vi

WE DROVE TO a hamburger joint on the outskirts of the LSU campus called the Hontas Hutch, and Stewart bought lunch. I wasn’t used to mooching this much and reminded him that I intended to repay him. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “I told you before, there’s plenty of time for you to pay me back. I’d like you to focus on more important things for the time being.”

He also reminded me that the next order of business was repaying the stolen money and negotiating a reasonable plea bargain on my pending criminal charge. As he put it, you can’t make birdies from behind bars. Fortunately, I hadn’t had time to spend much of the money before I was caught. While we couldn’t confirm the number, my best estimate was that all but $180 or so had been recovered when I was arrested.

Stewart seemed pleased. “We can handle that. If we can get that money to your friend Boo quickly, he may be willing to ask the DA to go easy on you.”

I shook my head. “I’m not so sure of that. I imagine Boo feels like I burned him pretty badly.”

Stewart was more optimistic. “When he finds out you did this right after your wife threw you out, he’s got to feel sympathy for you.”

I grimaced at the mention of Betsy. “What you don’t understand is that this isn’t the first time Boo’s been done with me.”

Stewart smiled a little. “Are you referring to that little altercation you had at English Turn?”

The “little altercation” Stewart was referring to had occurred during the Tulane Invitational our last year together. I had really been drinking a lot, even more than usual. Back then, I thought playing with a buzz was cool.

Of course, now I know better. But at the time, I thought drinking was part of the game. It took hitting bottom, I guess, for me to realize that I had seriously overrated the benefits of alcohol on my golf game.

For one thing, alcohol tends to destroy your equilibrium (although, being drunk, I usually didn’t notice), and balance is obviously critical to good golf. I mean, there’s a reason you never saw Jack Nicklaus sway on an important shot. Besides that, getting on the juice usually numbs your touch around the greens, which dramatically affects scoring.

Anyway, one of the guys on the team at the time made a comment about my drinking. In retrospect, he was probably trying to help me. But confronting a problem drinker is not for the faint of heart. Trust me, an alcoholic will do whatever it takes to preserve his access to his favorite drug, and he can be very mean about it. Not only that, but alcoholics are masters at changing the subject and directing attention away from their problem.

In my case, I counterattacked from my only position of strength, which was golf. I was the best player on the team, drunk or sober, and I knew it. So I challenged the poor guy, whose name was Sandy Rose. “Two hundred bucks, low round.” Even though he didn’t have the money, he was too embarrassed to refuse.

In my twisted way of thinking, I guess I figured that shooting a low score would prove I didn’t have a drinking problem. Determined to show Sandy up, I went out and shot 65, one of my best competitive rounds ever. Then I hunted down my teammate, who was on the putting green with the rest of our team.

“Well,” I said with my chest stuck out. “Let’s compare cards, Sandy, and settle our bet. I made it around in seven under. Can you beat 65?”

Sandy just looked down. Boo then stepped between us. “Bahbee, I’m only gonna say this one time. Let it go.”

I let out a snort of disgust. “Yeah, Boo,” I said sarcastically, “I guess you’re right. I guess two hundred dollars is enough tuition for Sandy to learn his lesson.”

I don’t remember what happened next. According to witnesses, Boo dropped me with a right uppercut that would have done Joe Frazier proud. If Howard Cosell had been there, he’d have been shouting from the corner “Down goes Reeves! Down goes Reeves!”

I woke up alone in the pro shop, slumped in the back corner next to a rack of putters. To this day, I have no idea how I got there. When my head finally cleared, I walked slowly and unsteadily back to the team van. The guys said nothing to me for the rest of the trip and damned little for the rest of the year. Not that I wanted to talk to anybody anyway. My jaw was so sore I lived on Jell-O and mashed potatoes for two weeks.

I slid back in my chair and shook my head. I didn’t know whether to be more flattered or scared by Stewart’s knowledge of my past. “One of these days you’re going to explain how you know so much about me.”

He just smiled. “One of these days you’ll understand it without any explanation from me.”

“Whatever,” I said for lack of anything else. “My point is that you shouldn’t count too heavily on Boo giving me a second chance, because he may feel that he already has.”

Stewart wiped his mouth and folded his paper napkin neatly on his plate. “You should give Boo more credit than that. He really admires your golfing skills, even if he does think you’re a bit of a jerk.”

I could tell that Stewart had some plan in mind that would get me out of trouble. He really seemed to think that Boo, the man whose trust I betrayed, would go to bat for me.

