Sticks - A Golfer's Tale by W. Sautter (whitelam books .TXT) 📖

uneasily stepped up next. He grasped his driver, stood before the ball and hesitated. He paused anxiously awaiting that surge of electricity, that pulse of self-assurance that he’d learned to expect and relied upon. He firmed his grip.
Then it came, a strong burst more consuming than ever. A broad smile spread over his face and he ripped the club back and then downward in one continuous, powerful motion, pounding the ball with every fiber of muscle in his body. The missile bulleted from the tee, soaring higher and higher, and rapidly faded into the sun’s brilliance, as a tiny speck in the distance.
“Jesus! I lost that one,” said Sam.
“Yeah, I lost it too. Can’t really tell where it went,” added Billy and with that he piled into the cart next to Sal and raced down the fairway.
Sal and Bob followed on foot. They walked down the fairway and the three balls came into view more clearly. All were in the middle of the fairway all within twenty yards of each other. As they approached, Sam was already preparing for his second shot.
“I don’t see yours,” he said to Bob while he adjusted his stance. “Better check those bushes,” he grinned and motioned towards a large clump of hedges in the nearby right rough. Bob ignored the suggestion and watched him fire at high arcing six iron into the sand trap at the left, front of the green.
“God damn it,” he muttered under his breath.
The other two took their shots with Sal striking the rear fringe and Billy just short of the trap at the right. The party preceded forward.
“You shoulda looked in those bushes like I told ya,” taunted Sam. “I don’t know where else it coulda gone,” he continued in a singsong, irritating voice.
Bob didn’t even reply. He just walked forward
confident that his shot had been straight and true.
As they approached the green the image of a small, white object appeared from a patch of deep grass the mowers had missed. It was in the middle of the fairway, about twenty from the green.
“Holy shit!” exclaimed Sal.
“Here’s his ball,” he said as he gazed back down the fairway towards the tee. Billy took out his scorecard.
“This hole is three hundred and sixty yards. That means this shot is about three hundred and thirty-five!” he announced.
Sam’s face dropped and a more sinister look swept over it.
“Hey, Bob,” he shouted, “Either you got lucky on that shot and I mean real lucky or you’re sandbaggin’ us,” he said ominously.
Bob didn’t respond to his comment but felt uneasy about its disquieting tone. He proceeded to take his second shot, pitching his ball to within inches of the cup and birdied the hole.
The others fell short with two pars and a bogey. Approaching the second tee the mood was tense and little was said. Bob teed off first and again drove to within a pitching wedge of the par four green.
The other three again fell short and he easily birdied that hole too. At the conclusion of the round, Bob had won thirteen of the eighteen holes and tied one. His winnings totaled three hundred and twenty-five dollars.
“Fuckin’ ringer,” muttered Sal as he handed Bob his share.
The others too, paid begrudgingly. The three headed off toward the parking lot complaining loudly to each other as they walked.
Bob packed his glove and ball into his bag, stopped at the snack bar, grabbed a Coke and walked to his car at the far end of the lot. He felt good. The thrill of the win still burned inside of him. He played well and he picked up some good money that would certainly help out now that he wasn’t working. He didn’t feel quite the sense of failure that he had when the day began.
Maybe this was a way to supplement his lack of income, until he got a job!
“Maybe this could even be a job! ” he mused. It sure seemed like easy money. As a matter of fact, he could probably make more doing this than working. He began to multiply some numbers in his head as he approached the car.
“Let’s see, three hundred – if I played four times a week – ” he thought as he got into his car.
Suddenly, he felt a hand on the shoulder through the car window. He turned towards the open window to see Sam’s burly, red face staring straight into his.
“We don’t like guys coming down here and puttin’ on like they’re just hackers with old clubs and an old bag to play the part and then fuckin’ us over. We don’t take kindly to no fuckin’ hustlers,” he shouted. And with that, he drew back his hand and drove his fist squarely into Bob’s nose.
A flash of pain splashed over his face as he recoiled back from the impact. In the next instant, he found himself sprawled across the passenger’s seat, wedged against the far car door. A warm, sticky, salty tasting fluid was running down over his lips and his nose felt a throbbing numbness.
“There’s something to remind you next time you plan on trying to screw us.”
Sam then turned and got into an old gray Cadillac with Sal behind the wheel and drove off.
Bob looked down to see a patch of red spreading over his shirt. His nose felt as if he’d been swimming underwater for hours, stuffed and engorged with liquid like a loaded sponge was packed into each nostril. He reached for some tissues and sopped up the blood as best he could. Then, he started the car and drove home with one hand on the wheel and the other attending his leaking nose.

