In many ways, it is the curse of the average golfer to hit a good drive. In spite of himself, in spite of everything he has come to understand about the harsh and fickle core at the heart of the game, a single decent shot seduces the middling golfer into suspending reality entirely, imagining himself an accomplished shot-maker, and thus setting the stage for the next round of failure and disappointment.
Having already parred the first hole in my mind, therefore, and actually having flirted with the prospect of a birdie, I naturally followed my strong opening drive by topping my second shot – a 5-wood – and sending it whistling down the fairway, skipping a foot or two off the ground, for perhaps eighty yards. I stared with disenchantment after the ball, and felt that familiar vague foolishness at having yet again allowed a single commendable shot to skew my vision and distort my mind. Reason was such a quick and easy victim of this game, and delusion its recurring theme.
“Well,” Hugh remarked in an efficient, business-like tone as he strode by, having struck a crisp four-iron approach short of the green, and not even glancing my way. “I remember that one.”
What could I say? Doubtless he did. For Hugh Evans had witnessed the full, complete repertoire of my game in bygone times, each and every shot and calamity in its arsenal, every one of them.
We had been classmates at Milford Haven Grammar School, as well as neighbors, for he lived five houses down from us on Wellington Road. His father played golf, as did mine, and after receiving my McGregors and entering my apprenticeship with Mr. Flynn, Hugh and I quickly became friends and golfing companions. Hugh had taken the game up earlier than I, however, and seemed markedly better-constructed for its requirements; he was tall and slender, in a loose, athletic sort of way, and had a laconic, unbothered manner on the course even as a boy. This was in stark contrast to the militant style of play I embraced as an acolyte in Mr. Player's sect, my attitude of personal combat with the course and, more particularly, with the ball itself. Many was the time, in fact, that I detected Hugh eyeing me with a cautious, quizzical frown, as if curious about my theory of the game; wishing to venture a question, perhaps, but wary of doing so, unsure as to exactly what such a query might possibly unleash. My only response to his infuriating habit of sending one unremarkable shot after the other down the fairways and onto the greens was to grit my teeth, swing as hard as the architecture of my frame would permit, savor the occasional reward of a prodigiously long and graceful shot, and grimly accept the ugly things that happened in between. I have an image of self-flagellation with a golf club, and came to interpret the horrendous shots as unpleasant but necessary stops on a great cycle, which, in due course, would produce good shots, and even very good ones, at their special, appointed times.
It must have seemed to Hugh, however, that I was engaged in a different pursuit altogether; some arcane diversion combining a sort of hurling motion of the body, and contortions of the face, with forays into the brambles and trees, coupled with the wanton, pointless sacrifice of countless innocent golf balls. A bizarre kind of genocide. In fact, he might even have concluded that I had misconstrued the basic rules of the game to such an extreme as to have convinced myself that “winning” consisted of losing more balls than my competitor lost. If such, indeed, had been Hugh's impression – well, there may have been a grain of truth to it, or even more. To me, however, his game seemed pedestrian and boring.
They say that opposites attract. In this vein, therefore, despite our wildly different golfing personalities, Hugh and I quickly became the best of pals, and consumed hour upon hour crisscrossing the small nine-hole course that lay serenely atop the hills above the Haven. On weekends, we caddied in the morning, sometimes carrying two bags, then played in the afternoon. We caddied in stinging, blowing rain, biting cold, and fresh, warm sunshine. We spoke not a word unless asked a question, collected our pay and pocketed our tips, ate lunch, then played golf until dark. We were young and devoted, each in our separate ways. And never, in later years, did I regret a moment of the time, for without question it had been a splendid manner in which to spend many a happy youthful hour.
Those lazy, light-hearted days lay deep in the past, however. We were grown men now, well along into life. It could be stated with absolute and ringing certainty that today was not yesterday, and that much had changed. It was also indisputable, however, that, on this excellent Saturday in May, we two old friends had somehow found ourselves together again on this oft-trod terrain; a delightful turn of serendipity, which easily trumped any niggling malaise over the passage of time.
Side by side, therefore, we headed up the fairway, our carts clattering over the gently undulating turf. Content to stroll, we dallied along, idling without care. The reunion dinner was set for the evening, but it was only just past noon and the entire afternoon – the whole blue, balmy, Saturday afternoon – stretched before us, with no reason in the world to hurry. The ageless hedgerow loomed menacingly along the right; the pasture still rose and stretched beyond, barren and empty as ever. The clouds still billowed and blew overhead, the wind still raced and rose and fell. Hugh was still tall and lanky. And his eyes were still clear and sharp and mischievous, I noted with satisfaction, as we followed our shots down the first fairway and toward the green.
“We played a bit of golf here, didn’t we?” Hugh commented wistfully.
“That we did,” I replied.
The breeze lifted Hugh's hair – a bit grayed and thinner, it must be said - off his brow, and he turned toward me smiling softly. “Well, I’m glad you came back,” he said. “No one here plays entertaining golf.”
I smiled. “Certainly not you,” I observed.
I delivered a deft 6-iron to the front of the green and did, in fact, manage to par the first hole. Hugh inexplicably took three putts – I could barely remember him three-putting even as a boy – and carded a bogey. We were playing match play, over nine holes, as had been our habit; I was one-up, and off to a dandy start.