Under ordinary circumstances, I would have scoffed at the idea, but these weren’t ordinary circumstances. Stewart remained very much a mystery to me at the moment, but one thing was clear: He had an innate understanding of people that was unlike anything I had ever seen. In the short time I had known him, I hadn’t found him to be wrong about anything. I wasn’t going to start betting against him now.

Besides that, Boo was Cajun. There were no more generous or forgiving people on this earth than Cajuns (short for “Acadians”). I guess it had to do with their history. They were run out of France and then Nova Scotia before settling in south Louisiana in the 1700s. It said something about their spirit that these migrants—with names like Boudreaux, LaFleur, and Fontenot—turned the most mosquito-infested, hot, and humid region of North America into a place famous all over the world for its music, food, and joie de vivre. Cajuns didn’t dwell on the past, which I suppose accounted for Stewart’s optimism about Boo helping me.

When we got into the Explorer, I asked Stewart, “Where to?”

“Today we practice on bermuda greens, so let’s head over to the Baton Rouge Country Club,” he said as casually as if he were a lifelong member there.

“But that’s a private club,” I protested. In case he missed the point, I added, “In fact, it’s a very private club.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Stewart said breezily. “I’ve made arrangements.”

“Here we go again,” I muttered as I put the Explorer in gear. Then I caught the significance of something he had said earlier. “What do you mean, today we practice on bermuda greens? Aside from the Country Club of Louisiana, that’s all there is around here.”

He looked at me as if I had asked a stupid question. “Don’t you play some events on bermuda and some on bent?” I nodded. “Well, then, don’t you think we should practice on both?”

I was having a little trouble following him on this one. “Are you saying that we’re going to practice at the Country Club of Louisiana, too?”

He smiled. “Well, not today but probably tomorrow.”

I shook my head. “Man, that’s even tougher to get into than Baton Rouge CC. They’ve got a guarded security gate, and you can’t get past unless a member’s left your name there.”

“Precisely,” he said. “That’s why I’ve made arrangements there as well.” He seemed irritated at my lack of faith in his planning. “You don’t just stroll up to these places, you know.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to suggest that you didn’t know how to get into a private club.” I hesitated, uncertain of what to say next.

Stewart seemed to enjoy my discomfort. “You really meant to say that you didn’t see how a caddie could arrange these things, didn’t you?”

I laughed. “Okay, maybe that did occur to me. You know, it’s not like either one of us is a member of the privileged class at the moment.”

At that point, we pulled into the parking lot at Baton Rouge’s oldest country club. No doubt, the place was really out in the “country” when it was founded, but the Baton Rouge Country Club was now right in the middle of town, a great convenience for its members. In fact, many of them lunched there on a regular basis during the business week because it was so close to the downtown area. As we arrived just before one o’clock, a small procession of cars was leaving the club, presumably headed back to the office.

Stewart grabbed my clubs and walked confidently toward the pro shop. I followed meekly along, still a little uncertain that we would receive the warm welcome my caddie apparently expected.

Stewart propped my bag on the stand next to the pro shop and signaled for me to follow him inside. As he stepped into the well-furnished shop, he hailed the pro behind the counter.

“Hello, Doug, just wanted to let you know we’re here.” The head professional, Douglas Stutes, looked up and, to my surprise, responded in a friendly tone, “Great, Stewart, good to see you again.” He looked over at me. “You’re Bobby Reeves, right? I remember you from several years back. You were on the LSU golf team, weren’t you?”

I managed a surprised “Yeah, that’s right.” Then I smiled and added, “Thanks for remembering me.”

Stutes smiled back and said to both of us, “You guys make yourselves at home. If you need anything, just let me know.”

Stewart nodded and said, “Thanks, Doug. Appreciate the hospitality.” He touched me on the arm to signal our departure. I waved good-bye and walked out with him toward the putting green.

Once we were clear of the pro shop, I said, “How’d you know Doug Stutes?”

He shrugged. “Oh, everybody knows Doug.”

“Yeah, but not everybody gets to walk out here without a member sponsoring him.”

Stewart seemed a trifle annoyed with me. “Bobby, I told you that I had made arrangements. Now, do you want to talk about this all day, or do you want to get some work in on your short game?”

He threw three balls down on the practice putting green. Pointing to a cup about fifteen feet away, he said, “Roll them into that hole.”

