Lawrence Block - Enough Rope

Nicholson could invite himself along and make up a foursome, but why on earth would he do that? Better to play a round by himself, and he didn’t much feel like that, either. Easier to turn the car around and go home.

But then the two men came around the clubhouse, each at the wheel of a motorized golf cart. Hedrick might rent a cart himself, desperation might drive him to it, but Nicholson had a hunch the man would hold out. Golfers like Jason Hedrick, and indeed like Nicholson himself, golfers who walked the course, were apt to regard the cart contingent with a raised eyebrow, if not with a curled lip, much as a hunter who tracked and stalked game might regard a man who shot wolves in the Arctic from a helicopter.

The two wheeled golfers dismounted, teed off — no mulligans, Nicholson was pleased to note — and hopped on their motorized steeds. Even as they vanished in the distance, Jason Hedrick walked off the putting green, had a word with the club pro, and headed for the first tee. His drive was straight and true, as good as any Nicholson had seen that morning. He bent to retrieve his tee, straightened up, returned his driver to his bag, and started walking.

Now was the critical moment. If anyone came along, a twosome or foursome, anyone at all...

Nicholson had to wait, had to give Hedrick time to finish the first hole and begin the second. Had to wait, while some unwitting clown in plaid pants came along and spoiled everything.

But no one did. Time crawled, certainly, but still it passed, and when he judged that enough of it had done so, Roland Nicholson fetched his bag of clubs from the trunk, had a word with the club pro, and teed off.

The first hole was a 340-yard par four, with a dogleg to the left around a stand of trees. If Tiger Woods were to play the Oak Hollow course, or John Daly, or any of the really long hitters, he might try to hit a controlled hook that would curve to the left after it cleared the trees. Such refinements were not part of Nicholson’s game, and all he tried to do was keep the ball in the middle of the fairway and drive it as far as he could.

The result was satisfactory. He’d have liked more distance, but the ball flew straight as an arrow, and what more could you ask? He walked to the ball, took out his two iron, put it back, touched the big silvery head of one club, then drew his four wood. His shot, after a deliberate practice swing, was hole high but off to the left. He chipped onto the green, some forty feet from the pin. His first putt ran well past the hole — never up, never in, he told himself — but he steadied himself and sank a twelve-footer coming back, for a bogey five.

A good start.

It took Nicholsonseveral more holes to catch up with Hedrick. He played quickly, but he didn’t want to hurry his shots, knowing that would amount to a false economy — he’d hit the ball poorly, and consequently would have to hit it more often.

He bogeyed the second hole. The third hole was a par five, and he put together a good drive and a strong second shot and was at the edge of the green in three. Par seemed a good possibility but his putter let him down, and he wound up with a seven.

He wrote it on the scorecard.

On the fourth hole he put it all together. His drive carried the fairway bunkers, and he followed it with a five iron, a wedge, and a putt that found the center of the cup. Four for a par.

The fifth hole was the first par three, and as he reached the tee he could see Hedrick 190 yards away, kneeling down, trying to read the green. Nicholson teed up a ball, grabbed his three iron, addressed the ball without benefit of a practice swing, and took his best shot.

“Fore!” he cried.

The ball sailed straight at the green, straight at Hedrick, but carried beyond both and dropped into a sand trap on the far side of the green.

He called out an apology, grabbed his clubs, and hurried down the fairway.

“So damned sorry,”he was saying. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I never even saw you there until I’d hit the ball, and for a change it went right where it was supposed to. I thought it was going to take your head off.”

“I could see it was long,” Hedrick said, “the moment I looked up. What did you use, a three iron?”

“A four,” Nicholson said.

“Oh? Then you must have had your heart in it. I always use a four here myself, but I never carry the green.”

“I should have got more loft,” Nicholson said. “Look, I’m sorry. I’ll be quiet while you putt out, and I’ll be careful not to hit into you again.”

“Prefer to play alone, do you?”

“The only thing I prefer it to,” said Nicholson, “is not playing at all. Fellow I was supposed to play with couldn’t make it. Ben Weymouth. Don’t suppose you know him?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“He canceled at the last minute. I’d been hoping I’d run into somebody at the first tee, but no such luck, and I couldn’t afford to wait on the off chance someone would turn up. And Jimmy said I’d just missed a fellow who’d been looking for somebody to play with.”

“That would have been me,” Hedrick said. “I got tired of waiting, but it looks as though we found each other after all. It’s your shot.”

“Oh,” Nicholson said, seemingly taken aback. “But I couldn’t possibly horn in, not after the way I almost crowned you there.”

“No harm done. So why not finish the round together? Unless you really don’t want company.”

“Company’s exactly what I do want. If you’re sure...”

“I’m sure,” Hedrick said. “And you’re away, and the lie you’ve got in the trap is the reason God invented the sand wedge.”

He got agood shot from the trap and two-putted for a bogey four. Hedrick’s putt lipped the cup, hesitated for a long moment, then dropped for a birdie. Nicholson complimented him on the putt and Hedrick turned it aside, saying it was the result of having so much time to think about it.

“Anyway,” he said, “you’ve brought me luck. If I’d hit that putt straight off, it never would have dropped.”

“Good luck for both of us,” Nicholson replied.

On the next hole they both hit good drives, but to opposite sides of the broad fairway. They met on the green, each reaching it in three, each two-putting for a bogey.

On number seven, Hedrick hooked his drive into the tall grass to the left of the fairway. “Hell,” he said.

“Shouldn’t hurt you much,” Nicholson told him. He teed up his own ball and sent it down the left edge of the fairway.

“Birds of a feather,” he said, retrieving his tee, returning his club to the bag. His forefinger stroked the silvery head of the big driver before he hoisted his bag and stepped away from the tee. “Hit the ball, drag Fred,” he said.

“How’s that?”

“I love golf jokes,” Nicholson said, as they headed down the fairway together. “Not as much as I love golf, but I do get a kick out of them. Of course they’re all the same joke.”

“All the same joke?”

“The point of every golf joke I ever heard,” said Nicholson, “is the obsessive nature of the game. That’s what they’re all about, and that’s what makes them funny. Like the funeral passing by.”

“I must have missed a couple of strokes there,” Hedrick said. “What’s so funny about a funeral?”

“Two fellows are playing golf,” Nicholson said. “And as they approach the tee for the seventh hole there’s a long string of cars passing by.”

“In the middle of a golf course?”

“There’s a road edging the course,” Nicholson said patiently, “and from the seventh tee, they’re within chipping distance of the road. And there are all these cars passing at slow speed, and the first one’s a hearse and the next two are black limousines, and they’ve all of them got their lights on, so you can tell it’s a funeral cortege.”