Written by Stephen F. Moloney
Though he hadn’t noticed that Truman’s son was also in the cart as they approached the workshed, as soon as they came to a stop in front of them, Ray had immediately noticed the presence of the sole heir to the Ballas fortune sitting in the front passenger seat alongside Truman – and having not seen him around the Creek as much as he used since he was sent to a private, and very expensive, out-of-state high school a few years previously, Ray couldn’t help but be surprised by the transformation Byron had undergone.
From the perennially small, husky kid who looked like a miniature Truman – with the temper to match – when he used to compete in the weekly junior tournaments held every summer at the Creek, Ray could tell, even though he was sitting down, that not only had Byron enjoyed quite the growth spurt but he’d definitively shed the puppy fat from his middle school days and replaced it with an impressive amount of muscle.
“I see,” replied Ray, taking a step or two closer to the cart and bending down slightly so that he could see properly in through the window. “Hey, Byron – nice to see ya again.”
Looking thoroughly inconvenienced at being directly spoken to, a quietly disgruntled Byron lifted his gaze from off of his smartphone and glanced quickly over at Ray before grunting, “Hey.”
Feeling he’d sufficiently fulfilled whatever social niceties were required of him in briefly acknowledging Ray, Byron buried his head back into his smartphone. Recognizing that it would be a waste of time to ask him how he was getting on in high school as he’d planned to do, Ray turned his attention off of Byron and shifted it back onto answering his father’s question.
“Anyway, yeah, that should be no problem organisin’ two caddies,” said Ray. “What time are you gentlemen thinkin’ of teein’ off at?”
“Well, Byron here is meeting some friends of his for lunch later at the clubhouse,” mused Truman, his words, once again, somewhat garbled as he’d returned his cigar to in-between his slightly yellowed teeth. “So, we were thinking of squeezing in a tight thirty-minute warm-up and then heading straight to the tee.”
“Oh, you’re thinkin’ that early?” replied Ray, knowing that would be problematic.
“Why?” asked Truman, his eyes narrowing slightly at Ray’s less-than-agreeable tone of voice. “Is that a problem?”
“Well, it’s just that the earliest the caddies start work at is 9,” answered Ray, acutely aware the embers of Truman’s infamous temper were starting to glow. “So, if you’re thinkin’ of teein’ off at what?”
Ray glanced down at his watch to check the time. It was just coming onto 7:45.
“Eight-thirty?” he continued, before looking back in through the window of the cart at Truman. “Then there aren’t actually gonna be any caddies here.”
Truman took the cigar out of his mouth and replied gruffly. “You’ll be here, won’t you?”
“Yeah, but -…”
“And what’s he doing now?” said Truman, talking over Ray and pointing his cigar at Bill.
“Well, he is called ‘Bill’,” replied Ray bluntly, not appreciating the manner in which Truman had just addressed Bill. “And he’s the Head Greenkeeper here, not a caddie.”
“Alright …” sneered Truman, pointing his cigar, instead, at Mustang. “Then what about him?”
Surprised to suddenly find himself in the sights of his cigar, Mustang looked quickly back and forth between Truman and Ray before saying, “Me?”.
“No, the concrete block behind you,” scoffed Truman sarcastically as the collection of ash which had been teetering precariously on the end of his cigar finally fell to the ground. “Yes, you.”
Truman turned his attention back onto Ray, “What’s his deal?”.
“He’s not a caddie either,” answered Ray, flatly, feeling surprisingly defensive over Mustang.
“Look, Thackett, I ain’t looking for someone to get yardages!” barked Truman, his neck and face starting to turn a noticeable shade of maroon due to his steadily increasing temper and quickly evaporating patience. “And neither is Byron! We just want to walk the course to get ready for the Memorial and someone to carry our bags and clean our clubs! I mean, if a donkey had thumbs it’d be able to do it!”
Though feeling his own temper rising at being spoken to in such a manner, Ray swallowed it down and looked over at Mustang.
“What d’ya think?” he asked. “You up for it?”
*
“Forty-five minutes later he was in a pair of caddie’s overalls that were slightly too big for him and walkin’ off the first tee with Byron’s bag slung over his shoulder,” said Ray, half-expecting that particular fact to blow Maggie’s mind.
“So, just so we’re clear …” said Maggie, her mind, indeed, thoroughly blown. “You’re telling me the first time Mustang and Byron Ballas ever met, Mustang caddied for him?!”
“It’s crazy, right?” replied Ray, enjoying Maggie’s reaction. “I mean, you think about those two and all the times their paths crossed during their careers? All those Sunday back 9 battles? Well, it all started that mornin’.”
