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

holding.
“I bet I made the first wood ever that wasn’t wood.”
He took the three wood from the bag and slowly rotated in his fingers, allowing the bright sunlight dance over its surface.
“Beautiful! ” responded Bob, admiring the workmanship.
“I finally got them all done. I was ready to call him and deliver the job.
That very morning, I picked up the paper and what do I see? He’s dead! The son of a bitch is dead!
There it was, right in the obits. I always read the obits the first thing. It’s a habit. Done it for years.
There I see it, ‘Max Goodhoff, German Refugee, Dead of Suicide at 61’. I gotta tell ya, I about died too.
First of all, I didn’t believe he committed suicide. I think they finally got him and now I’m a little scared. Well, a lot scared!
What if they come after me? I mean I got the stuff they killed him over. And second, now I’m out a thousand bucks and like I said, a thousand bucks was a lot of money in those days, and besides I’m stuck with a set of clubs that I don’t even really want.
I tried callin’ his number to find out a little bit more about what really happened to him but all I got was his wife and she didn’t speak any English. I was stuck. So, I figured I’d just have to take my chances, try to forget it and hope for the best.
I put the set away, right in the cabinet where you found them and I didn’t bother with them for, I bet, five years. I gotta tell you though, I was pretty nervous for a long time.
I couldn’t sell them. I was afraid to let anybody know that I even had them for fear that, whoever did in Max, would get me next. Maybe I was paranoid, I don’t know. Maybe it was my imagination and the guy really did kill himself. Who knows?
Well, anyway, even after I wasn’t so afraid anymore, I was still stuck with the clubs. I still couldn’t sell them. In those days everyone wanted high polished persimmons woods and irons like Ben Hogan irons. I could never have sold these things and even if I could, I knew that I would never get the money for the amount of work that I put into them. I would probably wind up almost giving them away and I just couldn’t do that.
I knew, I sure couldn’t tell anybody the crazy story that I just told you. They’d think I was nuts. So I just chalked the whole thing up to experience.”
“So why are you telling me this crazy story, as you call it, now?” asked Bob sarcastically.
“Like I told you before, there are some things, that after awhile you just have to tell somebody, whether they believe you or not. I’m ninety-three years old next year, God willing, and now I don’t give a damn anymore what anybody thinks, including you. Either you believe me or you don’t, but I got to get it out,” he snapped back and turned away from Bob brusquely.
There was a silence. Then, the old man slowly turned back towards Bob and continued.
“One day for some reason, I still don’t know why, I said to myself, you put all that time and effort into those clubs and they’re just in the basement. Why not at least try them?
So I took them to the driving range that used to be over on Route twenty-three, and I tried ‘em. At first, they were like any other real good club. Nothing was really different about them. They did have a good feel. Why shouldn’t they, I made them, I thought to myself. So I kept hittin’. I hadn’t hit balls in years and it was fun.
Then, I started to notice something a little different. On every shot I took, the ball got a little bit straighter and a little bit longer too. Not a whole lot to start with, but a tiny bit better and better each time.
I hit one bucket of balls then I got a second. A big bucket was only fifty cents in those days.
On the second bucket, I was maybe five yards longer than the first, I mean, every shot. ‘Well, on the second one you were warmed up’, I thought to myself, ‘that’s why you did better. So, big deal!’
I went home and I was feeling tired and my hip was acting up. Now it’s shot but it was just startin’ in those days. Arthritis, you know, sometimes I had the sciatica for a couple of days at a time and then it would go away for a stretch.
You see, I really couldn’t get out and work the clubs like I wanted to and give them a true test. Then too, my wife was getting sick about that time. She had diabetes. It started when she was in her fifties and it took twenty years to kill her.
Anyway, I finally got a chance to go back to the range and try the driver again. I started right where I left off the time before, I mean with distance and being straight, and mind ya, I’d been away for almost two months. By the time I left this time, I got even better yet. I musta gone back there at least a dozen times and by the time I was done, I was hitting two eighty sometimes three hundred, one after another. I got so good, that guys would stop their hitting just to watch me, and I was well over sixty-five years old then!
