove a couple of buckets, then chipped a bucket, and ended up on the putting green. My tee off time was ten, so I said my good-byes to my group that referred to themselves as my “peanut gallery” and headed to the first tee with Terry as my caddy. This was a special event, and every student had a caddy. The caddies were mostly dads, some coaches, and some other students.
The first hole was a short par four that would be easy to over drive trying to get on the green. My strategy was to use a three wood and try to hit long enough that the ball would run up on the green. If I didn’t make the green that would be fine, as then I would have an easy chip to get close to the hole. The plan worked perfectly. The ball ran up to about fifteen feet of the hole. The greens were only fairly fast but pretty bumpy. Our third player had driven over the green and chipped back to within about thirty feet of the hole. His next shot was to about six feet of the hole. Another player had gotten to the green but was farther away from me, so I was able to watch his ball bounce all over the place and then veer to right of the hole some ten feet away. My ball was now the farthest from the pin. I was on the exact same track, so I walked up to the hole looking for the reason for the sharp turn. There was a loose wood chip lying in the path to the hole. I picked up the wood chip and tossed it to a judge and then forked up around where the chip had been pushed down then tamped the area with the putter. The line didn’t look bad, just washboard. I focused on the line of the putt, almost seeing a dotted line from my ball to the cup. With a fairly strong swing, I putted through the ball, sending it on the dotted line straight to the cup. I recorded an eagle on the first hole. Terry congratulated me, and I received some applause from the small gallery following us as well as the other players.
The second hole was a long straight par five with fairway bunkers heavy on the left side. My drive was straight as an arrow for about three hundred fifty yards. Both the other players stayed on the fairway and bested me in length by ten to fifteen yards. I was about a hundred eighty from the green, so I used a three iron and landed short of the green but ran up on the lip. The other two players played the hole short to avoid some bunkers behind the hole. One managed to land in the trap on the right side of the green. The green was long and narrow like the rest of the hole, with undulations from one end to the other. Terry said I could chip since I was in the taller grass on the edge of the green, or I could putt really hard and try to get the distance down since I had three shots to make par. I wanted to chip, so I used my sand wedge and lofted the ball high, hoping that I had the right amount of distance. The ball landed on the far side of the hole and spun on the ground, hopping back toward the hole and ending up on the lip of cup. Everyone watching was gasping loudly. The other players had me tap in for my birdie, and then I watched as one guy made par and the other bogeyed.
The third hole was a par three that we all parred, and then we went through the next six holes quickly. I parred all the following holes so was three under going to the tenth. My playing partners were both four over but seemed happy to be doing that well. I was disappointed in a couple of my putts and a couple of my short irons but happy to have been staying at par on those holes.
The tenth hole was an ugly and long par five. It was very narrow to the apex of the dogleg. At that point, there were sand traps on both sides of the fairway, with a pond about twenty yards off the fairway beyond the apex. I watched the first guy drive his ball into the pond, overdriving the apex. He elected to drive again and put the ball in a trap on the left side. The next guy played short and let his ball run up toward the right sand trap but stayed in the fairway. Terry and I had discussed how to play the hole the day before. He told me to use my two-wood and drive to as close to the far side of the apex as I could, which was right at three hundred yards. Terry felt I would overshoot using the driver.
My shot was almost too long. It ran all the way up to the longer grass and stopped about a foot away. I could breath easier. My next shot was going to be straight at the green. You couldn’t see the green as there was a ridge between my ball and the green. You could just see the very tip of the flagpole when it was in place, but it was not in place when I was looking toward the green. There was a judge on the side of the fairway with flags. Red meant to wait and green was to go ahead. He was waving the green but I couldn’t see the tip of the pole. I walked up the ridge to see why I couldn’t see it. The pole was lying off the green to one side. The judge said if I didn’t hurry and shoot I would be penalized a stroke. When I pointed out that the pole was not in place and I was having difficulty lining up the shot, he yelled for someone to put the pole in place. I walked back to the hole with Terry telling me I had to be careful of the judges, as they might get mad at me for talking to them and unjustly penalize me even if I were correct.
When I settled down over the ball with my seven-iron, I was confident of the shot. It was a little long for the seven-iron, but I wanted the loft, as I thought the ball would dig in on the green giving me a shorter putt. The ball went high into the air but straight to where I had wanted. When the ball went behind the ridge the pole quivered and I heard several people yelling. Terry walked up to me and slapped me on the back saying, “I’m going to have a proctologist check your ass for a horse shoe; you just shot a double eagle. You’re still in college, and I’ve never had one. Jesus that’s awesome.”
My playing partners were equally happy for me. It was truly a lucky shot. The judge who had cautioned me smiled broadly and congratulated me, “I guess it was important to see that pole.”
The seventeenth hole had my number. It was a long par four that had a pond near the hole, so it was easy to know to lie up in front of the pond. The stupid ball carried an extra fifteen yards and did a graceful hop right into the water. Terry said to take the stroke and the drop. My drop was perfect, in a clump of grass right behind a rock. Terry had me ask for relief but the judge just said “tough shit” and walked away. Terry said in a pro match a judge would have given me another drop and would have tossed the rock.
