Game Day. Colleen has been writing to me and telling me on the phone to please remember to give our son one hug each day and to tell him that I love him.
I have not done this. Somehow I feel it would be awkward for both of us.
But this morning as we walked to the practice range, I told him this: “Here’s what I love about how you play golf, Jack. First, you never make excuses. I’ve heard other golfers out here complain about the course, the wind, the greens. Not you; when you play like a dog, you admit it. Second, you refuse to play scared. And third, you never quit. We’ve been in four events so far, and in each one we’ve had one of our playing partners walk off after blowing up the front nine.”
“We’ve got twelve tournaments here this winter,” he said. “This is our fifth. I’m just getting started, man.”
“That’s right,” I said. “That’s good.”
Then he asked me if I remembered telling him the story of Bobby Jones ripping up his scorecard and walking off the Old Course the first time he played there. “What hole was that?” he asked.
“Number 11. The par-3,” I said.
“We were walking past the bunker.”
“Hill bunker. Front left.”
“Yeah. You stopped at the bunker and told me the story.”
“Of course I remember. And all the times I caddied there, I always told the same story to my golfers. He took three swings in that bunker and couldn’t get out. So he quit.”
“The next time he played there, he won the British Open, is that right?”
“Yep. Nineteen twenty-six. On his way to winning the Grand Slam. No one’s ever done it again. But Jones grew up privileged; maybe he thought that just because he had this beautiful swing and he played so well, he shouldn’t have to struggle on a golf course. He had to learn stuff that you already know.”
Yesterday I surprised Jack and bowed out of our second practice round. I needed to rest my right knee. But most of all, I thought some time on his own out on the course would be a good break for him. He played his practice round well enough to win $45 from three other boys on the tour, and on the practice range this morning before round one began, it was nice to see him talking and joking around with the boys. I have to remember to step aside from time to time this winter.
The story of this first round of our fifth tournament is that after failing to make the cut last week, Jack had a mountain to climb, and he began the round by making five straight pars, which included dropping two putts from twenty feet. He then landed the 573-yard par-5 in two and missed the putt for eagle, the putt for birdie, and the putt for par. But instead of falling apart, he righted the ship and stood on the 18th tee at six over par. We would make the cut barring some disaster on the final hole. I wanted to play safe up the right side, but he bashed his driver 358 yards over the lake to the narrow island only 23 yards wide, then took a five-iron the remaining 223 yards over the second pond, leaving himself eighteen feet past the hole for another eagle putt, which stopped one inch from the hole. So with the birdie, he shot five over par and will probably be in the middle of the leaderboard after round one. A hell of a comeback from our last tournament.
The best thing that happened out there today was meeting Barry O’Neill, one of our playing partners, a brilliant young player from Waterford, Ireland, who finished with a 67 and has the lead going into tomorrow’s final round. Barry and I talked about Ireland all the way around, and when we finished, I asked him if he would play some practice rounds with Jack after our Christmas break, heading into our final six events. “It would mean a lot to me,” I said to him. “There’s really nothing I can teach Jack out here.”
“He hits the ball a fuckin’ mile,” he said when he shook my hand. Then he said, “Any father who goes to Scotland at age sixty to become a caddie for his boy is a hero to me. I’d be honored to help your son.”
You’ve got to love the Irish!