Maggie could only shake her head in disbelief. All those Saturdays and Sundays spent watching Mustang play in tournaments when she was growing up, rooting for him and Ray from her permanent position down on the floor in front of the television to somehow beat Byron Ballas, who amongst the many challengers he had, was the most constant obstacle between Mustang and winning; to think it had all began with Mustang dressed in a pair of oversized caddie overalls lugging Byron’s bag around and cleaning his clubs was just incredible to Maggie.
“And how did they get along?” asked Maggie, managing to voice the first of many questions which had flooded her brain and all desperately wanted answers. “I mean, I know how things wound up being between them, but that very first morning, what were their interactions like?”
“Honestly?” said Ray, after taking a moment to think about his answer. “There wasn’t much in the way of interaction between them – and that was probably down to me more than them.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, before we went to the first tee,” explained Ray, trying his best to recount what happened as accurately as possible. “I gave Mustang a quick crash course in the basics of what he needed to know in order to get through the round as seamlessly as possible.”
“And let me guess,” said Maggie, her tone of voice revealing she had more than just a passing knowledge on the subject of caddying. “Those ‘basics’ pretty much boiled down to keep your mouth shut and stay out of the way?”
“Almost exactly that, yeah,” replied Ray, looking as surprised as he sounded. “Now, is that just general knowledge you’ve picked up? Or have I, unwittingly, been in the presence of a fellow looper this whole time?”
“Grove Garden Country Club,” replied Maggie, affecting a tone similar to that of a grizzled war-veteran recalling the location of a particularly arduous tour of duty like it were a badge of honour. “Every summer through high school and college.”
“Well I’ll be damned!” exclaimed Ray, smiling broadly and sounding even more pleasantly surprised than what he had done before. “Seriously?!”
“To this day I can’t look at a staff bag without my back hurting,” smiled Maggie, holding her two hands up in front of herself to emphasize her honesty.
“Well ain’t that somethin’,” said Ray, shaking his head in disbelief. “So you know exactly what Mustang was facin’ into then.”
“That I do,” replied Maggie, the mere thought of her first-ever round as an awkward 15-year old caddie enough to send a cold shiver running down her spine. “And from what you’ve said about Truman? You may as well be describing any number of the cigar-toting, rich jerks I had to carry bags for.”
“Yeah, that pretty much sums up Truman,” sighed Ray. “And because of that, I wanted to make sure Mustang didn’t accidentally do somethin’ that would set Truman off. So, I told him that all he had to do was carry Byron’s bag, not move when he was hittin’ a shot, keep the clubs clean, and if he felt the need to say somethin’? Keep it to ‘good shot’ or nothin’ at all.”
“And did that work?” asked Maggie.
“It really did,” replied Ray, nodding his head. “Now, that bein’ said, given Byron had just turned eighteen and was all set to head off to Oklahoma State in the fall to join up with their golf program, I expected that he wasn’t goin’ to be talkin’ to Mustang much anyway cause of the age gap. But by the time we made the turn I was surprised at how well everythin’ had actually gone. Mustang had done everythin’ he was supposed to. He’d kept up with the pace – which wasn’t easy given Byron had a full-sized staff bag. He’d kept his clubs nice and clean. And on the occasions when he’d said, ‘Good shot’, I’d even heard Byron mutter the odd, ‘Thanks’, back to him.”
“Alright,” said Maggie, the slyest of sly grins curling the corners of her mouth. “Then why do I get the impression that there’s a massive ‘but’ coming?”
Having realized he must have been inadvertently signposting it in the manner in which he’d been speaking, Ray let out a sigh and said, “Because there is one”.
“I knew it!” bragged Maggie, internally clocking up another ‘win’ for her journalistic nose. “So, go on, what happened?”
“Alright, well, we’re on the green at 18,” began Ray, settling in to tell the story. “And Truman and Byron both have really good rounds goin’. Truman is like -3 after comin’ off a really good birdie at 17 -…”
“17 … 17 …” interjected Maggie, trying to jog her memory of the research she’d done on Crescent Creek. “That’s a par three, right?”
“Yep,” confirmed Ray, unable to help himself from slipping into caddie-mode. “From the tips? What they were playin’? It’s a 210-yard carry over water to a wide, but shallow, green with a bunker at the back you just did not want to find yourself in ’cause balls just had this habit of pluggin’ in there. Now, you could bail out right and left, but given how deep the rough was most of the time you could wind up with a nasty lie in a heartbeat. And if you happened to have the misfortune of findin’ the wind blowin’ into your face standin’ on the tee-box? Well, all I’ll say is, may the Lord have mercy on your scorecard.”
“Basically …” said Maggie, as hellish thoughts of trying to find the 17th green from the tips made her shudder. “The kind of hole where you pray for a par and sprint to the next tee-box if you actually manage to make one?”