I chipped toward the green but the ball caught the stone and went straight up in the air coming down in the water. The judge watched me closely as I dropped the ball. I wasn’t worried as the damn rock followed my ball into the pond. My next shot for a bogey was a little long. My double bogey putt was a little to the right and I finished with a triple bogey. Damn. I was now back to only three under.
The eighteenth was another vicious par five. I was determined and drove the ball straight to where I wanted. My second shot was right at the green but in a bunker next to it. My third shot out of the sand put my ball a foot from the pin, and I finished the round with a birdie for four under.
I finished up my scorecard and walked to the score keeper’s tent. The judge looked at my final and frowned. He went back over each hole and checked each one with the following judge. He finally looked up and said, “Congratulations Mr. Johnson that’s the best of the day by far. Good game.”
My peanut gallery was all over me. One of the guys who had been my playing partner came up to shake my hand. As he viewed the two girls he asked, “Which one is yours and which one can I make a try for.”
Trish and Delta each grabbed an arm, held out their left hands, and said together, “Sorry, we’re both his.”
The tournament had a lot of pomp and circumstance going. The first evening was a big dinner with a bunch of certificates handed out for best drive, best hole, and longest putt. I received one for best game and best hole for my double eagle. I also was included in the goof-off group with my ugly seventeenth hole.
Saturday, I started at one o’clock with two new players. I birdied the first four holes and then parred everything until the seventeenth. There I lined up and put the ball ten yards from the water. My chip was dead onto the cup about two feet away. An easy putt, and I had conquered the bad news hole from the day before. I parred eighteen to end up five under.
Again the scorer spent an eternity checking my scorecard. He twice checked with the judge observing our round and then just nodded at me and waved me out.
That evening the announcer gave all his best of certificates and then came over to our table next to me with the microphone. He had me stand. “This, ladies and gentlemen, is the young man who shot five under today. It’s the same young man who shot four under yesterday and had a double eagle along with a triple bogy. He is now eleven strokes ahead of everyone here. We could just give him the cup and send him home, or perhaps we should make him play this last round, as every player here is dying to see him make some mistakes and come back down to their level.”
Every one applauded me and laughed at his humor. I still didn’t think I was playing my best game. Terry knew this but told me to just let it be, and I would improve if I just kept trying.
Sunday was anti-climatic. The start was at one o’clock again. I shot two under and made mistake after mistake, but the horseshoe up my butt kept me at par or better all game. On one drive I sliced the ball into a big oak tree. The ball bounced fifty feet back onto the fairway, perfectly placed at the apex of the nasty dogleg. Another shot hit a rock in front of a pond and bounced all the way across the pond, landing deep on the long green. The best part was that I birdied seventeen and eighteen to end the day on a high note.
So I finished thirteen stokes under, eleven in front of the closest player, one of ours, helping us to win this major tournament. Fred and Terry accepted the big trophy with all of us standing behind them. My teammates kept trying to push me to the front. They knew something was coming. The announcer from the previous nights called me to the front. He handed me a large envelope and congratulated me for the low score.
“We hand out one of these every year to the senior who does the best. I knew you were a third year student but didn’t know you were a senior until your coaches filled me in. This is your expense paid trip to the U.S. Open local and qualifying rounds along with all of your PGA applications prepared and with our recommendation of instant approval if you should decide to join the PGA. Congratulations Mr. Johnson, we’ll be seeing you on the tour.”
Now that is exciting. I was surprised and a little shocked. Fred knew it was coming but Terry didn’t know about the tradition. George and Dan were bragging to everyone that I was going to be their son-in-law. Carol and Cecile were trying to hush them up as several people were trying to figure out how I was going to both of their son-in-law. The girls hugged and kissed me. Trish said, “I guess we know a little of our future.”
Back at school, reality once again smacks you. Actually, my classes seemed too easy this semester. Sandy even agreed with me as she said she had read the textbooks for all her classes before the semester and had not opened them since. Our chemistry labs were fairly complicated, but if you paid attention during lectures, they were easy to complete. Many of them were what I called “firing for effect,” as you made a concoction and then reported what it did or how it tested using various chemicals.
The golf team was preparing to compete in the local U.S. Open qualifying round. All of us wanted to try to advance to the Sectional to try to become one of the one hundred fifty-six golfers to compete in the Open.
May was going to be busy. Finals, graduation, and the Open qualifying rounds were happening all about the same time. My grades made it easy, as Sandy and I were excused from all of our finals. Sandy had been accepted at the Harvard School of Medicine on a full scholarship and was mentally already on her way.
The local qualifying round would be held at our country club the second weekend in May, so it would be easy for me to get there. It was only a single round, so you had to be at your best. I think only four people would advance to the sectional tournament where over seven hundred would compete at four different locations. The nearest sectional would be in Atlanta the second weekend in June.
In my mind, if I won the local tournament and then qualified in the sectional for the Open, then I would mentally commit to golf as a way to succeed in life for a while. If I flunked out and was not able to play in the Open, then I felt like I probably shouldn’t be playing golf for a living.
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