Keith Forman again walked the entire eighteen holes with Frank, Justin Rose, and Zach Johnson on Friday. The crowds were so thick he had to scramble to see much.
Not surprisingly, during the first nine holes, Frank seemed to realize that seventeen-year-olds weren’t supposed to lead the Masters. He didn’t make a single birdie, and he bogeyed 3, 4, and 9—hitting his second shot hole-high only to watch it spin back off the green and down the hill. It was the kind of mistake he had done such a good job of avoiding on Thursday.
While the players waited on the tenth tee for the group in front of them to hit their second shots, Keith walked glumly down the hill to the right of the fairway.
Frank was now three under par for the tournament, still only three shots behind Justin Thomas, who was four under par for the day playing the 13th hole. Thomas was the kind of player who could go very low—he’d shot 63 in the third round of the U.S. Open a year ago—and with 13 and 15 still to play, a 65 or 66 was clearly in reach. Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth were in a group of four players a shot back.
It had rained overnight, softening the greens and making them easier to attack. That’s what made Frank’s front-nine 39 truly disappointing. He had tamed a much more difficult golf course a day earlier.
Keith was calculating where the cut might fall as he stopped to watch the three players hit their tee shots. He was relieved when Frank, last up after his ninth-hole bogey, found the fairway with his best tee shot of the day. At that point, Keith wasn’t really thinking about Thomas or the other leaders. He wanted to be sure Frank would play the weekend. If the leader was eight under par, that would mean the 10-shot rule would fall at two over. At the Masters, anyone within 10 shots of the 36-hole leader made the cut. Or, if fewer than 44 players and ties were within 10, they all made the cut whether within 10 or not. Keith guessed the cut would be two over, perhaps one over if Thomas went to nine under, since the leaderboard was pretty bunched.
That meant Frank would have to completely collapse on the back nine not to play the next day. Still, there was lots of water ahead, and Keith knew Frank well enough to know he was frustrated at that moment, which could lead to more mental mistakes—like the one on Number 9. It was up to Slugger to keep him calm.
That didn’t fill Keith with confidence. He’d had dinner with Slugger the previous night, and his old teammate appeared to be a lot more jumpy about things than Frank had been. When Keith pointed that out to him, Slugger got defensive.
“Frank’s going to be a multimillionaire, if not now, then later,” he said. “He’s playing with house money here—which is great. But I’m not going to be a millionaire. In fact, I don’t even know if I’ll still be his teacher after this week. The old man is still mad at me for getting you involved, and I know that Lawrensen wants him to get rid of me and hire one of the big-name teachers. He wanted me gone after the Amateur, but Frank told the father he needed me and the father went along—for now. So cut me some slack.”
Keith tried a joke about how Slugger could charge new players a thousand dollars an hour, like the big-name guys, if Frank won the Masters.
That seemed to calm Slugger, but not by much. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should be enjoying this. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime type of thing. But you don’t have a wife and two kids to worry about.”
Keith couldn’t argue with that. And, as Frank and Slugger walked down the tenth fairway, he hoped his family back home wasn’t on Slugger’s mind at that moment. Focusing on pulling the right club was far more important right now.
Frank managed to par 10, 11, and 12—which was a relief to Keith, because they were probably the three toughest holes on the back nine. If he could stay dry at 13, 15, and 16, he’d be fine—at least in terms of the cut, which, being honest, was all Keith was worried about.
Frank hit a perfect drive on 13, cutting the corner of the dogleg, the ball bouncing way down the fairway. Keith’s guess was that he had less than 200 yards to the flag. That meant he had to go for the green in two, which made Keith a little nervous. Any sort of mishit, and he’d find the creek in front of the green. The genius in Augusta’s back nine par-fives was that they were both easily reachable for most of the field if their drive found the fairway. But there was so much danger around the greens that any sort of miscalculation could turn a potential birdie into a bogey—or worse—in a heartbeat.
Keith was standing back from the ropes because the ground between the 13th and 14th fairways was elevated enough that his view was better there than trying to somehow get position close to the ropes. It looked to Keith like Frank had a seven-iron in his hands, meaning his guess that he was inside 200 yards was correct.
He held his breath for a second as the ball flew high into the air, becoming a dot against the sun before he lost sight of it. Only the roar up near the green told him that Frank had hit a good shot. He breathed out, thinking, Two more water holes to go.
He couldn’t get near enough to the green to see how close Frank’s ball was to the flag, but when Justin Rose and Zach Johnson both putted before him, he guessed the putt was makeable. He was right—it couldn’t have been more than five feet, judging by how long it took to get to the hole. Frank rolled it in for eagle, and suddenly he was only one over par for the day and back to five under for the tournament. Rose and Johnson both gave him fist bumps walking to the 14th tee.
