Miracle at Augusta Read online

  Putting is two things—aim and feel. Aim is the easy part. With practice, almost any asshole can do it. Feel, sensing how hard to strike a putt to make it roll the desired distance, is more elusive and nearly impossible to teach. After giving him a chance to get acclimated to the speed, approximately like putting on a bowling alley, I drop a tee ten feet away and ask him to stop the ball beside it. When that proves a minor challenge, I drop four more at three-foot intervals, then place five balls at his feet and ask him to roll each one to the next farther tee. When he’s done, I realize I’ve underestimated his potential.

  “Jerzy, I got some good news. You can hit it long and you can putt. If you can do both, you can play. As in really play.”

  47

  BY NOW, IT’S THE third week of March, and that weekend a lovely thing happens. It gets warmer. That Saturday and Sunday it soars into the high thirties, causing the snow to lose a bit of its grip and giving the ground a chance to thaw. Monday morning, it’s back into the twenties again, but by then it’s too late. When I pick up Jerzy at school that afternoon, Louie sits beside me on the front seat.

  “I don’t think they allow dogs in Big Oaks,” says Jerzy.

  “They don’t allow dogs where we’re going, either, but since no one will be there, it’s not going to be a problem.”

  Instead of the haul up 38, we make the shorter trip to Creekview Country Club, where, with half the course still under snow, the lot is empty.

  “It’s time to go golfing,” I say as we hop out of the car. “I got one of my old bags and put together a set for you. I’ve got literally hundreds of clubs in my basement. It’s really no big deal.”

  “It is to me, Travis. Thanks.”

  “My pleasure,” I say, then reach into the trunk for the Big Oaks caps I bought that morning. “This is so we don’t forget where we came from.”

  “Representing,” says Jerzy as we doff our new caps.

  With Louie trotting behind us, we make the short walk to the practice range, where we hit and shag a dozen balls apiece. Then we roll a few on the muddy practice green.

  “This is your first round of golf,” I say. “That’s a big deal, so we’re going to play for real. Because of the conditions, it’s got to be lift, clean, and place, which means we can pull the ball out of the muck, wipe it off, and place it in a playable spot, but we’re going to write down every stroke, and when we’re done, we’re going to add them all up. Golf is a number. That’s all it is, and the only way to see if we’re on the right track is to keep score. So as my grandfather used to say, ‘No gimmes, no mulligans, no bullshit, let’s play golf.’”

  Despite the twenty-eight degrees, the three of us enjoy a lovely afternoon, and it occurs to me that when it comes to golf, Twain got it exactly wrong. Rather than a good walk spoiled, it’s a crappy walk made bearable. Golf takes what would otherwise be a tedious eight-mile hump, marred with far too much self-reflection, and makes it interesting. Just because you don’t know the name of every tree and bird, and couldn’t care less, doesn’t mean you don’t appreciate being outside, feeling the breeze on your skin and the ground underfoot. And just because you have a little hand-eye coordination, that doesn’t make you a lightweight.

  Jerzy, it turns out, has more than his share of hand-eye coordination, and although he hits four bad shots for every good one, he takes pleasure in them all, just like that first afternoon at Big Oaks. Pop would have appreciated that, the same with Jerzy’s brisk pace of play, which allows us to get around in two hours and finish before the sun disappears. On 18, Jerzy rolls in a twelve-footer for 117, and we tilt our caps and shake hands.

  “Thanks, Travis. What a wonderful day. I’m only sorry I didn’t get a chance to meet your grandfather.”

  “You met him eighteen times. His ashes were sprinkled on every green.”

  We get in two more rounds that week and, with Pickering still recuperating, three more the following. Along the way, Jerzy’s scores dip steadily—116, 109, 97, 88, 83, and when I pick him up the following Monday, I feel like he’s got a legitimate chance to break 80, particularly with the breeze down and the temperature hovering around forty. Unfortunately, his right eye is swollen shut.

  “I take it Pickering has made a full recovery.”

  “Correct.”

  “What are you doing Sunday?”

  “Watching the Masters, of course.”

  “Then come over and watch it with us.”

