I’m not sure how long I sat in Arnold Palmer’s copilot seat. It was calm and peaceful up in the clouds thousands of feet above the ground. I gazed out the front windshield of that jet plane and images of my life began to flash in front of me. Playing Little League baseball and striking out the side to win the game. My dad, who coached the team, took us to Terry’s Pizza to celebrate afterward and gave me the game ball. It was one of the happiest moments of my childhood. Moving forward to high school and seeing Mary Alice Davis for the first time in the hallway by the gym. It was the first day of fall football practice, and the cheerleaders were also practicing. Mary Alice was taking a sip of water from the fountain and some had dribbled down her chin. She turned and looked right at me and was oblivious to the droplets of moisture that ran down her chin and neck. Not me. I caught every single detail. Her blond hair, the long legs sprouting from her cheerleader’s skirt, and the wondrous smile she gave me as she brushed past.
Then I saw that same smile on our wedding day. Mary Alice at twenty-two in her wedding dress. I kissed her on the minister’s cue.
As this memory faded, another less pleasant one took its place. I was gazing at a scoreboard with my hands stuffed in the pockets of my shorts. I felt a hand on my shoulder and a voice in my ear. “You’ll make it next time, Randy. One measly stroke.”
I knew that voice. It was Aubrey Wickenden, my teammate at Alabama. I had played number one on the team, and “Aubs,” as we had called him, was number two. Aubs had gotten his tour card during Q school and I hadn’t. My score had been better than his going into the final round, but he had closed with a sixty-eight and I had fired a seventy-four.
Then the scoreboard faded, and I was sitting in the kitchen of my parents’ small home. My elbows were propped on the same table where my daughter, Davis, had eaten egg custard pie after Graham’s funeral.
Now, I was at this table many years earlier, and Dad was breaking down why I should go to law school and forgo my dreams of the PGA Tour. “You’ve got a good woman, Randy. She’s already agreed to work to help put you through school. Not every wife would be so supportive. She’s pregnant, and you can’t shirk your responsibilities and play the mini tours for another year in the hopes that Q school next year will work out different. Your mom and I can help you these next three years, and you can work during school yourself to make ends meet. When you graduate, you’ll have something that I never had. You’ll have a degree that will allow you to practice a profession.” He had gazed down at his thick hands then. “Look at these, Randy.” When I didn’t look, he had grabbed my own hands and gripped them with his own, forcing me to meet his intense gaze. “Randy, all I’ve got is my ability to use my hands. I’m a bricklayer, and I’m only as good as my last day’s work.” I had protested, arguing that he was more than that. That he owned his own company. That he had a crew of men who worked under him and who respected him.
But Dad had just chuckled and shaken his head. “They’d leave me in a half a second if I missed a day of work or if I didn’t work harder than all of them. If you get a law degree, you’ll have a job for the rest of your life. You’ll have security that I could only have dreamed of.”
I had slammed my fist down on the table and stood, turning my back on the man and the words I did not want to hear. “Dad, I missed the tour by one stroke.”
“Son, you have a pregnant wife and it’s time to stop chasing rainbows.” Then he had paused and delivered the line that had stuck with me forever. “There comes a point in every man’s life when he realizes that he’s not going to be Joe Namath.”
The image faded and was replaced by Coleman Coliseum in Tuscaloosa. My law school graduation. Dad shaking my hand on the gym floor with a proud look on his face, Mom kissing and then pinching my cheek, and Mary Alice holding two-year-old Davis in her arms. Had I been happy then? Proud? My three years of law school had been a blur of outlines and exams punctuated by summer clerkships in Birmingham and Huntsville and baby Davis’s milestones. I had made it through and gotten my degree. A few months later, I had passed the bar exam and there was a similar scene on the steps of the capital in Montgomery, where the new inductees to the Alabama State Bar had taken a photograph.
Now, the images began picking up speed as if they were on fast forward. Funny how childhood and early-adult memories remained frozen in time and I could remember every detail, but my years of being a young attorney and father were a blur. The only pictures that were indelible were those of my children.
