The Tees That Bind
A Short Story
It may very well be that golf, as Twain had it, is a good walk spoilt. And it may also be entirely true that playing golf, as Churchill explained it, is like chasing a quinine pill around a cow pasture.
But even if we take these two wits at their word it can’t be denied that there is some fun to be had in the leisurely and gentle absurdity of pinging around Titleists with ‘weapons singularly ill-designed for [that] purpose’ (Churchill again).
And that spirit of wit and ease and gentle fun is something that
is always able to bring to his stories. I love ‘em and am going to use this final sentence before my sign-off to petition him to release his short stories as a paperback collection pronto.Enjoy.
TJB.
Jimmy Anderson slunk into a seat at the bar of Oakwood Golf Club.
“Whiskey and soda,” he said and dropped a twenty on the bar.
He was a fair-haired young man with a narrow face and drooping eyes that made him look like a sad dog that’s just been scolded. He was wearing the regulation country club dress shirt and slacks.
“What’s the matter, Jimmy?” said Rick Rylance from two seats over.
Rick was a good friend of Jimmy’s. He had a big beard, a bigger gut, he drank gin and tonics like they were free and smoked cigars like they were good for you.
“I’m getting married,” said Jimmy.
“Hey, congratulations!” Rick wasn’t sure congratulations were in order but he led with the traditional opening to such news. “When did you get engaged?”
“This morning.”
“I’ve thought about settling down,” Rick said, getting a far-off wistful look in his eyes. “I just haven't really found the right girl, or one who will have me.” He laughed. “How come you don’t seem too happy about it?”
Jimmy knocked back half the whiskey and soda. “‘Cause I didn’t mean to.”
“How’s that work?”
“Julia can be kind of impulsive and we’ve been dating for a year now so we were talking about moving in together and I kind of joked that the next thing you know we’ll be getting married and she made a noise like a tea kettle and said she would marry me and it didn’t matter that I didn’t have a ring because it meant that I was being true to myself and leading with my heart. And then she went and called her parents to tell them the news and everyone else she knows and I came here. She’s probably still on the phone for all I know.” He drained his whiskey and signaled the barman, a tall stolid man in a white dress shirt and bowtie. “Another one please, Chuck.”
“Hmm,” he said supportively. “That’s rough. I don’t think she’s still on the phone, though.”
“What makes you say that?”
Rick nodded toward the door.
A blur of blonde hair and floral print whirled across the room at Jimmy and struck him below the waterline.
“Jimmy!” Julia said. “I called everyone. They’re all so excited. It was expected but unexpected, you know?”
She was pretty, though somewhat vague-looking, as if anything that didn’t involve her didn’t exist, with round cheeks and a generous mouth which was parted to show large white teeth. She had a fey look in her eyes.
Jimmy recovered enough to mumble a few words.
“Now, I know you’re probably celebrating with the boys—hi Rick—but I brought my parents along and I was thinking you and my dad could play a round of golf to celebrate.”
“Your parents?” Jimmy said, looking over to the door where a similar looking blonde—only twenty-some years older—and a short gruff-looking man with a red face and mustache were following in their daughter’s wake.
Jimmy stood up as they approached. His hands began to sweat.
“Mr. and Mrs. Donahue. How are you? Nice to see you.”
Mrs. Donahue, looking very much like her daughter, gave Jimmy a hug. “James, we’re so happy for you both, aren’t we, Harold?”
Mr. Donahue grunted and lifted his hand in a half-hearted attempt at a handshake. Jimmy took it with mirrored enthusiasm.
“Julia says we’re playing a round of golf.”
“Yes, she did say that.”
“Let’s get going then. Enjoy your lunch, ladies.” He turned and walked out without waiting for Jimmy.
“Don’t mind my dad,” Julia said. “He just needs to get used to the idea of us getting married. You know dads.”
“Mm, yes,” said Jimmy to the retreating backs of his fiancee and future mother-in-law as they floated across the floor in the same manner toward the dining room.
“See what I meant though about Julia? Rather forceful,” Jimmy said to Rick who had been watching the proceedings with an amused, aloof air.
“What’s the problem? She’s very pretty, if you don’t mind me saying, and she seems nice enough. You were just telling me the other night how much you like her. Don’t you want to get married?” Rick said.
“Do you?”
“Not really, but we’re not talking about me.”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t planning on it this soon. I don’t like being backed into it like it wasn’t my idea.”
“So make it a long engagement. There’s no hurry to make it official.”
“You don’t know how they operate. Julia probably already has a venue picked out.”
“So take back the proposal.”
“You mean the proposal I didn’t propose? Fat chance. I don’t think she’d let me.”
“Look, do you want to get married or not?”
“I don’t know…”
“I know one thing,” Rick said, looking out the massive windows overlooking the first tee. “Well two things, really. You need to impress the old man. And you’re late for your game.”