  In case you’re interested, here’s the scorecard from Jerzy’s first round of golf:

  48

  THE HEAVYSET KID WHO knocks on my door Sunday afternoon looks discouragingly like the one who arrived two months earlier. He wears the same heavy green sweater and black wool trousers and, instead of a gash on his forehead, sports a Technicolor shiner from the same source, which in the last couple of days has bloomed purple green. My only discernible influence is the Big Oaks cap.

  Inside the entryway, there’s the usual stunted male reception—a sniff from Louie, a too-cool-for-school “Hey” from Noah, and an inspired “Come on in” from the reigning patriarch. Thank God Sarah comes running from the kitchen and throws her arms around the kid, or else he’d never know how glad we all are to see him inside our house.

  The initial awkwardness behind us, we head to the den, where, with snacks and beverages at hand, we hunker down for the afternoon. Final-round coverage has just begun, and Jim Nantz, in his third year at the helm, sets the scene. After nine holes, Couples, the leader from day one, is still out in front at eight under par, one better than Mark O’Meara and three better than David Duval, but the story of the morning is Jack Nicklaus, who birdied four out of his first seven holes and at fifty-eight is making yet another run.

  “You’ve got plenty of time,” says Jerzy. “He’s six years older than you.”

  “Yeah. And he’s Jack Nicklaus. Besides, I don’t look good in green.”

  For the next several hours, we luxuriate in the dependable pleasures and smarmy eccentricities of golf’s most polished telecast. With the tinkling soundtrack underneath, Nantz walks us across the Hogan and Nelson Bridges, discourses on the swirling winds of Golden Bell, and points out the Sarazen plaque and the Eisenhower tree, the only thing all afternoon that gets a rise out of Louie. For longtime viewers like us, the familiar bits of lore and language—Amen Corner, Firethorn, the pine straw, the patrons—are like the refrains in a secular hymnal. Through it all, there’s the stunning seminatural beauty and the blissfully few commercials.

  “Ever play Augusta?” asks Jerzy.

  “Only in his mind,” says Noah for me.

  “When I become a member, you and Noah will be my first two guests,” says Jerzy.

  “Can’t wait,” says Noah.

  After Nicklaus falls back, it’s a three-man race to the wire between Couples, Duval, and O’Meara. Couples is the most beloved and Duval the most feared, yet it’s the chubby-faced O’Meara, who till now has been best known for his friendship with Tiger, who stands over a seventeen-footer for birdie on the last hole to win it all. No one thinks for a second he’ll sink it. Instead, there will be polite oohs and ahhs as his putt slides barely off-line, and the three will head back to 11, aka White Dogwood, for the play-off. O’Meara, however, refuses to follow the script. He hits one of the great putts in Masters history and pours it into the heart.

  If this were a normal stop on the PGA tour, it would end right now with a wife and toddlers in his arms, but because it’s the Masters, a tradition like no other, it’s on to Butler Cabin. There, with a fire crackling in the background and Hootie Johnson, the chairman of Augusta National, presiding, last year’s winner, Tiger Woods, helps his friend into a 43 regular.

  When the telecast ends, I lend Jerzy the book on Augusta that I got from my grandfather and give him a ride home, the two of us still buzzing from the purity and finality of O’Meara’s putt.

  “I’ve always been a sucker for underdogs,” I say.

  “Me too,” say
s Jerzy. “I wonder why.”

  Fired up by O’Meara’s courage and galled by the spectacle of Jerzy’s right eye, I blurt out a reckless offer:

  “The next time Pickering hits you, you hit him back twice as hard. Or you ask Lyla on a date. Do either one, I don’t care which, and I’ll take you to Augusta.”

  49

  THREE DAYS LATER, I take my place in the New Trier parking lot with even more trepidation than usual. By dangling a round at Augusta as a reward, I put a bounty on Pickering’s head, and if by some wonderful chance Jerzy takes me up on it and comes out on top in a big way, I could be an accessory to assault, the point of no return for Finchem, if not Sarah. However, it’s the more likely scenarios that have kept me up at night, which are that as a result of my grandiose meddling, Jerzy gets the crap kicked out of him, or his heart stomped. Or both.