Davis’s first steps in our small apartment in Tuscaloosa. Stumbling across the carpet with her arms held out, reaching for me and falling into my arms.
Our first Christmas in the new house on Locust, when Davis had stayed up all night waiting for Santa, finally passing out under the tree only to wake up and find the one present she’d asked him for leaning against the fireplace. Her first set of golf clubs. A woman’s set with the shafts broken down so they’d fit her. The squeal that came out of her lungs when she opened her eyes that morning must have woken the neighbors.
Graham’s birth at Huntsville Hospital. Holding my son for the first time and counting his fingers and toes, not realizing that I had tears in my eyes until my wife touched my face. Gazing at Mary Alice, whose face shone with radiance despite eight hours of labor. And then minutes later, introducing Davis, who was wearing a pink sweatshirt with Big Sister embroidered across the front, to her little brother.
And Davis’s first golf tournament, the parent-child at Twickenham, where we’d finished second. The framed picture of us together, with Davis holding the tiny trophy and my arm around her, held a prominent place in our living room. Davis was ten years old, and her thick brown hair was tousled underneath a white visor. I could still remember our family’s celebration dinner afterward at Boots’ Steakhouse, where I shared the prime rib with my daughter, and she peppered me with questions about my time on the Alabama golf team and the mini tours and who I thought was better, Jack Nicklaus or Tom Watson. Mary Alice barely got a word in, but her face beamed with pride. We had all ordered blackberry cobbler for dessert, and Graham, who was three and finally out of a high chair, got ice cream all over his T-shirt and pants.
Then the dark visions came. The pediatrician’s office when the blood tests showed that Graham’s white blood cell count was sky high. The awful nights when my son screamed and vomited from the pain and nausea of the radiation and chemo treatments. Last and worst of all, his death at the hospital.
And the emptiness that had followed. The hollow numbness of having lost someone whom I gladly would have died for. How many times had I wished it were me six feet under the ground and not my beautiful boy.
Tears began to stream down my face, and I brushed them away.
The sky was now dark in front of me. I turned to my left, but Arnold Palmer was gone. I had the same sense of blankness.
I took a deep breath and, remembering what I had done the last time, I closed my eyes and slowly counted to five. As I did, I thought about the last thing Arnold had said to me. The more you’ve lost. The harder you’ve been knocked down . . . Those losses make the taste of victory that much sweeter. . . . But you’ll never know, unless you pick yourself up off the ground and go after what you want.
“What do I want?” I whispered, feeling a mixture of anxiety and adrenaline come over me as I slowly opened my eyes. I almost smiled as I took in the view that I had known best over the past decade.
I was gazing across my desk at the portrait of the thirteenth hole of Augusta.
“What do I want?” I repeated, speaking louder and hoping that Bobby Jones or Ben Hogan or Arnold Palmer or maybe even Johnnie would fire an answer back to me through the painting.
But the office was dead quiet.
I rose to my feet and walked around my desk to the portrait. I ran my index finger over the edges of the painted bunkers and, behind them, the azaleas. “What do I want?” I asked again for the third time.
I wasn’t exactly sure, but I thought I knew the answer to another question. I knew what I didn’t want.
I don’t want to jump.
After thinking the words, I spoke them out loud. “I don’t want to jump.”
I took a tentative step back from the painting and sat on the edge of the desk. My hand felt something rough and I turned to see the crumpled-up note with Ellie Timberlake’s request for lunch next week. I carefully straightened out the paper and placed it next to the telephone. I let out a deep breath and again peered at the painting across the room.
“What now, Darb?” Bobby Jones had taught self-control. Hogan had stood for resilience. And Arnold Palmer had shown with his words and actions the wisdom of believing in yourself and going after what you want.
But according to my dead friend, I still had one visit left. Four rounds . . . four heroes . . .
Could it be Jack? I wondered, grabbing my briefcase and walking out of the office. And if so, what would the Golden Bear have to tell me that the other three legends hadn’t shared?
I smiled as I stepped outside and felt the sunshine on my face. For the first time in I couldn’t remember when, I was excited about something.