Miracle on the 17th Green Read online

  “Who the hell is it now,” Earl snorted to himself, “Bill and Hillary?”

  Actually, it was Lee Trevino, looking all decked out and kind of weird in a jacket and tie, apparently just having got back from some corporate function.

  “Mr. McKinley, I don’t know if you remember me,” said Trevino, “but I was practicing next to you on the range the other day.”

  “I deserve this,” I said.

  “I can’t stay, and I know you got to get some bad sleep,” said Trevino, “but I just wanted to wish you guys good luck tomorrow. Remember, there’s a reason you’re leading this tournament by two strokes, and it’s not luck. You’ve worked as hard on your game as anyone out here.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I said, “no matter what happens.”

  “And one other goddamn thing,” said Trevino.

  “What’s that?”

  “Call me Lee.”

  Thirty-three

  JULY TWENTY-FIRST.

  Early Sunday afternoon, about twenty to two.

  Pebble Beach.

  The last threesome of the U.S. Senior Open.

  Raymond Floyd. Jack Nicklaus. And yours truly, Travis McKinley. This is as about as real as it gets.

  Or should I say unreal.

  Brent Musberger and Peter Alliss were in the tower. The Kodak blimp was lazily circling overhead, and if I’m not mistaken the man leaning over the ropes strung tight around the first tee, wearing a tartan kilt, a tam-o’-shanter, and a “Travis Rules” T-shirt was Bill Murray.

  And waiting ominously like a video angel of death about halfway down the side of the first fairway was Bob Rosburg, the former PGA champion, who would be tracking us for the entire eighteen holes.

  For those who don’t squander vast amounts of their leisure time on TV golf, Rosburg, called “Rosi” by his colleagues in the booth, is famous for pumping up the drama of even the most boring finish by mournfully whispering, “Oh, he’s just dead!” about any shot that rolls even slightly astray.

  I was just taking a few last freaked-out practice swings and trying not to hyperventilate when Earl snorted, then sighed, “Oh shit.”

  I turned around and saw what he was reacting to. There standing at the front of the ropes, having flown in from Chicago that morning, was the entire surviving population of Winnetka McKinleys, from Pop to Sarah to Elizabeth to Simon and Noah. It was a sight so welcome I thought for a second it was a mirage.

  “It was his idea,” said Elizabeth, lifting up a blushing Noah. “He threatened to go on a hunger strike if we didn’t come.”

  They had arrived with so little time to spare I barely had time to kiss and hug my way down the line before nervous officials were calling and waving me to the tee.

  “Isn’t this great?” I said to Earl as we headed back to the center of the tee.

  “Wonderful,” said Earl with disgust, as he handed me a driver. “What’s the matter, your dog doesn’t like to fly? I’m just going to say one thing and then we’re going to move on. This is not a family reunion. This is the final damn round of the U.S. Open.”

  Just to let Earl know I had everything under control, I stepped up to my drive—as the overnight leader I had honors—and, as if I were alone on the range, blistered my first drive down the center of the fairway.

  “You’re the man!” shouted Murray as my ball rocketed off the face of my driver. “And there are not a lot of us left.”

  Thirty-four

  THE NEXT THREE HOURS or so were the most exhilarating of my life. They were also the most excruciating and heartbreaking.

  For eighteen holes, I didn’t take a relaxed breath. I didn’t step up to a single tee shot that I wasn’t afraid I might shank, or pull back my putter without the fear of a stub. I had no business being out there in the final threesome with two of the greatest golfers to ever play the game, and all of us knew it. I was in so far over my head I should have been carrying a periscope.

  To keep me from being utterly overwhelmed by my surroundings and opponents, Earl had decided the night before that, after a quick handshake on the first tee, I wouldn’t make eye contact or talk to either Nicklaus or Floyd the rest of the round. “We’re not out here to relish the experience, or so thirty years from now you can plop your great-grandchildren on your arthritic knee and tell them that one Sunday you went head-to-head with the Golden Bear and the Great Raymondo. We’re here to win. Just like them.”

