Miracle at Augusta Read online

  After two putts apiece, neither golfer on 11 is any closer to the hole, which gives me time to stash my clubs and confirm that there is not another group coming up right behind the twosome. When the golfers and their caddies clear the green, we clamber over the wall, take off our shoes and socks, and wade across the icy stream.

  52

  UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, YOUR first steps on Augusta National are going to be overwhelming. That ours are heading in the wrong direction on the 11th fairway only makes them more so. On one hand, the scene is achingly familiar, since I’ve watched drives bounding down this fairway countless times on countless telecasts. On the other, there’s the shock of actually being here in person and feeling the sacred televised sod pushing up through the soles of our shoes. Then, on top of everything else, there’s the darker thrill of being uninvited and being here anyway.

  “Jerzy, what do you think?”

  “I’m not sure I can.”

  “Well, to paraphrase Julius, we’ve crossed our creek. There’s no turning back now.”

  “I assume you mean Caesar, not Boros,” he says.

  “Correct.”

  To settle my nerves, I focus on my job, which is to guide Jerzy around this course in as few strokes as possible, and as we head up the fairway, I pull out the scorecard and fold it to the back nine. “We’re starting on eleven,” I offer, “aka White Dogwood, a long par four. Where we’re walking now is about where you want to land your drive.” And when we reach the tee box, I pluck a couple of blades of grass, and rather than pocket them as souvenirs, feed them to the warm breeze.

  “So what do we got?” asks Jerzy, looking over my shoulder at the card.

  “A bit of a dilemma.”

  “A little late for that, isn’t it, Emperor?”

  “I mean which tees do we play. From the championship tees, the ones used by O’Meara, Couples, and Duval, the course plays a robust sixty-five hundred yards. For the members, it’s a more manageable sixty-one hundred, but as you know, we’re not members, and are unlikely to ever be members, so I don’t feel quite right playing their tees.”

  “You saying we should play this puppy from the tips?”

  “Why not? We came all this way, inhaled all that airplane air. Let’s find out what the fuss is about. Get our money’s worth, so to speak.”

  “Works for me,” says Jerzy with a grin.

  “Good.” I hand him the driver and slap a new Titleist in his palm, the initials J and S written with a blue Sharpie on each side of the red 3, but as he bends to tee it up, I hear voices, and they’re growing louder.

  53

  WHEN I LOOK OVER my shoulder, a golf cart, containing two large men and no golf clubs, is barreling directly toward us. Rather than your standard E-Z-GO, it has four rows of seats. It’s the kind of all-purpose vehicle used to transport golfers back to their respective holes after a rain delay, or, to cite just one more example, to whisk a pair of trespassing miscreants off the premises, and that’s where the burliness of the occupants comes in. Both look like they could have played Division I football while moonlighting as bouncers, and one of them has a walkie-talkie in his hand.

  Despite evoking Caesar so recently, I look back over my shoulder toward Rae’s Creek, but there’s no point making a run for it. Not with Jerzy’s sticks on my back and them in a cart. We’re going to get kicked off the course while our feet are still damp, and my last coherent wish is for Jerzy to hit the goddamned ball so that after all the humiliation, career damage, and legal fallout, we’ll at least have that one shot at Augusta to burnish in our memories, but now the cart is parked beside us and it’s too late even for that.

  “My apologies for the interruption,” says the driver. “We’ll be out of your way in a second.” Then he touches the brim of his cap and keeps on going.

  54

  “THAT WAS AEROBIC,” I say as the cart disappears over the hill and the palpitations in my chest subside.

  “Thank God for Owl,” says Jerzy.

  “True. To recap and regroup, we’re on number eleven, aka White Dogwood. It looks tight from the tee, but as you saw on the way here, it opens up. It’s not as hard as it looks.”

  This is not entirely true. By the luck of real estate and geography, we’re starting our round on the second-hardest hole on the course, but I see no point in sharing that, and my tact is rewarded when Jerzy steps up and pipes his first drive straight down the middle.