  You can imagine my relief when I see Jerzy’s jug head, looking no worse for wear, bobbing above the stream of students that pours out of the back of the science building. Spotting Lyla nearby further bolsters my spirits. I try not to make too much of this—after all, they’re not interacting—until I notice the shorts. He is not wearing golf shorts or tennis shorts or gym shorts but the black wool variety, which Lyla said was the one minor detail separating him from the lead guitarist of AC/DC. As I mull the ramifications of Jerzy taking fashion cues from his Goth classmate, Pickering and his posse zero in.

  As always, Jerzy acts as if he doesn’t see them, but Lyla, as befits someone in a black jumpsuit, ripped stockings, and army boots, is more combative. She curses Pickering out, and now it’s Pickering who looks away, as flummoxed by this outburst of female ferocity as Jerzy was with him. When Lyla gets in his face, he still won’t meet her eye, so Lyla, who weighs about ninety pounds with her boots on, shoves him with both hands.

  After an awkward shrug toward his cronies, Pickering pushes Lyla back, and although Pickering’s response is halfhearted and gentle by comparison, it’s not gentle enough for Jerzy, who hauls off and smacks him in the face. I know it’s a slap and not a punch because of the sound, which is very similar to one of his flushed 3-woods.

  With the sound still echoing in the parking lot, Pickering and his cronies jump Jerzy, and for ten seconds it looks like three dogs attacking a bear. I hop from the truck, but before I get much closer, a tiny ragtag militia races to Jerzy’s defense. One sports a tartan skirt fastened with a big brass pin, the other a patriotic Mohawk dyed red, white, and blue, and although neither is much bigger than Lyla, they are enough to turn the tide, and when two teachers and a guard pry them apart, Pickering and company are more relieved than outraged.

  To the victors go the spoils, and for several minutes the three beam and strut while accepting the plaudits of a jubilant throng of misfits. Then Jerzy excuses himself from the celebration and wanders over.

  “I guess you’re wondering why I went with a slap instead of a punch,” he asks.

  “Based on the sound, I’m glad you did.”

  “The last thing I want to do is break my hand now,” he says with a poorly suppressed grin.

  “I gather you had already asked Lyla out.”

  “Correct,” says Jerzy, his face turning approximately as red as Pickering’s after impact.

  “Well done. Two for two. I’ll start making some calls.”

  50

  TWO WEEKS LATER, JERZY and I walk out of the sleepy Augusta Regional Airport with our sticks in tow. Parked at the curb is an azure-blue ’74 Eldorado convertible, antelope horns sprouting from the grille and Creedence’s “Born on the Bayou” blaring from the stereo. Behind the wheel is Stump and beside him is Earl, and both seem to be relishing their morning cigars.

  “Are you going to stand there gawking at the man’s ride,” asks Earl, “or you going to get in?”

  We do the latter and desist with the former, or is it the other way around? I can never remember. In any case, we’re soon loping down a Georgia two-lane on a perfect late-April day, the wind in our hair, the sun on our faces, and the smoke in our eyes. At the city line, Jerzy taps me on the elbow and points at the large roadside sign: WELCOME TO AUGUSTA, GEORGIA, HOME OF THE MASTERS, but I can’t say that it fills me with the same giddy anticipation.

  Even before I left Jerzy and Lyla in the parking lot that afternoon, I began to compile a list of people I could call who might be susceptible to groveling. As you might imagine, the list wasn’t long and my connection to most of it tenuous. To give you an idea, I even put in a call to my good pal Marcus Azawa, chairman and CEO of Azawa Industries, based entirely on the enthusiasm with which he shook my hand before the play-off in Hawaii. Unfortunately, with Marcus and everyone else I contacted, my reputation preceded me. Even Stump, who might otherwise have been able to wangle an invite, was tainted by association, and Earl wasn’t going to be of much help prying open the gates of an institution that didn’t accept its first African-American till 1990 and where until 1983 all the caddies were black.

  Stump turns off the main drag, and with the V-8 gurgling beneath the endless hood, rolls up Washington Road. At 2604, he pulls over so we can all peer through what looks like a tunnel but is in fact a canopy of branches formed by the sixty surviving magnolias planted from seeds by Prosper Berckmans a century and a half ago. In the light at the far end, behind a circle of grass and a flagpole, are the steps of a simple white plantation-style house, and walking past it is a man in white overalls and a green cap. Just off our chrome bumper is a sign that reads PRIVATE PROPERTY. NO TRESPASSING.