  Whatever you say, Earl. And Earl was right about them trying to intimidate me. In fact, on the very first tee, Floyd, in an obvious gibe at my one soggy triumph, turned to me and said, “Doesn’t look like rain today, Travis. Not a cloud in the sky.”

  “It’s a good thing,” Earl answered for me, “because I didn’t even pack a rainsuit.”

  My biggest problem was my oldest problem, the putter. Under the extreme pressure, my ability to read the line was coming and going on every other hole. On some I saw the line with dazzling clarity. On others the green was swimming at my feet. Some holes, I rolled the ball like Crenshaw, knocking in field-goal-length putts. On others, I putted like a 14-handicapper choking his brains out over a four-footer that decides who pays for the hot dogs at the turn.

  Ironically, the result of all this Sturm und Drang was about the same as a steady succession of pars. An unexpected benefit was that my personal emotional roller coaster was distracting to Nicklaus and Floyd.

  I may have been throwing up on myself every couple of holes, but I refused to go away. And as we stood on the 17th tee, I was, as Musberger informed viewers in the dramatic stage whisper reserved for such occasions (I’ve since watched the telecast on tape a couple, three times) “still very much in the hunt.”

  I was one over par for the day, five under for the tournament, and one behind Nicklaus and Floyd, who were tied for the lead.

  If anyone’s interested, here’s my scorecard through the first sixteen holes:

  Par 4 5 4 4 3 5 3 4 4 36 4 4 3 4 5 4 4 3 5 36

  Nicklaus 4 5 3 4 3 5 4 4 4 36 4 3 3 4 4 4 4

  McKinley 5 4 5 3 4 3 5 5 4 38 3 4 4 3 4 4 5

  Floyd 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 4 4 35 4 3 3 4 5 4 4

  Thirty-five

  AH, SWEET 17. Perhaps you never thought we’d get here. I know I had my doubts.

  The 17th at Pebble Beach is a 209-yard par 3 that runs perpendicular to the coastline, with the green tucked up right against the Pacific and framed by a cypress as ancient and solitary as the Joshua tree.

  Not only is the green extremely small and severely sloped, but the hole is constantly buffeted by the strong ocean winds. Depending on which way the wind is blowing, the hole can require anything from a 7-iron to a driver.

  On Sunday, Jack and Raymond pulled out 2-irons, striking them so cleanly they had the high parabolic trajectory of 5-irons before they landed softly on the distant green.

  Under the circumstances, hitting 2-iron was a little rich for my blood, so I tried to cut a high soft 3-wood. I caught it flush and watched it hang over the Pacific—then lazily drop out of the sky, landing, as Sam Snead used to say, like a butterfly with sore feet.

  The ball nestled nine feet from the cup. The crowd at the green whistled and cheered.

  After Raymond and Jack graciously missed their birdies and collected their automatic pars, I looked over my putt to tie.

  For a second, as I crouched behind the hole and squinted at my ball, I had the hugely unsettling feeling of not knowing exactly where I was.

  Was I at Pebble Beach in the final round of the U.S. Senior Open, or right back where I had started six months before on Christmas Day, standing on another 17th green, looking over a nine-foot putt that would change my life?

  The two putts even had the same break—right to left—and speed—fast—and once again I could see the line as clearly as if I had snapped it with a chalky carpenter’s string.

  But there was a difference. This time, standing on the far side of the green on the exact line of my putt was Sarah, and with her dark brown hair and sparkling eye
s she looked at least as beautiful and determined and animated as the day we met. Based on what I did next—it occurs to me now—maybe I wasn’t seeing the line of my putt at all, but only the line of my heart.

  “Travis,” I heard Earl whisper nervously behind me, “you all right, Travis?”

  “All right?” I thought to myself. “Of course I’m not all right.”

  I slowly walked back to the other side of the hole, but instead of stopping at my ball, I kept going until I had left the green altogether and was standing beside Sarah on the front edge of the murmuring gallery.

  At that point, Sarah, along with about fifteen million other people, including the TV announcers Musberger, Nantz, and Rosburg, my grandfather, my playing partners, my children, and most of all Earl, concluded that I had finally fried my circuits and lost it altogether.

  In a way, they were right. I had lost it.