  “Golf shot, Jerzy. Let’s go find it.”

  When we do, I see why the hole plays so hard. After a perfect drive, Jerzy has 207 yards, from a hook lie to a green with water left.

  “Anything right of the flag is great,” I say. “Even right of the green. Anything left is in the water. And don’t be afraid to take a divot. It’s just a golf course. The grass will grow back.”

  Despite my assurances, Jerzy hits a top, which might actually be lucky, because it takes the water out of play and still rolls within fifteen yards of the green. Before he attempts the chip, we walk up the bank to get our first good look at an Augusta National green, whose contours and color are so dramatic they seem extraterrestrial. Apparently the grass really is greener on the other side.

  “It’s like walking on the moon,” says Jerzy.

  “One small step for Jerzy Solarski. One giant leap for golfkind.”

  Jerzy thins his chip, too, leaving himself a forty-five-footer, straight downhill with at least nine feet of break. But as you may recall, Jerzy can roll his rock. He taps it as delicately as you might nudge a beloved snoring grandfather at the Thanksgiving table, and the ball tracks perfectly end over end, takes the break, and on its last half-turn, topples into the hole.

  “These greens are fast,” says Jerzy. “But they’re not Big Oaks fast.”

  55

  AFTER ONE OF THE better opening pars in the underdocumented history of golf trespassing, we soldier on to Golden Bell, perhaps the most whispered-over 155 yards on earth. If you’ve ever owned a television, you know too much about this nasty little par 3 with the bank in front that funnels anything short into the creek, the traps and flower beds that catch anything long, and the inscrutable winds that make it so hard to avoid one or the other.

  Months of airtime have been devoted to the breeze alone, and while I’ve learned that Hogan studied the leaves on a certain branch of a certain tree, and Snead looked at some other bit of foliage, while Nelson and Nicklaus looked somewhere else again, none of that is the least bit helpful. Neither is the one thing I can remember with certainty, which is that you can’t go by what the flag is doing.

  “We just got out of Rae’s Creek,” I say as I hand Jerzy the 6. “We don’t want to be in it again.”

  As I feared, it turns out to be a club and a half too much, and after chipping out of the azaleas, Jerzy walks off with his first bogey.

  56

  THAT SETS THE PATTERN of par/bogey golf, which Jerzy somehow maintains for the next hour. On the par-five 13th, he reaches the green in regulation and two putts for par, and on 14, the most wildly contoured green on the course, he rolls in a side-hill twelve-footer to steal bogey. Two putts from fifty feet earn him another par on 16, and despite catching a piece of the Eisenhower tree off the tee, he manages to bogey 17.

  I’d describe these holes in more detail, but you know what they look like as well as me. Instead, let me try to convey what it’s like to experience them in the flesh. I’ve mentioned the colors and the contours of the greens, and I’m sure you’ve heard about the drastic changes in elevation, all of which are impossible to appreciate on television, but the biggest difference, between Augusta today and all those afternoons in my den, between Augusta standing up and Augusta sitting down, is the silence.

  You want an idea of what it’s like to play Augusta on your own, watch the Masters on mute. With no applause from the patrons, no roars through the pines, no microphones on the tees, and no blather from the tower. When we walk over the Hogan Bridge to the 12th green, w
e do it without Nantz murmuring sweet reverential nothings in our ears, and when we traverse the Nelson Bridge to the 13th fairway, there’s no cocktail music underneath.

  It’s just the course, the pines, the sky, and…oh, yeah…us, and no offense to CBS, this is better. So much so that it’s all going too quickly, and before I know it, Jerzy has backed up a solid drive through the chute on 18 with an even better iron to the green and tapped in for his fourth par in eight holes.

  I know what you’re thinking. How can a kid who didn’t pick up a club till three months ago par half his holes at Augusta National? From the back tees? Certainly, it’s unlikely, and I’m surprised too, but it’s not like we haven’t all brought home the occasional unlikely score now and then. In any case, let me explain how Jerzy’s been getting it done. Some of it might even be helpful the next time you tee it up.

