ix

THERE WERE BOTH spiritual and physical benefits to Stewart’s program. All that running had melted my beer gut. I was rounding into the best shape of my life.

I noticed several benefits as the weight dropped off. I felt better, for one thing. And I had more energy. But the biggest surprise was that I gained ten yards off the tee and about a half club with my irons.

I was feeling better from the neck up as well. Stewart noticed it even before I did. I was smiling again, and I had regained a sense of humor.

Our practice sessions together became more playful. Stewart reminded me over and over again that playing golf should be fun, even at the professional level. He believed that I would play my best only if I recaptured the spirit I had when I played the game as a boy.

One day he asked me during the middle of a session, “Do you remember how you felt after a bad hole when you were a kid?”

I had to think for a moment. “Yeah,” I said finally. “I just pulled my ball out of the cup and hurried to the next tee. I couldn’t wait to play the next hole.”

“Exactly,” Stewart said, nodding. “You were so happy to be playing that you wouldn’t allow a bad hole to ruin your fun. That’s the spirit you need to play well.”

I understood what he meant. After what I had been through, I was learning to count my blessings. Making double bogey wasn’t nearly as big a deal as it had been before I saw the inside of a jail cell. I knew now that there were a lot worse things that could happen to me than three-putting.

As a result, I was able to recall how simply I had played the game before the fear of failure and other adult misgivings crowded into my life. Back then, I approached every game involving a ball with the same carefree attitude. Just show me where to hit it, and I was off and running. Golf was no different. I played it well from the very beginning, with no thoughts of swing angles or other distractions. It wasn’t until later, when I attached my ego to whatever score I happened to shoot, that I lost much of the unadulterated joy that golf can bring to those who play it. That’s when I started to press, and that’s when my game (and my life) developed the ragged edges that eventually landed me in jail.

In the short time I had known Stewart, he had shown himself to be a man of uncommon wisdom and spirituality. He also had a good head for golf and understood that I needed to return to a childlike way of playing the game. What I didn’t know was that he was every bit the player that I was.

I discovered that fact, much to my surprise, one afternoon at the cow pasture. We were just about done for the day. After I made a couple of sloppy swings, Stewart made a critical comment about my lack of effort. Without thinking, I popped off, “I’d like to see you do better.”

He gave me a queer look and fell silent for a moment. Without saying a word, he reached into my bag and pulled out my seven-iron. His hands assumed the classic Vardon grip on the club, and he made a couple of practice swings. It was the first time I had ever seen him swing a golf club.

He then looked out at the middle flag, which was right at 150 yards from where we stood. Pointing to it, he said casually, “How about closest to the hole?”

“You’re on,” I said.

He rolled a ball over from the nearest pile, stood next to it, and made one of the smoothest golf swings I’d ever seen. As he came to the ball, he literally flicked his wrists through the hitting area. The ball took off high and slightly left of the flag. Just as it reached its apex, it rolled over to the right and fell softly to the earth, no more than eight feet or so from the flag.

I was stunned. When I recovered, I stammered, “That was no caddie’s swing.”

He laughed in my face. “You don’t think caddies can play golf?”

“Not like that,” I countered. “At least not any caddie I’ve ever known. I don’t know when or where, but you’ve been a player. That was no amateur swing.”

He notched his eyebrows in slight disdain. “Are you disparaging amateur golf?” Handing me my seven-iron, he added, “Bobby Jones was an amateur, you know, and he whipped the stuffing out of the professionals of his day.” Just in case I was thinking of challenging him, he added, “You can check the record for yourself if you doubt me at all.”

I started to argue the point, but somehow I knew he was right. Besides, I still had a shot to play. Getting inside Stewart’s ball was going to be tough.

I set a ball in a nice lie, settled into my address, and pulled the trigger. It was a good swing but a little off. I had come over the top ever so slightly, and the ball drifted left of the flag. It ended up about twenty-five feet away.

“You win,” I said, trying to sound gracious. “I hope the stakes weren’t high.”

Stewart chuckled. “We were only playing for pride.”

“Where’d you learn to hit that high-cut shot?”

He shrugged. “Actually, I tend to draw the ball. But, to get that ball close, the high fade was the better shape.”

I whistled. “You mean you just dialed that up on your first swing?”

He nodded. “You just picture it in your mind, and let it go.” He finished wiping the club clean. “It’s all a matter of trusting your swing.”

I remember thinking at the time that there was something eerily familiar about the long, syrupy swing I had just witnessed. Distinctively beautiful in its unhurried grace, it recalled an image that drifted along the outer edges of my mind, just out of reach. It was like the proverbial name that stays on the tip of your tongue, a faded image whose shadowy contours are not quite distinct enough to make out. It would come to me much later.