After working the driver, I started to think to myself, ‘I’m pretty damn good at this game after all. As a matter of fact, I’m great!’
Then, I decided I was going to go to the course and play a great round. At this point, I didn’t play that much anymore because of what I told you before, about my arthritis and my wife’s problems, but anyway I decided to play. I figured, the way I hit those tee shots at the range, I’d probably be in the low seventies at least.”
“How did you do?” interrupted Bob, trying to show interest in the old man’s fantastic tale.
“Eighty-seven,” replied Merle in a disgusted tone.
“Are you kidding?” answered Bob in surprise, humoring the old man.
“Yeah! Eighty-seven. The driver was the only club that worked. Every tee shot was fantastic. Three hundred, three ten, right down the middle. I even could fade and draw the ball whenever I wanted to, but all the other clubs were terrible. I played my usual game, except for the driver. I was a great club maker but I never was a good player. I always wanted to be, but I never was,” he said with a faint sigh.
“So what happened? ” asked Bob with feigned curiosity.
“I know what happened,” answered the old man. “The other clubs hadn’t learned how to play yet. I didn’t work them enough. Oh, they got a little better as the round went on because I was using them during the game, but that wasn’t enough. Then, I began to understand. I knew what the problem was. I knew what Max was talking about.
That round killed me. My hip was out of shape for a couple of weeks. I could hardly walk. I felt terrible for the longest time. It must have been two months before I got back into the kind of shape so I could go back to the range again.
When I went back I worked on the three wood. I started off like usual, nothing special. You know, slices, a dub now and then, but again, the more I worked the club, the better it got and after a few times at the range it was just like the driver. I couldn’t miss with it, two sixty, two seventy every time. Then, I started working every club in the bag. After awhile, I got all of them to be perfect, right down to the putter. It took a long time though. With all the problems I had like I told you, it took a lot of my time and I couldn’t get to the range every day like I wanted to. It must have taken two years and a couple of hundred dollars at the range and the pitch and putt courses to finally get everything right.” He paused.
“Then, just when I’m ready to put it altogether on the course, I had this stroke,” and he pointed to his left hand resting on the arm of the rocker. He reached over with his right hand and lifted it an inch or so above its resting place and released it. It fell lifelessly back to its original spot.
“See what I mean. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been though. Strokes can really be nasty, but it was just enough to ruin my dreams. I took it pretty hard at first. I bet I was depressed for six months, I mean ‘Get the gun the depressed’. All I could do was sit and look at those clubs in front of me and wonder what would have happened if I didn’t have the goddamn stroke. That was all I could think about, day after day, a week in and week out.
Then one day, I don’t know why, I said to myself, ‘Christ you better snap out of this stupid self-pity crap. Your wife needs you and you better start taking care of what you have to take care of, and like magic I snapped out of it.
I took those clubs right downstairs and put them where you found them and I haven’t seen them again until right today.
I asked you to bring them up here because I want you to have them. I want you to do with ‘em what I wanted to do and couldn’t,” said the old man and he reached out and grasped Bob’s hand with his.
“That’s very kind of you,” replied Bob appreciatively.
“But, why do you want to give them to me? You don’t even know me,” he added with sensitive curiosity.
“Well,” said Merle, “I’m going to Restful Pines next week. It’s a nursing home. They like to tell me that it’s a senior citizens living center, but I know it’s a goddamn nursing home. I said I’d never go to one, but I can’t make it on my own anymore. I lasted as long as I could and maybe a little longer than I really should have, but you know what I mean, it’s over now!”
“Don’t you have a son you could give them to?” asked Bob sympathetically.
“Like I told you, my boy never came back from Vietnam,” he replied tersely.
Bob didn’t replied. He didn’t know what to say. There was a long lull in the conversation. Then the old man began to speak again.
“About ten years ago, I told my nephew that same story that I just told you and I offered to give them to him. He said he always thought that I was kind of “eccentric”. I guess it was a nice way to say the he thought I was a little nuts.