  First of all, Jerzy is a big kid with a real golf swing. When he catches it right, it flies as far and high as a top college player’s. He only does that about a fifth of the time, but when he does, either off the tee or from the fairway, it gives him a chance for a par. Another twenty percent of his shots are “good misses,” pushes or pulls that fly within fifteen yards of his target, and at least today, so far, they haven’t led to big numbers. The same is true with his god-awful shots, and that’s been the biggest key today. Jerzy’s most frequent miss is a hard top, and on these fairways, they roll forever.

  The truth is that in some ways, Augusta plays surprisingly easy. The fairways are enormous, there isn’t a blade of rough, and when you hit into the trees, there’s almost always room to advance the ball. What is hard is the greens, and Jerzy is a Rumanian-American Crenshaw. After his first day at Big Oaks, he was a better putter than me, and after a week, he was better than two thirds of the guys on the Senior Tour.

  Another factor in Jerzy’s favor, if I say so myself, is that he’s got yours truly on the bag. For example, forty minutes ago on 13, after he pushed his drive into the pine straw. Even though he only had 201 to the green and a direct shot, I refused to turn over the 4-iron and made him chip out. With all the chances we’ve taken to be here, you might think it’s odd to be conservative now, but to me the two are unrelated. The only thing that matters in this game is the score, something hackers never quite understand, even when they think they do. If you can’t make a shot eighty percent of the time and there’s a penalty if you don’t, you shouldn’t try it. Ever. No matter where you are.

  Finally, please bear in mind, you did buy a book with the word miracle in the title.

  57

  THEY SAY THE MASTERS doesn’t start till the back nine on Sunday. It may even be true, but it doesn’t apply when you play on a Wednesday and start on 11. In our particular circumstances, the critical stretch isn’t the back nine or the front, it’s the precarious stroll we’re about to take now from the 18th green to the first tee. This exposed fifty-yard perp walk, which leads between the practice green and the back of the clubhouse, where a cocktail party is in full bloom, is our Amen Corner, and the prayer that comes to mind is the one from Sunday school about forgiving our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

  Lured by this lovely weather, the party has spilled out from the veranda onto the back lawn, the women in summer dresses, the men sporting blazers whose brass buttons catch the late-afternoon sun, and our route takes us right through them. I think I can impersonate a caddy—I am a caddy—but can Jerzy project the body language and entitlement of a brat? And will his weight and bad skin work against him? Surely one of the members will notice something amiss in our bearing or breeding and see us for the interlopers we are.

  Among those directly in our path is a middle-aged man who looks strikingly familiar. That’s not surprising. Augusta’s roster is loaded with captains of industry, so perhaps I’ve seen his face staring back at me from the magazine rack at the dentist or the jacket of a bestseller. But I’ve been avoiding the dentist for months and haven’t read anything except the sports section in years, and I know I’ve seen this face recently.

  Then it all falls into place like that last piece of fruit in a slot machine window. He was the guy sitting next to Nantz in the Butler Cabin, the one who asked Tiger to please place the green jacket on his good friend and new Masters champion, Mark O’Meara. It’s Hootie fucking Johnson, chairman of Augusta National, and at the same moment that I recognize him, Hootie reaches out his hand and claps it down on Jerzy’s shoulder.

  58

  “WHAT’S YOUR NAME, SON?”

  “Brune, sir. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  “Then call me Hootie, for Christ’s sake! How was it out there?”

  “Hootie, it was awesome,” says Jerzy, the last bit of leftover accent cutting through the molasses of Hootie’s drawl. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the course in better condition. It’s so good we’re heading back out for another nine.”

  “Got to make hay while the sun shines. After all, you never know when you’re going to get down here again.”

  “Sad but true, Hootie.”

  “Your home course?” asks Johnson. Since his right hand is still on Jerzy’s shoulder, he refers to the Big Oaks cap with his gin and tonic.

  “Correct,” says Jerzy, after a slight delay. “Just outside Chicago.”