It was now approaching fall. One morning about a week or so later, Stewart sat me down after breakfast and handed me a form to complete. It was an application for Q-School.

“It’s not due for another two weeks,” he said, “but it’s not the sort of thing we should put off.”

Fingering the pages of the form, I said, “You know, I’m really looking forward to it this time.”

“That’s the spirit,” he said, clapping me on the back. “If we can’t have fun playing golf, there has to be something wrong with us, don’t you think?” With that said, he winked at me.

I completed the form that day. It didn’t occur to me to ask Stewart where the $4,000 entry fee came from.

We continued to work daily on my game. Stewart’s efforts to divorce me from the mechanical aspects of the game were bearing fruit. I was becoming more of a feel player, and my swing began to flow with an energy and tempo that it never had before. Playing this way relaxed me, and my attitude on the course improved as well. I was less intense and therefore reacted better to the occasional bad break that was inevitable in virtually every round.

Before I knew it, it was time for the first stage of Tour qualifying. I knew the site well; we were going back to Champions in Houston. I was pleased not only because it was a great place for golf but also because I knew both courses well.

Q-School was a three-stage event. The first stage actually consisted of four regional tournaments, each having about 150 players. At Champions, we would play each course twice. There would be no cut. I guess they figured you should get more than two rounds of golf for $4,000, no matter how badly you played.

For Stewart and me, this would be our maiden voyage into the world of competitive golf. And there wasn’t a tougher place to start.

I thought there was pressure at the Amateur, but it was nothing compared to Q-School. Imagine pulling up to the parking lot and seeing all manner of wanna-bes mulling around, some with beat-up equipment that leaves you wondering how they scared up the money to play, and all of them wearing faces as long as an undertaker’s.

And that’s not the scary part. If you survive the first stage, it gets worse. That’s when you begin to see the familiar faces—guys you’ve watched play on television—pulling their clubs out of car trunks, too. Some of these guys have even won on Tour. It’s a chilling reminder that there is no such thing as a no-cut contract in professional golf.

Just ask Chip Beck, who shot a 59 in a Tour event but went from Ryder Cup to Styrofoam cup in less time than it takes to say the opening prayer at an ACLU meeting. And he’s not alone. Bill Rogers won enough Tour events (including the British Open and the old World Series of Golf) to be named PGA Player of the Year before making a swing change that unexpectedly affected his natural timing. Three years later, he grew tired of trying to find the old magic and quit the Tour for good. The same for another British Open champ, Ian Baker-Finch, who mysteriously lost his way within months of his greatest triumph and now makes his living wearing a headset in a television tower. Then there was Jodie Mudd, a terrific young pro who rocketed to stardom as the next dominant player on Tour a few years back. After winning the Player’s Championship and the ten-year exemption that went with it, he woke up one morning without a golf game. Following a couple of flameout years, he walked away from competitive golf altogether.

Believe me, most of these guys only give it up when the pain of repeated failures becomes greater than the hope of recovery. The ones who still believe they can recapture the magic will swallow their pride if they have to and return to Q-School. When they do, they’re usually dressed better than the rest of us, but their outfits don’t include happy faces, that’s for sure.

The scenery gets even more interesting as the tournament progresses at each stage. The competition is so intense that one bad round usually means another year playing in Scranton and Midland-Odessa instead of Muirfield Village and TPC Sawgrass.

Guys who experience these reverse career-move outings generally react in one of three ways. First, there are the weepers, grown men who sit on the back bumper of their car and just cry until they get it all out. Then there are the more demonstrative types, who take whatever club most disappointed them during the round—most often a putter but sometimes a five-iron they hooked into a water hazard at an inopportune time—and remodel their car with it.

But neither of these types worry me nearly so much as the ones who turn in a score that works better for bowling and then walk expressionless out of the scorer’s tent, their eyes so vacant you swear you can see clear to the back of their skulls. You can sit and watch them as they walk zombielike to their cars, never looking to one side or the other. When they get there, they calmly and quietly open the trunk and put their clubs and shoes away before leaning over and puking all over them.

That’s why, as we finished our only practice round, I handed Stewart my glove and said, “This ain’t the easiest place for us to start out together.”

He just smiled as he usually did. Hoisting my bag over his shoulder, he said quietly, “You just shot 67 and only made one putt over ten feet. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get started.”

His remark surprised me. The round had gone so smoothly and easily that I hadn’t noticed my score. It was still another sign that there was great power in Stewart’s lessons.