xxxvi

I DON’T KNOW how the local media got my flight schedule, but they were out in force when we landed in Baton Rouge. I gave another round of interviews just inside the gate at the airport. And, of course, everyone wanted me to plant the symbolic kiss on the trophy over and over again.

Getting my baggage and hauling it to my old Explorer brought me back to reality. Seeing it reminded me of times that weren’t long past: being dumped by Betsy, arrested in Florida, and bailed out in Baton Rouge. I knew there wasn’t anyone to blame for those bad times but myself, and that was the scary part. My tendency to repeat bad behavior instead of learning from it revealed that my attention span back then was so short I could have hidden my own Easter eggs. The obvious question: If I did it before, would I do it again?

Stewart would say that I had come too far to relapse. I wondered briefly if he had more faith in me than I did in myself. That was certainly true for a long time. But if he was right, the point of my recovery was that I now believed in myself as he did, and therefore no longer needed him.

As I drove back to our apartment at Tiger Town, I realized that I would be faced with the unpleasant task of sorting through Stewart’s things. It also occurred to me that arrangements had to be made for his funeral.

When I opened the door to Apartment 242, I knew immediately that something was wrong. The front room, which also served as my bedroom, was neat as a pin. No piles of clothes, scattered boxes of Titleists, assorted loose golf clubs and gloves, old pizza boxes, nothing. The place smelled clean, too.

My first thought was that perhaps Stewart had arranged for a cleaning lady, but I didn’t see any sign of my clothes anywhere. I walked to the bedroom. There was no sign of Stewart’s things. My clothes, not his, were in the closet. I couldn’t imagine how all of Stewart’s belongings had been removed. I always thought that “cleaning a place out” was just an expression, but if thieves had stolen Stewart’s stuff they had also taken the time to vacuum the place before leaving.

This was a curious development. So curious, in fact, that it made me feel a little queasy to be there. The place that had been so familiar to me now had a totally different feel to it. I decided to find the apartment manager. She would know what had happened to Stewart’s things.

Yvonne Garbarino had been running the Tiger Town apartments for as long as anyone could remember. She had learned to expect just about anything from the LSU students who made up the majority of her tenants. Owing to the Huey Long “populist” tradition in Louisiana (his campaign slogan was “Every man a king”), there were virtually no admission requirements to attend LSU other than a heartbeat. As a result, many of the students who lived at Tiger Town couldn’t find their way to a classroom if you left them a trail of bread crumbs. (I had met some who didn’t know what date the Fourth of July was celebrated on.) Not surprisingly, they often failed to survive the first semester and were back home in Carencro or Bossier City, working at the local McDonald’s, before their lease was up. Technically, these academic casualties remained liable for the monthly rent on their apartments until the end of their lease, but Garbarino had learned long ago that it was pointless to chase them down. So she just hung out FOR RENT signs and waited for the next crop of unsuspecting freshmen.

Needless to say, the apartments didn’t exactly receive loving care from these fly-by-night tenants. They often stank of vomit from excessive alcohol consumption, and LSU students seemed to have an affinity for detaching doors from their hinges without the use of tools. In short, the place was a mess.

As a result, Garbarino was grateful but otherwise uninterested in who had cleaned our apartment. In fact, she looked at me funny when I mentioned Stewart’s name.

“Stewart who?”

“Stewart Jones. The guy who rented the apartment.”

She gave me a bewildered look. “You rented this apartment. I don’t know any Stewart Jones.”

“No, ma’am. It was his apartment. I just came here to live with him a few months ago.”

She shook her head vigorously. “No, no, no.” She walked over to a filing cabinet and opened a drawer. Pulling out a yellow folder, she opened it, and held up a long printed form. “Look, here’s your lease. See your name there? Right there. It says ‘Bobby Reeves.’” She then pointed to the bottom of the page. “And here’s your signature.”

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Sure enough, it was my name and what looked like my signature on the lease.

I left the apartment manager’s office in a state of considerable confusion. I had figured on making a clean start, but this was more than I reckoned for. Life without Stewart was one thing; life as if he never existed was something else altogether.

Things got even more bizarre over the next several days. I checked at the Baton Rouge Country Club and the Country Club of Louisiana. Both clubs made it clear that they would be delighted to extend an honorary membership to the new U.S. Open champion. Remarkably, though, neither place had ever heard of Stewart; they simply knew me as a former LSU golfer.

In the middle of all this, the phone calls from agents and hangers-on intensified. I knew I needed to make some decisions about the flood of business opportunities that were coming my way, but it was awfully hard to concentrate on things when a chunk of my life had just disappeared into the Twilight Zone. After a couple of days, I decided I needed a change of scenery and went house hunting. It was a funny feeling, knowing that I could afford just about anything I wanted.

I’ve never been one to spend a lot of time making decisions (remember my marriage to Betsy?). I found what I wanted on the very first day: a three-bedroom, two-bath Louisiana plantation cottage across the street from the ninth hole at the Country Club of Louisiana. It was actually a model home used to sell other “spec” homes being built throughout the development. I told them I’d pay top dollar if the furniture came with it and I could move in that weekend. Because the developer was enthralled with the idea of having the U.S. Open champion in the neighborhood, he cut through a lot of red tape to make it happen.