  “Why haven’t I heard of it?”

  “It’s still a bit under the radar,” says Jerzy, his voice dipping to a whisper. “But not for long, I fear. The next time you’re in the vicinity, I’d be honored to give you a tour.”

  As impressed as I am with Jerzy’s performance, astounded even, I’m more than ready for this delightful exchange to be over. I know Jerzy’s wardrobe is right, but under such prolonged exposure something is bound to out him, whether it’s the accent or the mysterious home course. Even after Hootie finally takes his hand off Jerzy’s shoulder, the conversational ball keeps going back and forth.

  “I just might take you up on that, young man. What’s your last name, Brune?”

  “Pickering.”

  “Pickering,” repeats Hootie softly to himself. “Brune Pickering?” Then he turns to me. “And how about you? I don’t believe we’ve met either.”

  “Rudy, sir. Rudy Laplante. I started this week.”

  “Rudy Laplante? You don’t say?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, Brune, how’s old Rudy doing?”

  “Very well. And he’s not as old as he looks. I believe Rudy has the makings of a first-rate caddy, and you can quote me on that.”

  “He’s got the Brune seal of approval, does he?”

  “Correct. Of course, there’s been a misread now and then, and a missed club here and there, but not even Hogan always got the wind right at Golden Bell.”

  “Fair point, Brune.”

  For a few seconds that seem like a month, Hootie stares at each of us in turn; then he shakes his head and chuckles softly to himself. “Well. I’ll let you both get to it, then. Hit ’em straight.”

  “Thanks, Hootie. I’m so pleased I finally got a chance to meet you.”

  “Me too, Brune.”

  When Hootie repairs to the veranda, Jerzy and I continue to the first tee, which, without hundreds of patrons surrounding it, seems oddly naked. “Jerzy, you have any idea who that man was?”

  “No idea.”

  “Me neither.”

  59

  LESS THAN THREE WEEKS ago, sitting in my den with Louie, I watched Sam Snead walk onto the first tee and hit the ceremonial first shot of the ’98 Masters. Now I’m watching Jerzy Solarski, a seventeen-year-old from Bucharest, who three months ago knocked on my door with a shovel, tee it up from the same spot. Almost as unlikely, I’ve now spent two hours on a course where I’ve fantasized playing for forty years, haven’t taken a single swing, and don’t seem to mind.

  With Hootie and company sipping their second or third cocktails, Jerzy and I have Prosper Berckmans’s former nursery entirely to ourselves. You c
ould argue that the experience is more rarefied than actually playing the Masters, where you’re obliged to share it with the likes of Tiger and Phil, a hundred other pros, and tens of thousands of fans, I mean patrons.

  Aside from those snippets of an old-timer stooping over on the first tee on Thursday nights on ESPN, the front side is untelevised, and that makes playing Tea Olive, Pink Dogwood, Flowering Peach, and Flowering Crab Apple a lot different than playing Camellia, White Dogwood, and Golden Bell. From our shared reading, Jerzy and I know the approximate layouts, but we haven’t witnessed golf history on every hole. That takes the edge off considerably, and as the sun begins its swift descent, Jerzy pars two of them and the par/bogey train keeps chugging through the Georgia pines.

  As we walk off 5, Magnolia, the sun dips beneath the trees, and now the birds stop chirping. Engulfed in quiet, it’s harder to ignore the question I’ve been dodging all day, if not all week, which, of course, is “Why?” Why are we doing this? What message am I trying to convey? What, if anything, am I hoping to instill in an impressionable young mind beyond a healthy disrespect for private property and a love for destination trespassing?

  Well, here’s my answer. To have some fun in this life and avoid swallowing a mouthful of shit per day takes more than luck, and this is a lesson, however ill-conceived, in audacity. If the last year or so has taught me anything, it’s that every once in a while you need to take a deep breath, do your best impersonation of a badass, and see where it goes. If nothing else, you might make some new friends as interesting as Earl, Stump, and Jerzy, and what’s more precious than that?