Written by Stephen F. Moloney
“Uh, y-yes, sir …” stammered Mustang, shaking Beau’s hand as everything finally fell into place as to why everyone had been acting so strangely.
Ray had told him all about the ‘LaFleur Brothers’. About Beau and Henri. About how they’d been the ones who’d created the Memorial Matchplay all the way back in the 80s. But, most importantly, Ray had told him how Beau hadn’t shown up at the Creek since Henri had died a few years previously; in fact, he’d barely been seen, period, since Henri’s funeral – which made his sudden reappearance all the more peculiar.
“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, young man,” smiled Beau, letting go of Mustang’s hand and moving to shake Ray’s. “As it is you Mr. Thackett; I’ve been hearing a lot about you the past two days – and, especially so, from Mr. Devereaux here.”
With that, both Mustang and Ray turned in unison to look at Skip, only to find that he was already walking over towards where they were standing with a huge smile painted across his face.
“So, wait, you two know each other?” asked Ray, his head still spinning from the bizarre turn-of-events the last few minutes had thrown up.
“That we do,” smiled Skip, coming to a stop alongside them. “Mr. LaFleur here was the one who encouraged me to become a defense attorney way back when I was just a greenhorn of a lawyer fresh outta law school and helping him with some of his business affairs. So, needless to say, if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be standing here right now, that’s for sure.” Skip’s smile, suddenly, turned to a wry, impish grin. “Though, for a second there, I was convinced you were gonna leave me high and dry!”
“Oh, well, you know me, Skip,” replied Beau, dryly. “I always did have something of a flair for the dramatic, now didn’t I?!”
“Oh, did you?! I never noticed!” joked Skip, clapping a laughing Beau heartily on the shoulder as the pair of them shared a friendly and familiar handshake.
Having grown tired of watching their reunion, a petulant-sounding Byron quickly spoke up from back across the other side of the tee.
“Uh, as great and all as this little ‘appearance’ is,” he spat, sarcastically, as he loosely pointed the head of his driver in the general direction of where Beau and the others were standing. “Do you mind telling us what the problem is? Cause I’d kinda like to tee-off already.”
“Ah, the old ‘Ballas Charm’ – how I missed it,” sighed Beau, now taking his turn to get a wry smile on his face. “It’s nice to see the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, ain’t it Truman?”
“Well, the boy does have a point, Mr. LaFleur,” sneered Truman, summoning up enough mettle to speak his mind to Beau. “Is there a particular reason you’re choosing to hold up proceedings?”
“As a matter of fact there is,” replied Beau, not sounding even remotely bothered by Truman’s snide tone as he moved towards where Reginald was standing. “Reginald, isn’t it?”
“Uh … y-yes, sir, Mr. LaFleur,” stuttered Reginald, as another wave of sweat rushed out of every available pore.
“Well, Reginald, do you mind if I borrow this for a second?” asked Beau, gesturing at the microphone tightly grasped in Reginald’s hand.
“Uh … n-no, of course not – here,” he answered, eagerly handing the microphone over as if relieved to be rid of it.
“Thank you, son,” winked Beau, taking hold of the microphone. “That’s …”. He suddenly felt how damp and clammy the microphone was. “Really quite wet …”. He looked back up at Reginald. “You should maybe go get yourself a bottle of water,” he said, a note of genuine concern in his voice as he wiped his hand off his trousers. “And maybe sit down in the shade for a while too – I got this.”
Once a grateful-looking Reginald, as instructed, had hurriedly made his way past Mustang and Ray to go about heading back towards the clubhouse, Beau – with his free hand now nestled, nonchalantly, inside his pocket – began to address the crowd.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, handling the microphone and speaking through it with all the comfort of a seasoned Las Vegas performer. “Well, first and foremost, please allow me, if you will, to apologize for my rather loud interruption and to openly state that, no, it is not an open invitation for you to start shouting, ‘Mashed Potatoes’, or the names of any other side-dishes you happen to be particularly fond of, for that matter.”
As a genuine ripple of laughter reverberated through the crowd, Ray couldn’t help but be struck by this warm, overwhelming sense of nostalgia. This was how he remembered the Memorial. Sure, a few years ago, it may have been Henri in the role of M.C. as opposed to Beau, but the end result was still the same – the crowd would be laughing just like they were now and they’d be hanging on every word ringing through the speaker as they became more and more entranced by the famous ‘LaFleur Charm’. It was just inherently comforting to watch – like watching a master craftsman at work.
“Now, for those of you who may not know who I am – which I’m guessing is quite a large number of you…” said Beau, his timing, of course, impeccable in choosing when to resume speaking. “My name is Beau LaFleur, and I’m fortunate enough to be able to say that not only I am the owner of this wonderful property here at Crescent Creek, but, nearly forty years ago to the day, my dear brother, