The Downhill Lie

  On my wife’s birthday, the entire clan descends on Quail Valley’s par-3 layout. There are only six holes, but—because Fenia is new to the game, and Quinn has short, first-grader legs—it takes us an hour and a half to finish.

  Still, everybody’s cheery and content, walking in the sun. We’re like the flipping von Trapp family, minus the harmonies.

  Day 514

  Candid appraisal from Jack, another veteran caddy at Quail: “You can play, you just can’t score.”

  Which is better, I suppose, than being told that you can’t score and you can’t play.

  Day 516 / Key West

  From an African-American juggler performing at Mallory Square:

  “Hey, folks, what do you call 150 white guys chasin’ a black guy?”

  Crowd: “What?”

  “The PGA tour.”

  Day 519

  The seventh fairway is lousy with jumbo-sized crows—hundreds of the raucous pests, clotting the trees and blackening the rough, cawing, “Ugh-uh, ugh-uh, ugh-uh.”

  They’re right, too. I get mired in a bunker and double the hole. It’s a Hitchcock moment, the crows scoffing as I flee toward the next tee.

  Day 523

  We’re slogging along the front nine when Delroy spots a young bald eagle wheeling over one of the lakes. The bird banks to the north and alights beside its mother in the top of an oak, where it poses with spread wings and fanned tail.

  “Two of them! I wish I had my camera,” Delroy says.

  “When you’re fishing, eagles are always good luck,” I tell him, and smoothly par the next two holes.

  No sooner are we out of sight of the birds than I double-bogey the 10th.

  Delroy remains a stalwart envoy of positive thought. “You’re getting better, much better,” he says. “I know where you came from, pro. Remember the first time I caddied for you?”

  “Yeah, but I still can’t score.”

  “That’ll come. It will.”

  In an unbelievable stroke of good fortune, Delroy has consented to caddy for me and Leibo during the upcoming Member-Guest. It’s a major coup, because Delroy usually caddies for the very top golfers, including the current club champion (age seventeen).

  “I’ve been working hard on my short game,” I assure him.

  “You’re doing the right thing,” he says diplomatically.

  Two more pars, a nasty trio of 6s, then I scramble home with a pair of hard-won (and welcome) bogeys.

  Walking off the 18th green, where I’d improbably landed a 6-iron on the upper tier, Delroy smiles and says, “I’m impressed.”

  “That was fun,” I hear myself say.

  The f-word? On a golf course?

  Despite skulling five wedge shots (including one that flew forty yards out of bounds), it was sort of fun.

  As my kids would say, how sick is that?

  Day 524

  In Fenia’s presence, I boldly carry a demo putter to the practice green. She is surprisingly open-minded.

  “Why don’t you buy it, if you like it?” she asks.

  Today she’s being fitted for her first set of clubs. Possibly this accounts for her libertarian mood.

  It’s now official: My wife is taking up golf. The decision has potentially seismic implications for our union, not to mention my handicap.

  Another comforting e-mail from Feherty: “You’re doomed.”

  Day 525

  I’m not good enough for you.

  That’s what I murmur to the Cameron putter that had been a gift from Fenia. Discreetly I lean it in the back of my locker, next to the banished blue Ping.

  I’ve fallen for a fresh new face, the one with which I openly dallied on the practice green. It’s a TaylorMade Daytona Rossa CGB, an offset model with a 3.5 degree loft and a headweight of 335 grams. I have postponed breaking the news to my spouse.

  According to TaylorMade, the Rossa has twelve anti-skid grooves and a “Titallium insert” designed for “exceptional forgiveness on mis-hits.”

  I have no idea what Titallium is, or exactly where it’s been implanted into the head of the putter. I am, however, painfully familiar with the concept of a mishit. The promise of exceptional forgiveness holds great appeal.

  The deal goes down in a dark corner of the pro shop. Rossa isn’t as sleek or as elegant as the Cameron, but her raspberry grille and shiny tungsten plugs exude a brash, saucy attitude.

  She certainly livens up my bag.

  Day 526

  Titallium sounds like it should appear near titanium (Ti) in the Periodic Table of Elements, but there isn’t a trace of it anywhere on the chart.

  Research reveals that no such substance occurs in nature; Titallium was formulated by the TaylorMade company explicitly for insertion into putters. A Google expedition confirms the fact.

  “Maybe it’s like kryptonite,” Leibo muses.

  Personally, I don’t care if it’s a freaking gum wrapper, as long as it helps me sink a few putts.

  Meanwhile, Peter Gethers, my editor, phones for a book update. I inform him that, despite hours of practice, my game isn’t improving; in fact, there’s been steady erosion in the scoring department.

  “I haven’t broken 90 in three months,” I admit.

  “Really?” Peter means to sound sympathetic, but he doesn’t fool me for a second.

  “The prevailing view,” I say heavily, “is that the worse I’m playing, the better it is for the book.”

  “Yes,” Peter says, “that’s the tragedy of this entire undertaking, isn’t it?”

  Day 528

  It might be true love.

  Playing for the first time with Rossa, I make five pars and a birdie—and commit only one three-putt, which was entirely, totally, completely my own damn fault. Not Rossa’s.

  I would’ve broken 90 handily if it weren’t for three triple-bogeys, which offset my putting heroics. Next time I’ll try not to let Rossa down.

  Day 531

  She’s a goddess—on the first hole I drain a twenty-five-footer to save par. Can’t hit a driver or a wedge to save my soul, but all day long Rossa valiantly carries the load.

  Because of the unusually warm, dry winter, a fish kill has occurred at Quail Valley. The skies and shorelines are once again dark with hungry turkey buzzards, which squabble with the resident eagles over rotting carp carcasses. Neither Delroy nor I is clear about whether the USGA considers dead fish to be “loose impediments,” so on No. 14 I end up chipping—successfully—from a crispy hash of scales and bird-pecked bones.

  I would have carded an 89 except for a penalty stroke on the 18th green: The ball, which lay in some fluffy fringe, moved a half-turn as I squared the putter behind it.

  Again, not Rossa’s fault.

  Day 533

  A new experiment on the practice range: Teeing the ball with my left hand.

  This was suggested by Steve Wakulsky, my instructor from the Leadbetter Academy, responding to a plaintive e-mail in which I’d laid out the symptoms of Exploding Brain Syndrome, or EBS.

  Wakulsky agreed that I overstuff my skull with golf tips. “Obviously the analytical left side of your brain is too attached to your swing,” he said. “You freeze over the ball because you are using the left side of the brain to swing your club.”

  Because right-handers are dominated by the left hemisphere of the brain, Wakulsky said, teeing the ball with the left hand should activate the right (and more creative) hemisphere, triggering a freer, calmer swing.

  While conceding that the theory “might sound a bit wacky,” Wakulsky said it has helped some golfers overcome EBS.

  And initially it seems to work for me, which is a bit scary. The drives that I hit after teeing up left-handed definitely seem straighter and longer than the others.

  I might also be hallucinating, which is a whole different problem.

  Day 535

  “It was a fun day.”

  The f-word, from Tiger himself, after winning his seventh consecutive PGA tournament with a
ho-hum 66 at the Buick Invitational. He is now 124 strokes under par for his last twenty-eight rounds of PGA golf.

  Over a comparable stretch, I am approximately 560 over par. Maybe I should try teeing up with my tongue.

  Day 538

  It’s no easy feat to hit ten fairways in regulation and still shoot 97. I could blame the weather (45 degrees at tee time), but the sad truth is that saucy Rossa and I are quarreling on the greens. The spat included a dismal string of three-putts.

  What happened to the mystical powers of Titallium? I wonder. And where is Rossa’s “exceptional forgiveness”?

  The rest of my short game is a wreck, too, despite all the practice. On the third hole, a seventy-yard bunker shot soars far beyond the hole and over a hill, where it strikes the foot of a woman on the practice green near the clubhouse. She is unhurt, and sympathetic to my plight.

  Although the Member-Guest tournament is only six weeks away, Leibo insists he’s not worried.

  “I don’t want to embarrass you out there,” I say.

  “You can’t embarrass me. It’s not possible,” he says. “I don’t care if you show up wearing nothing but—” and here he describes a lewd ensemble that features, among other things, two strategically placed jingle bells.

  “Remember,” Leibo says, “our mission is to have f-u-n.”

  Enough with that word.

  Emerald Pity

  I was comfortable playing golf exclusively at Quail Valley. As treacherous as the course could be, it was familiar—like an irascible but occasionally softhearted drill sergeant. At Quail I had butchered every hole and also parred every hole, so there were few surprises; no bunkers I hadn’t dimpled, no lakes I hadn’t bombed, no trees I hadn’t clipped. Each hazard was an old acquaintance.

  Nothing inspiring ever happened when I took my shaky game to another course. On strange fairways, my swing defects became magnified; on strange greens, my putting stroke turned gelatinous.

  So I was perfectly content to stay at Quail and flail away in peace, by myself. Lupica wouldn’t hear of it. He said that I was missing out on some great experiences, that no golfer could appreciate the glory of the sport without exploring new venues.

  “Another couple years, I’ll be ready,” I said.

  “See, that’s what I’m talking about. You’ve got a very poor attitude.”

  As it happened, Lupica was coming to Florida to cover the Super Bowl for the Daily News. He insisted that I make plans to meet him at a club in West Palm Beach called Emerald Dunes, another celebrated Tom Fazio design. Formerly one of the top public courses in the nation, it had been purchased and made private by a group including John Haas and Frank Chirkinian, the former sultan of CBS Sports.

  Among other achievements in broadcasting, Chirkinian revolutionized the way television covers professional golf. Today the cups on all greens are painted white because Chirkinian figured out that white cups made the holes more visible to TV viewers—and to the golfers. The use of videotape, crane-mounted cameras and blimp shots were all Chirkinian innovations. It was none other than he who started the now universal practice of listing players’ scores in strokes over and under par.

  Known at CBS as “the Ayatollah,” Chirkinian reigns with imperiously gruff affection over Emerald Dunes, and his stories (some fabulously unprintable) were worth the visit.

  But I played execrably—couldn’t chip, couldn’t putt, couldn’t pull it together and break 100. Worse, I was lousy company for my partners. Lupica’s friend, Henk Hartong, christened me “Eeyore” because of all my bellyaching.

  Upon returning home, I announced for about the nineteenth time that I was considering re-quitting the game. My wife listened patiently, said all the right things and then went back to chopping the salad.

  I walked to my office to read the news on the Internet. Judging from the headlines, lots of people in the world had had a much worse day than I did. In Baghdad, 130 innocent men, women and children had been blown to bits by a car bomb; their offense was to be Shiite Muslims, shopping in a public market. Closer to home, near the central Florida town of Deland, search teams had pulled the twentieth body from the matchstick rubble left by a series of hellish tornados. Among the dead was a boy of only seven, the same age as my youngest.

  Reading about those tragedies, I felt small and corrupted with self-absorption. Short of cardiac arrest (or a poisonous tick bite), nothing of mortal significance is likely to occur while one is whacking a small dimpled sphere across gentle green grass under a warm tropical sun. Only a miserably manic soul—and I’m not alone—would allow such a pleasantly inconsequential distraction as golf to be ruined by a scorecard.

  Yet every weekend, thousands of otherwise rational men and women are cursing, kicking at divots and smashing expensive milled putters against the trunks of immovable hardwood trees. These players go home in a toxic funk to inflict gloom upon their loved ones until the following Saturday, when they rush back to the golf course and do it all over again.

  Trying to be good at something isn’t a bad idea. But, in the turbulent and random scroll of life, topping a tee shot is a meaningless if not downright comic occurrence. A few players I know appreciate this truth; they shrug off their flubs and placidly move along. Such inner peace is as enviable as it is elusive.

  My goal in golf was to attain a modest level of proficiency. Put another way: I didn’t want to play like a total putz. That’s not asking for the moon, but, on days such as this, the dream seemed slippery and faraway indeed.

  Becoming a decent player certainly requires dedication, but letting one’s self morph into a profane and volatile depressive is unsound, not to mention unappealing. I definitely needed to get a grip.