“Like. You. Stole it.” replied a smiling Ray, punctuating each word for extra emphasis.
“So if Truman had managed to birdie it,” said Maggie, making an effort to get Ray back on track. “What did Byron do?”
“Well Byron had parred it,” answered Ray. “But given what he had at stake, he was always just lookin’ to get a ‘3’ down on his card and head to 18.”
“What do you mean by ‘what he had at stake’?” asked Maggie, intrigued. “Did he and Truman have money on the round or something?”
“Nah, it was something far more important than money,” said Ray, his leading tone of voice just adding to the feeling of mystery for what he was about to say next. “It was history. See, in all the years of the Creek’s existence – even with all the changes that had been done to the course in order to keep it moving with the times – the course record, at that time, had always stood at -10.”
“So … 62?”
“Correct,” said Ray. “And of the four total people who’d ever shot that score in the club’s history? Two of them were from Byron’s family – Truman, and his grandfather, Colton Ballas. Now, even though he’d won more junior tournaments than he could probably count up until that point, and he was headin’ to Oklahoma State with eyes on him becomin’ a central part of their golf team, the one thing that had always eluded Byron was tyin’ or beatin’ that course record.”
“And on that day he was obviously close?” asked Maggie, putting the pieces together.
“With the par he made at 17,” replied Ray, setting the scene. “He was -9 headin’ to 18. And given how he’d been playin’ throughout the rest of the round? I already had him down to make birdie at the last – as difficult a hole as it is.”
“He was that dialled-in, huh?”
“Dialled-in and then some,” said Ray, shaking his head slightly as memories of Byron’s performance from that round flashed through his mind. “I mean, for a kid who’d just turned eighteen? He already looked as ‘Tour-ready’ as he did when he eventually got on Tour after leavin’ college. Like, crushin’ every drive with that big, high draw of his. Nailin’ every iron shot. And just pickin’ up birdies in that relentlessly efficient way that he became famous for.”
“So what happened at 18 then?” asked Maggie.
“Well, like I was sayin’, we’re on the green,” replied Ray, coming back around to where he’d originally started the story off. “Truman’s lookin’ at twenty … maybe twenty-five feet for birdie. But Byron? He’s eyeing up a sixty-footer from way over on the right-hand side of the green after bailin’ on his second and blockin’ the hell out of it – and as a result … well, let’s just say, he’s not the happiest of campers.”
“Because he thinks his chance at making birdie and tying the course record is gone,” said Maggie, trying to get the full scene painted in her imagination.
“Got it in one,” confirmed Ray. “And, frankly, I couldn’t blame him ’cause this putt was nasty! I mean, if you went out onto that green lookin’ for the worst possible spot to put a ball and have someone try to drain it to where the hole was that day, you’d have put it where Byron’s was – no question. Like, the length of the putt was one thing, sure, but the actual nuts and bolts of it were somethin’ else. Two changes in grain. Multiple breaks. Needin’ to navigate the ridge that formed the spine of the green. And of the sixty-feet that it was? The last twenty was all downhill. In other words, it was the kind of putt where if you had a hundred goes at it you might make one – and that’s a big ‘might’, at that.”
“Yikes,” said Maggie, cringing at the mere idea of having to stand over a putt that gnarly, nevermind actually then having to try and make it in a high-pressure situation.
“My thoughts exactly when me and Mustang walked onto the green and I saw where he’d ended up,” agreed Ray, himself cringing at the memory of that nightmare putt. “And to make matters worse, those friends of Byron’s he was gonna be meetin’ for lunch at the club?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, when he birdied 16, the par 5, to get to -9,” continued Ray. “Byron called those friends and told them to come out to the 18th green so they could film him on their phones tyin’ the course record.”
“Really?!” scoffed Maggie, temporarily aghast. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised; I mean, if there’s one thing Byron’s never been short on, it’s confidence.”
“That’s for sure,” agreed Ray. “In this particular situation, though? That confidence had made the atmosphere on 18 a whole lot worse than what it would have been if he’d just kept his mouth shut. Cause now, after where his second shot had wound up, Byron was in a situation where he knew if he didn’t make that birdie putt, he was gonna be left embarrassed in front of his buddies ’cause he was the one who’d told ‘em to come out and watch him tie the course record in the first place.”
“And if there’s one thing Byron’s always been protective over,” added Maggie, knowingly. “It’s his ego.”
“Um-hum,” muttered Ray, nodding his head in agreement. “And ‘cause he knew he’d potentially opened that same ego up to take one hell of a hit, you should have seen him on that green. I mean, throughout the rest of his round he’d been pretty methodical anyway when it came to readin’ what putts he’d had, but there was at least still an element of flow to his routine. On 18, though? Well, that routine went right out the window …”