Рита Браун: Tail Gait

“Speaking of golf, I can’t wait to get back out.” Susan sat upright, enthusiasm on her face.

“If I played as good as you do, I’d be thrilled too.” Paul laughed. “For me, it’s a fair amount of wishfulness, but I will prevail.”

“That’s what we all say.” Nelson teased him and they all laughed.

The pleasing aroma of the burning wood added to the closeness of the evening.

“I’m eighty-two now and I wish I had eighty-two more years.” Ginger smiled. “I’m just getting to the point where I see how it all fits together, the puzzle of the centuries. I will not live to see the next generation of historical breakthroughs. I hope UVA is at the forefront of these.” The others, startled, looked at him with alarm, except for Trudy, who knew how her husband truly felt.

Nelson spoke lightly. “Ginger, you will forever be the history professor at UVA, and the department will continue your research without regard to political fashion. And you will always be a tolerable golfer.”

They laughed again.

The Reverend Jones shared Ginger’s emotions. He was in his seventies, and a lifetime of living and learning had only just begun to truly fall into place. He was only now understanding what Vietnam had meant to him when he was a young combat soldier in the Army. Despite the treatment at home, which both he and the nation finally overcame, he was grateful because he had learned to lead. Those lessons of being responsible for other men never left him, and he believed that sense of duty had made him a decent pastor.

Those who attended St. Luke’s would have amended that to “a great pastor, a man of feeling, conviction, and love.”

As the evening finally broke up, Susan reminded Nelson of tomorrow’s tee times.

“I’m at one o’clock. My goal is to score my age on my birthday.” Ginger smiled.

“If anyone can play his age, it’s you,” Susan complimented Ginger. “That’s what Nelson meant by ‘tolerable.’ ”

—

Driving home, Harry turned to her husband, all six feet five inches of him. “Honey, what’s the big deal with shooting your age?”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure, but it is a big deal. Aren’t you caddying for Susan? I’d think you’d know these things.”

“Ha! The real reason I caddy for Susan is usually whoever is playing with her that day asks me to do it. She obsesses over what club to use, wastes time and more time. I just whip out a club and hand it to her.”

“But you don’t play. How do you know?”

“Years ago, when we were all in high school, I asked the school coach to tell me. Then I read some and watched some.”

“God, Terry Baumgartner! Hadn’t thought of him in years.” Fair slowed for a patch of ground fog.

“Golf is a beautiful game. I just never had the patience for it. I need speed, whether my own or my horse’s. I’d lose my mind standing over a little white ball and whacking it.”

“Honey, millions of Americans are losing their minds. It’s a heartbreaking game.”

“Isn’t that the truth! Susan can remember greens, weather, you name it, from thirty years ago when she was twelve! I can hardly remember last week.”

“You remember a lot.” He smiled. “But this shooting-your-age thing. Hardly anyone ever does it.”

April 11, 2015

BoomBoom Craycroft and Susan Tucker rode in one green golf cart while Nelson Yarbrough and David Wheeler rode in another. Harry, as promised, rode in a third cart, along with her two cats, Mrs. Murphy and Pewter; Susan’s golf bag; and a small thermos of hot tea sitting in the cupholder.

Brilliant sunshine flooded the fairways, yellow buds swelled on willows soon to open to a light green unique to the season. Spring, long and cool, promised more floral glory shortly. A ten-mile-an-hour wind from the west ensured that the day would feel cool even if the mercury climbed into the low sixties. As it was, the temperature at 2:30 hung in the high fifties, sweater weather.

The carts pulled up at the third tee. Despite a lingering light frost, people were eager to get out and begin a new season. Of course, this year their game would improve. They just knew it.

The foursome, having played together over the years, kept to a well-oiled routine. The ladies drove first off the ladies’ tees, then the men followed from the men’s tees.

BoomBoom, an 11 handicap, never one to dally, pulled her three wood from her bag, teed up, and hit a beauty straight down the long, long fairway. This course was built in 1927, land was cheap back then, and five-par holes could be built without destroying the budget. Four- and a few five-par holes were common on these grand old courses. Farmington didn’t need a lot of doglegs. If you could hit straight and true, read the roll of the land, you would enjoy playing the old course the old way. Still, sand traps, some tricky fairways, and deceptive sight lines here and there forced a player to think.

But then thinking is the easier part of golf; executing is another story. Susan, a 4 handicap, watched BoomBoom, another childhood friend. BoomBoom could drive. Her short game often let her down, but a woman really had to blast to match the tall blonde off the tee.

Susan was fussing. “Four wood? No, no, there’s that hidden little bunker up there.”

“Here. Just hit the damn thing.” Harry handed her a three wood.

Irritated by Harry’s directness, Susan stared at it. “All right.”

She grabbed the three wood. The banter with Harry energized her. She could take it all out on the ball.

Mrs. Murphy and Pewter were allowed on the course because they were not destructive. Plus, they could find golf balls better than the humans. The two cats watched Susan tee up.

She was a natural. Gifted with a fluid swing, Susan made golf look easy. As a child she had watched the incomparable Mary Pat Janss, dreaming to rise to the competence of her idol. As Mary Pat had played internationally, that was a far putt, as they say. But the older woman recognized talent and happily worked with Susan, who adjusted to Mary Pat’s take-no-prisoners attitude.

Golf had changed, as had everything, it seemed to Susan. Now promising young golfers needed sponsors and special coaches. Kids were slotted for same by ages twelve or thirteen. Could she have made it in the pros? Who knows? She didn’t dwell on it. If she dwelled on anything, it was becoming club champion so her name would be inscribed on the list that many times included Mary Pat’s.

Susan knocked one just a bit beyond BoomBoom’s. Both balls sat squarely in the middle of the fairway.

David, also quite good, smiled at Nelson as he walked up to the tee. “I’ll outdrive her. Then we can watch her frazzle.”

“You can outdrive her, it’s her second shot that kills you.” Nelson smiled. “That woman has such control, and of her temper too.”

Pewter found the entire process mysterious. “Why do people hit this little thing, get in a cart and drive to it?”

“We’ve been doing it since we were kittens. Why ask now?” replied Mrs. Murphy, the ever-sensible tiger cat.

The gray cat frowned. “I’ve asked ever since we were kittens. You never answer.”

“Because I can’t. Pewter, why worry about it? We get to leave the farm, we ride around in this silly cart, and they are blissfully happy.”

Pewter eyed her friend. “Then why do they curse so much?”