Chapter 5
A week had passed. His face was still swollen and showed little sign of the rapid healing for which he had hoped. The doctor said it would probably be two weeks for swelling and about three for the broken nose to completely heal. He sat around doing little. He wouldn’t be able to go on any job interviews. That was for sure! Besides the phone hadn’t rung in over a week anyway. He felt not only physically, but also psychologically beaten. He couldn’t get a job and now he couldn’t even play golf. What if he ran into those guys again or guys like them? Maybe they wouldn’t be so gentle next time.
His vacant gaze remained frozen to the flickering screen. His jaw hung limp, his face emotionless, and his thoughts impenetrable. What would he do now? What could he do?
He sat in front the television, hour after mindless hour, endlessly rolling from channel to channel.
“Its first and ten on the New York twenty-seven,” the television blared its incessant banter.
Suddenly, the phone rang. Bob jumped up, startled by its unexpected intrusion. He pushed the mute button on the remote and picked up the phone.
“Hello, Bob? Bob Andrews?” the strange but familiar voice on the other and said.
“Yes,” reply Bob hesitatingly.
“This is Harrington, Harrington Rollins. Elliott Harper’s friend! We played golf together a couple of months ago.”
“Oh, yes. I remember,” interrupted Bob, now eager to find out the reason for the call.
“Let me tell you why I called. One of my corporate clients is cosponsoring a PGA tour tournament next month. The other day, one of their guys started talking about the tournament and different players they knew. He began talking about all the pros that would be there. Then, in the conversation, I just happened to mention you. I told him how you played the best damn golf I’ve ever seen. He was impressed by what I told him.”
There was a brief silence on the other end of the phone.
“Oh well, what the hell, let me get right to point. As a cosponsor of the tournament, my client gets to pick a few players to participate. Based on my recommendation, they would like you to enter. It would be a chance to win some money, maybe some big money and begin to really use that talent of yours. Besides, if nothing else, you get a free trip to Hawaii and honestly Bob, I think you can get a lot more than just a trip.”
Then he quickly added, “I don’t need you to decide right now. I want you to think about it. Talk it over with your wife and call me tomorrow. It could be the chance of a lifetime!”
Bob sat stunned as Harrington spoke. He could hardly respond.
“Yes, sure – I’ll call you tomorrow,” he replied, half stammering as he spoke.
With that, Harrington recited his phone number as Bob wrote it down. He hung up the phone and fell back into a chair.
“The chance of a lifetime.”
Harrington’s words echoed through his head. The more they reverberated within him, the more he knew Harrington was right. This was the kind of thing that one could only dream about, right out of nowhere. He could hardly believe that it was happening to him. He sat dumbfounded.
He’d have to discuss it with Maryanne but she’d always been behind him. It wouldn’t be any different now, he was sure.
The next morning, he awoke more tired than when he went to bed. He’d tossed and turned all night, not so much from nervousness, but from anticipation. He was up at seven thirty and fidgeted near the phone for over an hour, eagerly waiting for nine o’clock to arrive. Harrington would be in his office by then.
Nine o’clock came. He grabbed the phone dialed the number. He was connected immediately with Harrington.
“Well, are you going to play some golf?” Harrington asked enthusiastically.
“I think so!” Bob answered, bursting with excitement.
“Great,” he replied. “I’ve got a thousand dollars on you to take a place in the top twenty and I think I just made a thousand. You’re like money in the bank in my book. It’ll make up for all the money you took from us those times at the club,” he said laughingly.
“Now, let me call the sponsor back and I’ll make all the arrangements, transportation, hotel and a caddy. You’ve got to have a caddy and I’ll make sure you get the best. A real good caddy can make all the difference.
I’ll get back to you with all the details as soon as I can. You just sit tight,” and with that the conversation ended.
Bob hung up the phone with his heart pounding and his imagination racing wildly.
The days crawled by. Each day he awoke, walked down to the kitchen and immediately scratched a broad black mark across the calendar date, inching one day closer to the fifteenth, the day he was to leave.
Harrington, true to his word, had seen to all the arrangements. He received his hotel confirmation and two first-class plane tickets, one of which he paid for himself. He wasn’t about to allow his clubs to travel anywhere but right next to him on the plane. Harrington, too, had hired a caddy as he said he would. He said he got one that would certainly “keep his driver straight,” whatever that meant? He said he booked a seat next to Bob