I held my trusty 8802 in my hands. It had an old leather-wrap grip that felt as comfortable as a well-worn baseball glove. While I frequently changed other clubs (particularly wedges), I had stuck with that old putter ever since my dad gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday.

I missed all three. Stewart kicked them back toward me without unfolding his arms from his chest and said, “What are you trying to do when you putt?”

I had to think about my answer. “Keep my wrists from breaking and hold my head still.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want you to think like that any more. Golf is about feel. Look at where you want the ball to go and send it there.”

“But I have to have a swing thought.”

Stewart stood firm. “No you don’t.” He paused for a moment. “Who was the best putter on the golf team at LSU?”

That was easy. “Boo,” I said quickly.

“What impressed you the most about the way he putted?”

I had to think for a second. Then it occurred to me. “When he got over the ball, he stared at the line like he was trying to burn a path to the hole with his eyes.”

Stewart snapped his fingers. “Exactly.” Pointing to the imaginary line between me and the hole, he said, “Boo was thinking about where the ball needed to go, not about whether he should keep his head still. If you want to putt like that, you need to do the same thing.”

He pointed to the three balls that he had rolled back to me. “Try it again. Focus only on the line of the putt, and have fun sending each putt down the line.”

I figured I had nothing to lose, so I just looked down the line, took aim, and let the blade push the ball at the hole. It went in. I did it again. It went in again. And I did it again. And for the third time it went in.

“Whoa,” I said, “I think we’re on to something here.”

Stewart just laughed and shook his head. “Bobby, you’ve got to learn to play this way. One reason you’re making mistakes on the course is because you’re too busy with your mechanics. It’s more obvious with your putting, but I think you do the same thing with your other shots.”

We spent the next hour on four- to six-footers. Stewart stressed that these were the putts that won tournaments. “When you’re confident with these, your whole game is elevated,” he explained. “Once you become a really good short putter, you’re not afraid of long putts, chips, or pitches. You know you can get down in two. That relieves the pressure and tension, and then your whole game gets better.”

I frowned. “But I dread these putts.”

Stewart grinned at me. “Everyone does. Don’t forget that. And everyone feels they have to make them. So they get tense, which makes everything that much harder.” He chuckled and added, “You’ve got to putt like you don’t give a damn.”

He showed me a little routine to follow before each putt. It was intended to enhance feel by distracting me from mechanical thoughts. It also took my mind off the consequences of missing one of those four- to six-footers. The idea was that I would be too busy following the routine to think of the result.

By late afternoon I was tired. “This is more golf than I’ve played in one day in a long, long time,” I told Stewart. “In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever practiced like this.”

Stewart furrowed his brow. “So how did you practice before?”

“I hit balls until I found a swing thought that worked, you know, like making a bigger shoulder turn or following through down the line. Then I took that to the first tee and played.”

He shook his head. “And what did you do when that didn’t work on the course?”

I shrugged. “If I started hitting it bad, I’d try other swing thoughts until something worked.” I paused. “Sometimes it did; sometimes it didn’t.”

“Amazing,” he said. “Just amazing.” He swung my bag over his shoulder and began to walk with me toward the car. “I don’t know how you ever got as good as you did.”

As we unlocked the Explorer and dumped my clubs in the back, I realized that I hadn’t had anything to drink in three days. I was no longer feeling quite as bashful about my freeloading.

“What do you say we grab ourselves a couple of beers?”

Stewart’s reaction was unmistakable. “That’s been much of your undoing, hasn’t it?”

I had handled all of his criticism thus far pretty well, but I felt stung by what he said. “Fine,” I said sharply, “we don’t have to get anything if you don’t want to.”

As usual, Stewart’s tone didn’t change. “Bobby, you seem to forget that you would have played at Augusta if you hadn’t drunk yourself sick at Garden City. What does it take to get your attention?”

He shook his head in resignation before continuing. “But I’m not going to decide that for you. I merely made an observation. If you want to drink, I’ll stop and get you a six-pack.”

For some reason, it didn’t surprise me that Stewart knew about what happened the previous year at the U.S. Amateur at the Garden City Golf Club on Long Island. I had made it to the semifinals but drank too much before the match and got really sick, wretching and shaking like crazy. Not surprisingly, my opponent made short work of me and earned the invitation to play in the Masters that goes to the two finalists of our national amateur championship.

I could tell that Stewart’s offer to buy beer was a test. And maybe, deep down inside, I knew that he was just as right about my drinking as he had been about everything else. So I reluctantly declined the offer.

My next test was right around the corner.