Toby Olson - Seaview

As the clubhouse emptied and Earl came in to take over for Sammy while he played, Sammy reached under the glass counter and got out his fedora with the feather in it. He put the hat on, pulled the brim down to tuck it tight, broke open a cellophane bag of long “Florida” tees from his special stock, and turned and smiled at Earl.

“Look all right, do I?” he asked. “I better, I drew the Chair.”

“Who-ha,” Earl said flatly. “Just the right start to the season.”

“Better believe it,” Sammy said. “See ya,” and he left the clubhouse and headed for the first tee, where the other three members of his foursome — the Chair, Commander Wall, and Eddie Costa, the fisherman — would be waiting. They were going to be third in line to hit off, but the Chair would, for sure, have them up there and ready.

When all the golfers had left, Chief Wingfoot quit his place at the side of the door and walked down the road toward the light-house. He would turn to the right when he got there, head along the rough of the sixth fairway that ran along the ocean’s cliff edge, and when he got down to the sixth tee, he would cut through the rough to the sea perch. He would sit there and watch the ocean a while, his people’s golf course behind him. When the foursome that Chair and Sammy were in reached that hole — and that would be awhile from now — he’d have a few things to do. When he got to the tee, he cut through the long weed to the dune’s edge. He was high above the sea, the weeds tall behind him, and he sat on a ledge of shale, his feet hanging over the cliff. The tide was low: a few long clean bars, with still pools between them and the beach, were visible above the water, and a few herring gulls drifted out and along the cliff at about the Chief’s level. He took a piece of weed and put it in his mouth for the moisture. Below him, a few children, small at this distance, dug in the sand, their mother watching them from under a bright beach umbrella. He began to think of the shellfish on the Cape and the Quahog People.

There was little of the conventional in the way most of the men at Seaview played golf. There had never been a real pro at the course, and Sammy had the job because he was a native, played a respectable game, and was willing to work long hours for little pay. The Golf Commission had renewed his contract each year for the past five. His father, a retired fisherman now doing a little charter-boat sport work in Florida, had been a respected member of the Cape’s fishing community, and the Chair’s objections each time the contract came up for review were disregarded by the other members of the Commission. They were loyal to the father, and they had a liking for the easy-going nature of the son.

In the old days, before the tourist boom, golf was one of the only recreations available down on the Cape. The shape of the course was such that most of the tourists disdained to play it when they did start coming. Though Earl and Chip had done a lot for the tees and greens, the fairways looked like somebody’s backyard that had never been seeded. Earl kept the weeds low as best he could, but the fairways were mostly tufts of weed, occasional small carpets of wild rye, patches of grass, dandelions, and sand, with bits of stone here and there and shards of broken clamshells up from the beach. The shells were there because when it rained, the gulls, who dropped clams from great heights in order to break them for food, drifted in over the course with their catches and let them fall along the fairways.

When Sammy reached the first tee, the Chair was looking the other way, busily commenting on the hits of the foursome in front of them. When they had all hit, he turned and saw Sammy’s hat and new feather. Fred Wall was looking too, but his mouth didn’t drop open the way the Chair’s did. He was able to keep his commanding officer’s demeanor in the face of such things. The Chair snapped his mouth shut and kept his peace; he would not give Sammy the satisfaction of comment.

When the foursome ahead of them had reached the green, Sammy went to the tee to get ready. Sammy was a two-handicapper, the Chair had six strokes, Wall had his fourteen, and Eddie Costa had nine. Sammy had the honors, and he stuck one of his special long tees in the ground and put a new ball on it, the ball standing a good two inches above the grass. He had a wide stance and a very fluid if abbreviated swing. He cracked the ball off its high perch and curled it a good way out to the right of the fairway, where it rolled up the last rise and quit about fifty yards from the green. The Chair, though his hit was long and straight, caught a tuft of grass, bounced high in the air, and came up about seventy yards short, on a line between the two small traps on the left and right front. The Chair got a lot of hip into his swing, and just before he hit the ball he had the habit of lurching slightly in a little jump in the direction of flight.

Eddie Costa was the loosest hitter of the four. He teed up and took a stance that was very open, his left foot pointing directly down the fairway. He gripped the club like a fishing pole held for a side-style surf cast, and he got ready by turning the head in small circles halfway up into his back-swing. Just before he hit, he banged the club head hard on the ground behind the ball. When he clouted it, the force of his swing caused him to come off both feet, and he would wind up in a slight crouch, his feet wide apart, his toes pointing down the fairway, his eyes intent on watching the ball. His hit, as usual, was low and straight: it kicked up a puff of sand about a hundred and fifty yards out at the top of a low hill in the fairway and shot in the air for another thirty yards. It got a good bounce and came to rest on the down side of the hill to the right, about eighty-five yards away from the green. Fred Wall had the only conventional shot in the group. His swing was very careful, practiced, and mechanical. He was a little to the left, but he was straight. He finished in a good spot, on the hill to the left of the green, about fifty yards out, with no traps between him and the flagstick.

Eddie Costa played his second shot in a style that was distinctly different from his first. Eighty-five yards away, and with the edge of the trap between him and the pin, he elected to play a pitch-and-run shot. He had nothing above a six-iron in his bag. He never needed the loftier clubs, and for his shot he selected a four-iron. Still using his fishing-pole grip, this time he choked up significantly on the club shaft; his left hand was well down on the grip, and there was a good four inches between it and his right. He planted his feet beside each other, digging in by kicking at the sand and grass tufts. This time he did not bang the club head on the ground but instead took a series of short half-swings, moving the club back and forth from his shoulder to the ground behind the ball. The half-swings got stronger and quicker, and at the end of them he hit. The ball shot off the club face, again very low and straight. It hit about fifteen yards short of the trap, approached it, entered it, and rolled through it, jumping a little when it hit the front lip. It came to rest in the middle of the green, about twenty-five feet from the cup.

“Good shot, Eddie, good shot!” the Chair yelled over from where he stood behind his ball. Sammy took his hat off and waved it. Wall lifted the club in his hand slightly off the ground.

After the Chair and Wall had hit safely to the green, both finishing about the same distance away as Eddie, Sammy kicked his ball around in search of a good lie. Chair was walking up to the green, but he watched Sammy, making sure that he did not move his ball closer than it was. Sammy glanced up and saw Chair watching. He grinned, and the Chair turned away. Then Sammy found a place, a good tuft of grass, and he hit up. His wedge was high and true, and he finished inside of the other three.