As you might imagine, it was a pretty easy move. I just threw all of my clothes and golf equipment in the back of the Explorer and drove from Tiger Town to my new home. The realtor had the utilities switched to my name, and that was it.

Over the next several days, I settled on an agent/manager named Allen Sole. Sole was in partnership with Vinnie Giles, a great career amateur player who represented a number of pros on Tour. My father had checked them out for me. Sole also happened to be a lawyer, which my dad said was important. He quickly set about parsing through the various offers I had been getting and contacting additional sources of endorsements. He also set me up with the agency’s financial consultant, and we arrived at a budget for living expenses. Everything over that went into an investment fund comprised of three well-recognized mutual funds. As Sole explained, they didn’t invest their clients’ money in restaurants, bars, or other high-risk ventures.

Frankly, I was astonished at my sudden change of fortune. The year wasn’t quite half over, and I had banked over two million bucks in prize money. Even after Uncle Sam took his share, I had more money than I knew what to do with. Besides that, Sole assured me that I would make even more in off-course income. As he put it, “A guy who wins twice in his first year out—and one of ’em is the U.S. Open—can pick and choose his deals. We’ll have Nike biddin’ against Callaway, and Callaway biddin’ against Titleist. And that’s just for clubs. Then we’ll talk about shoes, shirts, hats, balls. Then we go after the nongolf products, like cars.” Suddenly, people were telling me I was virtually set for life.

Unfortunately, none of my good fortune kept that nice house I had just bought from feeling empty at night. Every time there was a knock on the door, I half-expected to find Stewart standing outside. But it always turned out to be a delivery man.

It wasn’t too bad at first, because I had the run of the place at the Country Club of Louisiana, practicing and playing there all day. Allen Sole came over and spent several days with me, too, so we could go over all the offers he was getting. The Titleist folks offered to fly us to their club factory to arrange for a custom fitting and to hammer out an equipment contract. So did Callaway. There were tons of requests from the media for interviews as well. On top of that, I had to find a new caddie before I got back out on Tour. All of this had to be done in less than two weeks, so I stayed pretty busy.

Even so, I did give some thought to finding someone to share time with. But for several reasons I was reluctant to slip back into my old bar-hopping, skirt-chasing days. I had “been there and done that,” and nothing good came of it. Plus, my divorce from Betsy hurt like hell, and I wasn’t anxious to get burned again.

It wasn’t just that holding me back, either. As I looked back at the women I had hooked up with on the road, it was pretty clear that I didn’t have very good judgment about the fairer sex. Stewart had taught me a lot about golf and life, but I wasn’t confident he had made me any smarter about women. Allen Sole had already warned me that my newfound wealth was bound to attract a lot of women who could separate me from my money faster than a bad case of the yips.

As a result, the idea of female companionship scared the hell out of me. While I was at home, I tried to occupy my evenings hanging pictures and what-not, but that only got me so far. I also bought a big-screen television with home theater sound and spent a couple of nights watching a video of the final round of the Open. But when I reached the point that I wanted the pizza guy to watch ESPN with me, I knew it was time for me to get out of the house.

On the last night before I was scheduled to leave for Chicago to play in the Western Open, I decided to get a steak at Ruth’s Chris Steak House. In addition to great steaks, it was a place that was dimly lit, so it was possible to sit quietly without being bothered. It’s not that I wasn’t grateful to sign autographs or to receive the congratulations of well-meaning fans, but I hadn’t yet become comfortable with that part of my success. As Allen Sole told me, it was something that I would have to get used to. I just wasn’t ready for that yet.

I found a table in a corner. It was next to the bar, and I could see the television that was over the bar. The Yankees were playing the Red Sox. Andy Pettite was pitching against Pedro Martinez. I expected a good game.

I had just started on my steak when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned and froze. It was Betsy, and God, she looked every bit as good as when I first met her.

“Hello, Bobby.”

I quickly wiped my mouth with my napkin. “Uh, hi, Betsy.”

“I didn’t mean to surprise you.”

“No, that’s okay,” I said quickly.

“I just wanted to congratulate you. I watched it on television. That was terrific. I know you must be very happy.” She smiled in a way that made my heart rate double.

“Well, thanks.” I hesitated and then offered, “Care to join me?” I gestured at the empty chairs around my table. “I think I can squeeze you into my party.”

She looked across the room and then back at me. “No,” she said slowly, “I’m afraid I’m with someone.” She smiled sweetly before adding, “But thanks.” She appeared to be about to say something more, but thought better of it and turned to walk away. As she did, she called back over her shoulder. “Congratulations again.”

I (and virtually every other man in the place) watched her cross the room. She stopped at a table where a tall, good-looking guy in a blue suit stood up and pulled back her chair for her. I hated him instantly. “Bastard,” I said out loud without realizing it.

A sharp pain reminded me that I had never really gotten over Betsy. The breakup of a marriage is never just one person’s fault, but I knew that the lion’s share of the blame for our divorce was mine. I briefly entertained the fantasy that Betsy was making an overture, even though she had not been the least bit flirtatious. And I wondered whether I should have asked to see her or said something that would have shown her how much I had changed. Unfortunately, that opportunity had come and gone.

Suddenly, I wasn’t so hungry anymore. I paid my check and left.