  Over the phone, Leibo cheered me with a restorative anecdote about a mutual friend, Tony Rudolph, who that afternoon had launched a 3-wood a distance of minus three yards.

  The circus shot was all the more incredible because Tony was hitting off a pristine lie in the middle of the fairway. “I don’t know how he did it,” Leibo said, “but he swung down and hit the ball dead into the ground. It bounced straight up in the air, with backspin.”

  They used a handheld range finder to verify what they’d witnessed with their own eyes. Initially Tony’s ball was 204 yards from the hole; after he bludgeoned it, the new yardage measured precisely 207 on the same line.

  “We were crying,” Leibo said, “we were laughing so hard.”

  Of all my butt-ugly golf shots, I had yet to hit one backwards.

  So there was that to be grateful for, too.

  Day 543

  Overheard at a local sporting goods store, from a man slightly older than me, being fitted for new clubs: “Tiger Woods and I are exactly the same height.”

  And we should give a rat’s ass because…?

  Day 544

  After only two weeks, Rossa, the tramp, betrays me.

  I sink a thirty-foot teaser for a bird on No. 2, but then it’s all downhill…and uphill and sidehill, including a memorable four-putt meltdown on No. 5.

  Afterwards, Quinn accompanies me to the practice green for an informal father-son contest. He’s got his pint-sized blade, and I’ve retrieved the Scotty Cameron from time-out in my locker.

  Rossa? She is dead to me now.

  Day 548

  I consult with Bill Becker about how best to dispose of the scarlet harlot. “I don’t believe in the destruction of equipment,” he says, “but I do believe in watery graves.”

  “The lake?”

  “Absolutely. You have to put it someplace where there’s no chance that you two can ever get back together.”

  “The putter’s in my locker,” I say.

  “You’ve gotta get it out of there,” Bill advises sternly. “The 10th green is perfect.”

  He’s right: Water on all sides.

  Yet, upon arriving at the golf course, I cannot bring myself to send Rossa to sleep with the fishes. I ignore her as I remove my golf shoes from the locker.

 
Today I have a nine-hole playing lesson, in which I hope to display my odious short game for Steve Archer’s professional appraisal. On the first hole we both hit nice drives that roll to a stop near a very large alligator, sunning by the lake.

  “That’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen out here,” says Steve.

  It’s at least eight feet long; maybe nine. A real tank.

  Gators are common on Florida golf courses, providing a mobile dimension to the concept of “lateral hazard.” The largest ones are the most fearless; they are remarkably swift on land, and have a brain the size of a Brussels sprout.

  But in my twisted world, the sight of a ravenous territorial reptile that outweighs a golf cart can only be a positive omen. Sure enough, I start striking the ball better than I have in weeks.

  It’s not until the fifth hole that I finally sh___ a pitching wedge. Then, on No. 6, I uncork a 9-iron on a flight path like that of an Iranian RPG.

  Being the savvy instructor that he is, Steve promptly repairs both my swing and my head. On No. 7 I stick a 9-iron eight feet from the cup. Although I miss the birdie, I cruise home feeling that it’s a tolerable pastime, this golf.

  Day 549

  My good-luck gator is still lurking near the first fairway, and I’m hoping he sticks around until the Member-Guest tournament. Under his cold stare I par the hole, then scramble onward to an 88. Scotty Cameron and I are homies again—I three-putt only two greens, and drain a couple of timely ten-footers along the way.

  The only flat note: I dunk three consecutive drives into the water on No. 3, terrorizing a flock of ducks that have come to Florida to escape winter. The bombarded fowl fly off in a frenzy, reorganize at a safe altitude and vector due north.

  Even iced, Lake Erie must be looking pretty good.

  Day 550

  A low-pressure system rumbled through overnight—I put the exact time as 3:30 a.m., because that’s when my knee and hip began to play dueling bongos. My grandmother wasn’t making up stories when she said she could track barometer fluctations by the pain in her arthritic joints.

  Day 552

  After weeks of loyalty, the Cobra driver forsakes me in a cold wind. Still, I recover often enough with a borrowed 56 degree Vokey wedge that I decide to order one from the pro shop.