  But I didn’t lose it that afternoon. I lost it thirty-one years before on a spring morning at the University of Chicago when I saw Sarah standing off by herself before a biology lecture. I lost it again when I saw Sarah fixing her hair in the mirror, minutes before we got married in her parents’ backyard on a perfect June day. And I lost it beyond any hope of ever getting it back when I saw her holding day-old Elizabeth in the hospital the morning after Elizabeth was born.

  In one way or another, I think I’ve lost it every time I’ve looked at her or talked to her, and if there is anything I can do about it, I am determined to stay lost until that chilly winter morning when I close my eyes and heart for the last time.

  “Sarah,” I whispered, “I bought this the week I came home to Winnetka, and I’m afraid if I carry it around with me for another second something very bad is going to happen to my heart.”

  I held out a diamond ring, just like the one she had lost on our honeymoon.

  Actually, it was slightly nicer. All right, it was a lot nicer.

  After leaving Winnetka last week, I didn’t drive directly to the airport. I had stopped first at Harry Winston’s, Chicago’s most pretentious and overpriced jewelry store, and for some reason I can’t logically explain, I kept asking the salesman to show me something a little bigger, more dramatic, and more radiant, until he showed me the ring I had just showed Sarah.

  As you might suspect, size, drama, and radiance are not something they give away at Harry’s. As a matter of fact, they put a certain premium on it. Fortunately, however, you can still get a rather lovely stone and setting for $135,000.

  That’s not a typo. I spent my entire BellSouth winnings on the ring. I mean what the hell. It was a rain-shortened win. I didn’t deserve it.

  But Sarah did.

  As I stood there on the outer edges of the 17th green, I was shaking a little. I looked into Sarah’s eyes and I was close to losing it.

  “I love you, Sarah,” I said, and to my everlasting amazement and happiness and infinite relief, she let me slide the ring gently on her finger. “I shouldn’t, Travis, but I love you, too,” she whispered. “And by the way, you’re returning this as soon as the round is over.”

  “No way,” I said as I kissed her, and walked quickly back to my ball.

  You’d think I’d have been distracted by all this, but it was the opposite. I had never been more focused in my life. Without taking a second peek at the line or another practice stroke, I dropped my putter behind the ball. I set my feet.

  Then I let it go.

  I didn’t even look to see what happened. I didn’t have to. I was a fool in love, who was loved in return. The instant I hit it, I knew it was dead center, and that I was in a three-way tie for the lead of the U.S. Senior Open with Jack Nicklaus and Raymond Floyd. As the gallery erupted and sprinted to the final tee, Earl slapped me on the shoulder and said, “Travis, my friend, it’s a real good thing you sank that putt. Because if you hadn’t, you’d be carrying this bag right now.”

  I peeked behind me and saw Sarah and the kids jumping up and down, inventing the McKinley jig.

  Thank God, I said to myself.

  So, it’s not a dream.

  They’re actually here.

  And so am I.

  Thirty-six

  I CAN’T DENY I felt a certain glow as I walked to the 18th hole. But I was also feeling like I was being wheeled into some foreign city’s emergency room at three in the morning.

  My body was numb and there was a heat blister on my brain.

  My back felt like one of those vast quadruple knots in Noah’s shoelaces.

  My stomach was a disaster.

  I had tunnel vision and cold sweats, and I was starting to see things that I hoped weren’t really there—like my fifth-grade science teacher, Evelyn Kochanski, sunbathing naked along the left side of the fairway.

  None of this was relieved by the fact that the par-5 18th at Pebble Beach, with the Pacific running the entire left side of the hole, is the most frightening finishing hole in golf. Hook the ball off the tee, something I’m particularly adept at, and the only thing that can save you is the Coast Guard.

  For reasons I’ll never understand, I hit a perfect drive, as did my co-leaders, and since none of us could reach the green in two, all I wanted to do with my second shot was advance the ball up the right side with a nice little 5-iron. No sweat.

  As I started my backswing, I thought: Smooth and easy.

  Then I thought: Miss it anywhere but left.

  Then my grandfather screeched (inside my head, I hope): One swing thought! Which unfortunately was my third swing thought.