Frank made a routine par at 14 and also parred 15—which was fine with Keith. The narrow green looked about five yards wide to him, and when the kid missed the fairway and laid up, Keith was very happy with the two-putt par he made from there.
Sixteen was the last hole with water. Frank found the green safely but misjudged his first putt from 30 feet, rolling it 10 feet past the hole. He missed coming back for a bogey, but Keith was fine with that, too. All he was thinking about was avoiding big numbers.
Frank made another bogey at 17, going over the back of the green with his second shot, but hit a perfect drive at 18, found the middle of the green, and two-putted for a final par. He’d shot 74—a far cry from his 66 on Thursday—but plenty good enough after the 39 on the front side. He’d kept his cool to shoot 35—one under par—on the back nine, helped immeasurably by the eagle at 13.
Keith checked the giant scoreboard to the right of the 18th green. Hideki Matsuyama, the gifted Japanese player, had shot 64 to go from one under par to nine under par. He had the lead. Tommy Fleetwood, a talented British player, was at eight under. Four players were at seven under, including McIlroy. Three more—including Rose—who had shot 67—were at six under. Then a group of five at five under, most notably Spieth and two-time champion Bubba Watson. Currently, there were six players at four under, including Frank. That meant Frank was tied for 15th place. It wasn’t first, but it was pretty darn good for a seventeen-year-old kid.
Keith walked to the spot near the scoring area where the media was corralled. Frank obviously wasn’t going to be brought to the interview room today, but there were still plenty of media people who wanted to talk to him.
He saw Ron Lawrensen and Thomas Baker standing next to Frank’s bag outside the scoring room. Slugger was inside with Frank while his player checked and signed his scorecard. Again, Keith felt a little bit of anger that an agent could stand there waiting for the player while the media was literally penned in a few yards away. If anyone should be penned in, he thought, it’s the agents.
Frank walked outside and spoke to Slugger briefly before he picked up the bag and headed in the direction of the caddie barn. They had teed off much later today, and it was almost five o’clock. Keith suspected Frank wouldn’t be hitting any more golf balls today. He felt drained. He could only imagine how Frank felt.
Frank spoke to Lawrensen and his father briefly, then, guided by a green-jacket, began walking up the short hill to where the media waited. Keith walked over and stood just outside the roped-off area waiting for Frank to finish. He’d try to catch him for a minute or two in the locker room—one of the few places where his father and Lawrensen could not go.
He was jotting a few notes to himself on his pocket-sized spiral when a voice behind him said, “Hey, Forman, got a minute?”
He turned and saw Lawrensen standing there.
“Where’s your twin?” Keith asked.
“Twin?”
“Frank’s dad. The other Bobbsey twin. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of you without the other.”
Lawrensen didn’t crack a smile.
“So what can I possibly do you for?” Keith asked, misspeaking intentionally.
“No, my friend, it’s what I can do for you,” Lawrensen answered.
“Really?”
Lawrensen moved a little closer to Keith and lowered his voice. “I know you’ve been poking around trying to find out what kind of deals might be on the table for Frank,” he said. “Lay off.”
“Excuse me?” Keith said.
“Do you know how many of our clients are on Digest’s teaching staff?” Lawrensen smiled. “Check the last four covers of the magazine. All our guys. One call from my boss to Jerry Tarde, and you’ll be lucky to have a subscription to your magazine, much less a job.”
“You’re threatening to blackmail my editor?” Keith said. “That’s the best you’ve got? You think Jerry Tarde’s going to be blackmailed by the likes of you or your boss?”
“Oh no, that’s just for starters. Do you think Digest is going to want Frank under contract once he turns pro? How do you think Tarde will react when we say we’re going to go to another magazine unless he dumps you? He wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t take Frank over you.”
Lawrensen was probably right about that, Keith had to admit. The whole blackmail package might make it impossible for Tarde to justify keeping him. Still, he wasn’t about to back down to this lowlife.
“What makes you think Frank will go along with that?” he said. “Just because you’ve got the father in your pocket doesn’t mean you’ve got the kid.”
“Yes, it does,” Lawrensen said. “Especially if I already have the father’s name on signed contracts. The kid is still a minor, remember?”
Now Keith was angry. “Do me a favor, Ronnie boy, climb back under that rock you live under. I’ve got work to do,” he said. “You just gave me all the quotes from you I needed. I’m going to expose you for being the sleaze that you are. Someone will want to read that story.”
Lawrensen’s smirk turned into a scowl. He grabbed Keith’s arm.
“Touch me again,” Keith said, pulling away, “and I don’t care where we are—I’ll put you down.”
Lawrensen didn’t want a fight, but he wanted the last word. “You expose me, you expose Frank,” he said. “If you tell people he’s already under contract to an agent, he can’t possibly play college golf, can he?” With that, he turned and walked away.
Keith wanted to shout something at him but couldn’t think of anything. He knew the Double Eagle agent was right.