“What?” Jimmy followed his gaze. A short man with a mustache was teeing off into a sea of green beneath a cloudy sky. Harold Donahue apparently had no intention of waiting for his future son-in-law.
“Dammit. So much for another drink.”
“Here.” Rick tossed him a flask. “Liquid handicap. Takes ten strokes off your game.”
“Thanks,” Jimmy said and hurried out.
Golf bag bouncing on his back, Jimmy ran out onto the tee just as Mr. Donahue was getting into his golf cart. Jimmy dropped his bag and a ball and hurriedly cranked the driver before Mr. Donahue could drive off down the fairway.
The ball, dropped right on the grass and lacking a tee, flew lazily through the air and landed not halfway down the bright green fairway. Somewhere nearby, a bluejay cried out as if mocking him.
Jimmy hurried to grab his bag but Mr. Donahue was already driving away toward his own ball which was sitting just outside the putting green.
Jimmy hoofed it down the fairway, drawing his five iron from his bag without stopping and, since Mr. Donahue was standing to one side, waiting for him, albeit impatiently,, he took less than half a second to line up his shot which sliced wide into the trees to the right of the green.
Jimmy ran up to find his ball, sank it in three with a wedge and two putts and jumped into the cart where Mr. Donahue sat waiting drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.
“You always keep people waiting?”
“No, I—”
“Not a good look.” He hit the gas.
Jimmy told himself that the noise of the engine and the wind prevented him from retorting but he knew the truth was that he didn’t actually know what to say.
Jimmy had always struggled with sticking up for himself, or deciding where to insert a word edgewise, in such confrontational circumstances—hence how he found himself in this situation to begin with.
That was how he had ended up going to foosball camp instead of football camp in the 9th grade and how he found himself in the marines instead of going to college to be a marine biologist.
Jimmy played the next two holes indifferently, trying just to keep up with his future father-in-law.
As they rode to the fourth hole, Mr. Donahue said, “I don’t think you’ll be marrying Julia. I would say it’s none of my business but really it is entirely my business and I just don’t see it working out.”
Mr. Donahue had a habit of rubbing his lower lip on the underside of his mustache as he paused between statements deciding the fate of Jimmy and Julia’s marriage and he did this now assiduously.
“Sir, really, I—”
“No, no, I’ve seen you play golf. Much too timid on the backswing and no force, no strength at all on the down stroke. No wonder I’m beating you. And at my age! No, no, not happening.”
He jumped out of the cart and sent a rocket down the fairway to the fourth hole.
Jimmy retrieved his driver and somehow hooked the ball into the rough a mere fifty yards down the fairway, forcing him to walk shamefully over to the tall grass and whack at the ball hidden among the roots of a forest of grass redwoods with a three iron like a Russian peasant taking a scythe to a grain field.
It took Jimmy three strokes to get back on the fairway, and another two to get on the green. Mr. Donahue was practically fuming by the time Jimmy got in the cart.
“Hurry up. Play better so we can get this over with. I’m only doing this for Julia.”
“Wouldn’t letting Julia marry me make her happy? Wouldn’t that be something you could do for her?”
“No, absolutely not. I know what’s best for her, and it’s not marrying a man who can’t play golf.”
Jimmy felt downtrodden and slightly confused. He didn’t understand why the man cared so much about his golf game and he wasn’t sure whether he really wanted to marry Julia. He liked things neat and orderly and this little misunderstanding had thrown a spanner in the works.
The fifth hole went poorly for Jimmy. At the sixth he found himself with a 25 when par was 14.
“I think I can make Julia happy. I’m good to her and I’ll have a good career when I’m done with school.”
“Think? Think you’ll make her happy? What wishy-washy nonsense. Either do it or don’t. And what school could you possibly be doing that is necessary for your career? The only school I went to was the school of hard knocks and tough surprises.” Mr. Donahue’s face had gone a violent shade of purple and his mustache was bristling of its own accord.
“Medical school,” Jimmy said.
That seemed to take a bit of the wind out of the man’s sails.
“Mm, well, I suppose that’s necessary. What specialty?”
“I hadn’t decided yet.”
“Aha! There it is again that waffle house, flip-flopping pancake nonsense. Why don’t you grow a pair and make up your mind? Can’t have a career if you don’t start it.”
“I—”
Mr. Donahue held up a hand and got out of the cart. “The ball calls.”
Jimmy shoved his hands into his pockets preparatory to morosely watching Mr. Donahue tee off.
As he did so he became aware of a hard object in his right pocket. He grabbed it and pulled out Rick’s flask.
A momentary debate was followed by a surreptitious glance at the old man and a hard swallow as Mr. Donahue’s driver connected with Mr. Donahue’s ball.
The stuff seemed weaker than Jimmy expected but he was focused entirely on making sure Donahue didn’t catch him drinking. Jimmy asked himself what new ways of torturing him might Donahue invent if he caught him getting loaded on his precious green. He didn’t seem like a teetotaler but Jimmy didn’t want to give him the chance.