  The result of all this complex thought was a wicked shank slice that scattered the gallery and rolled to a stop among a thick stand of pines on the right side of the fairway at least 275 yards from the green.

  I felt like digging a shallow grave and throwing myself in.

  Instead, I looked over at Simon, and he looked like he was taking it even harder than me.

  So did Elizabeth and Pop.

  But then I caught the eye of Noah, who offered one of his “Oh, well, what are you going to do?” shrugs.

  And as usual, the little gink was right. Whatever happened was going to happen, and besides it was only golf. The 18th hole was important, but it wasn’t that important.

  And standing right behind him, Sarah held up her new ring, and she mouthed “It’s beautiful!”

  I headed toward the trees to find my damn ball.

  Thirty-seven

  I KNEW IT WASN’T GOING to be pretty when I spotted Rosi gingerly hovering over my ball as if it were a radioactive turd, shaking his head and whispering into his headset in hushed, funereal tones. However, as soon as Earl and I got close enough to survey the damage ourselves, I saw that I wasn’t dead. I was just screwed.

  There’s a difference.

  Although there was a stand of hearty pines rooted between my ball and the fairway, there was a small gap, no more than a yard square, between the third and fourth trees, and if I could somehow hit a hard low draw through the hole, I could not only get back to the fairway, I could hit it at the green.

  To say that it was unlikely I could poke a full-throttle drive through an opening the size of a small window is putting it politely. But with Jack and Raymond both sitting pretty in the center of the fairway less than a hundred yards from the flag, chipping it sideways would have been tantamount to surrender anyway.

  I figured I might as well scare a few trees first.

  Now I know I’ve already used up more than my quota of miracles in this story. In fact, I probably had to use a couple of yours, too. So I won’t categorize what happened next as yet another piece of divine intervention. Let’s just call it the greatest shot in golf history, and leave it at that.

  With the gallery rubbernecking with morbid delight, I pulled back my driver and swung at that ball as if I were wielding a sledgehammer at a county fair. When all I heard were gasps, I knew that sucker was rocketing toward the green.

  In fact, I was a little disappointed when I raced back to the fairway and dis
covered that the ball had stopped rolling a couple of yards short on a little knoll.

  Raymond Floyd was next, and with a wristy flourish he lofted a wedge that covered the flag the whole way. The shot stopped on a dime six feet from the hole.

  Jack’s approach was even prettier, so pretty that as it dropped out of the sky my heart dropped with it, and I turned to Earl and said, “We’re going to lose on a slam dunk.”

  “No, we’re not,” he replied, never taking his eyes from the ball.

  An instant later the ball struck the cup or the flag, or the point where the cup and the flag came together, and struck it so cleanly that the ball bounced almost thirty feet away on the slick green.

  “Son-of-a-bitch hit it too pure!” said Earl appreciatively.

  Thirty-eight

  I HOPE that all of you, at least once in your life, get the chance to walk up the 18th fairway of Pebble Beach with Jack Nicklaus and Raymond Floyd, on a perfect July afternoon, tied for the lead in the final round of the U.S. Senior Open.

  It’s a lot of fun.

  By the time we reached the green, every spectator who had come out for the final round was standing on the bank between the hole and the clubhouse, and they were going apeshit. Times Square on V-E Day, Woodstock when the rain stopped, and the ticker tape parade for the ’69 Mets must have felt something like this. In all the excitement, I may even have doffed my hat.

  The only person who wasn’t delighting in the ecstatic suspense was Jack Nicklaus, who had just hit three perfect golf shots and was away. After caroming off the stick and cup, Nicklaus’s ball had rolled more than thirty feet to the base of the green, and now as Jack, wearing a yellow cashmere sweater and powder blue slacks, circled his double-breaking uphill putt, surveying it from every angle except from beneath the ground, his face was locked in a deep scowl of concentration.

  He really did look like a bear, a very pissed-off bear, who had just caught somebody trying to steal his honey pot. As Nicklaus stalked, the crowd grew quieter and quieter, and when he finally stepped up and rapped it firmly toward the hole, the collective tension of twenty thousand mute, stone-still golf fans dying to explode was almost unbearable.