  “Magnolia Lane,” says Stump through his cigar smoke, “the most famous address in golf and the object of all hope and desire. We’re not going in now—you can’t just hop on a track like Augusta National after eight hours in airplanes and rental cars—but I thought you might want to see it from the front as God intended.”

  What is needed first, according to Stump, is a tune-up, which is why he’s taken the liberty of booking a tee time at a course nearby. Stump isn’t exaggerating about the proximity, and less than two minutes later he noses the Caddy through the gates of the Augusta Country Club and pulls up to a clubhouse at least as impressive as the one at the end of Magnolia Lane.

  Since this is a warm-up, we forgo the range and the putting green and head directly to the first tee, where we take a couple of minutes to stretch our mostly middle-aged bodies in the Georgia sun.

  “Jerzy, I know it’s got to be intimidating,” says Stump, “to share the tee box with two household names and a journeyman.”

  “Intimidating?” says Jerzy with a bit of Rumanian in the vowels. “I feel like I stumbled into an AARP convention.”

  “Well, let’s see how you feel in an hour, motherfucker,” says Stump, but Earl snorts his approval.

  “Where the hell you find this kid, Travis?”

  “In the neighborhood.”

  “Really?” says Earl. “He seems too interesting for your neighborhood.”

  With Stump serving as obscene MC, we enjoy a raucous couple of hours, but when we reach the 9th fairway even Stump falls silent. To the left of our carts are a stand of pines and, beyond them, shimmering in the afternoon light, the dazzling emerald of another fairway, a pair of greens, and a sliver of water.

  “Jerzy, you know what that is?” asks Stump.

  “Of course, Mr. Stump. It’s Amen Corner. And why are you whispering?”

  51

  AFTER WE HOLE OUT, I thank Stump and Earl and let them know we’ll see them in three and a half hours. Exactly. Then I walk to the cart and pull off my bag.

  “Jerzy, grab your sticks.”

  “Why?”

  “A deal is a deal. I told you that if you stood up to Pickering or asked out Lyla, I’d take you to Augusta National, and you did both. Since I couldn’t get us an engraved invitation, we’ll have to be a little more proactive. Besides, fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.”

  “I don’t think they can,” says Jerzy, unfastening his bag and following me into the wood
s, where we soon reach the stone wall that marks the boundary between the two courses. From there, we can hear the water flowing through Rae’s Creek and see two golfers and their caddies on the right side of the 11th green.

  “Take a joke, I mean,” continues Jerzy softly. “I don’t think they have a sense of humor about any of this—the patrons, the cabins, the green jackets, the trees, the tradition like no other. I don’t think they have a sense of humor about one blade of their bent or Bermuda grass. In fact, they might shoot us on sight.”

  “Which is why we can’t get caught.”

  I remove my Big Oaks cap and stuff it between my irons. Then I unzip the side pocket of my bag and pull out a large manila envelope addressed to me. Jammed into the right-hand corner are more than two dozen stamps, and in the other is a return address in Birmingham, Alabama. “A gift from a friend named Owl,” I say.

  I run a finger under the flap and pull out an immaculate pair of white overalls. On the right chest pocket is the insignia of Augusta National—the outline of the continental United States with a red flag sticking out of the approximate spot where we are now. Since Owl is a man known for his fastidious attention to detail, the envelope also contains an official green Masters cap, a scorecard, a yardage book, and a pencil.

  “Aren’t you going to play?”

  “Not today, Jerzy.”

  As I step into my new uniform, I take another look at Jerzy’s. The same afternoon I called Owl, who then got in touch with his cousin, a former Augusta National caddy, Jerzy and I took a trip to Brooks Brothers, where I bought him a pair of pink seersucker shorts, a white polo shirt, and a pale blue cashmere sweater, each preppy item carefully selected to suggest the social ease of someone who is not only well off but has been so for generations. Overall, Jerzy carries off his new look pretty well, I think. The only thing I couldn’t talk him out of is the Big Oaks cap, which as far as I know, he hasn’t taken off since I gave it to him.