The life-giving liquid seeped into his limbs languorously as Jimmy leveled the driver head next to the tee’d ball, looked down the greenest green fairway, judged the wind, and knocked the core out of the pockmarked skin of the ball.
The ball landed twenty yards ahead of Mr. Donahue’s and a mere ten shy of the green.
Mr. Donahue grunted but said nothing.
The seventh, eight, ninth, and tenth holes proceeded apace. Jimmy took a small swig of the good stuff at each tee and out-drove and out-putted Mr. Donahue on each hole, though he was still a solid twelve strokes behind.
Still, as the game went on, that seemed to matter less and less to him, until he almost forgot about the game, the competition altogether.
The sun had come out from behind the clouds and a pair of cardinals were frolicking in a nearby oak. He felt good and felt that it was a good day to feel good on.
“Hurry up!” Mr. Donahue shouted from the cart.
Jimmy ignored him, took a deep breath, and put the Titleist on the green two hundred and sixty-three yards away according to the placard by the tee.
Mr. Donahue exhaled whistling while he did so, then tried to cover it up with a cough.
The twelfth and thirteenth holes went similarly, though Jimmy was still behind.
On the fourteenth hole, he got a break. The hole was over four hundred yards and it dog-legged off to the right in the middle of the course.
Mr. Donahue played it traditionally, going straight down the fairway then planning to hook around as the course curved.
Jimmy was feeling pretty good by this time and figured he could do one better.
He altered his stance, turned to the right to face toward the tall grass, scrub, and trees that lay between the tee and the hole, as the crow flies, and ripped the ball right over the whole mess.
The whole way over Mr. Donahue went on and on about what a ridiculous shot that was and how he’d never see his ball again.
Jimmy just waited patiently, sure of his game at last.
Sure enough, when Mr. Donahue had used four strokes to get to the green, there was Jimmy’s Titleist waiting for them.
That left Mr. Donahue fuming and he spent the rest of the eighteen holes in complete silence.
Jimmy had a tremendous back nine but nothing could make up for the hole he had put himself in on the first five holes and he finished the round just under par with Mr. Donahue three strokes ahead of him.
As they walked into the clubhouse to look for Julia and Mrs. Donahue, Mr. Donahue said to Jimmy, “See? I told you you couldn’t golf. Too little, too late. And you didn’t have the stones to see it through.”
Jimmy was feeling a bit reckless by that point. He’d emptied the flask on the seventeenth hole and its effects were still very much with him. Plus, Mr. Donahue’s attitude towards him had awoken something inside him—a self-respect, perhaps, or maybe a rebellious streak. Either way, he acted.
He brushed past Mr. Donahue and strode up to the table where Mrs. Donahue and Julia were sitting. He stopped in front of Julia, got down on one knee, and said, “Julia Donahue, will you marry me?”
“Of course, silly, you already proposed.”
“No, I didn’t. Will you marry me?”
She was taken aback and stared at him thoughtfully. “Yes. I will,” she said solemnly.
Jimmy stood and turned. “There!” he said to Mr. Donahue.
The corners of Mr. Donahue’s mustache seemed about to catch fire.
“You’re not marrying my daughter. Julia, you’re not marrying him.”
“Daddy!”
“Harold!” said Mrs. Donahue.
“No. That’s final.”
“Harold, what’s wrong with you?”
“He’s no good for her, he’s got no prospects, and he can’t play golf. He’s got a weird swing.”
“I do not.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I almost beat you, didn’t I?”
“Almost is the point. You do everything half measure. I can’t stand it.”
“I was foosball world champion, I was in the marines, and I’m going to medical school, while you are a bitter old man who didn’t have a kind word to say to me and doesn’t actually want his daughter to be happy. Come on, Julia. We’re going to elope.”
A cascade of words and splutterings fell from Mr. Donahue’s lips but Jimmy and Julia were already on their way out of the dining room and passing through the bar.
At the door Jimmy said, “One second, sweets,” and walked over to Rick who was still sitting at the bar and working his way through a cigar while watching the Masters on TV.
Jimmy tossed him the flask. “Thanks, man. Gave me the boost I needed. What was in there, by the way? It was really smooth but kinda tasted like water.”
“It was water.”
“What?”
“I get plenty of liquor at the bar so I always pack extra water for the course. With the way you were sucking down whiskey sodas, I figured you’d need some.”
“Then, that means—” he trailed off.
“Your bride’s waiting for you,” said Rick.
Jimmy looked over, saw Julia beckoning, and turned back to the bar. “A stiff bottle of water for the road, if you please, Chuck,” Jimmy said, tossing a five dollar bill on the bar. “And keep the change.”
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I’d buy that book. Fun story.
That's usually how it works. The more sober you become, the better your game goes.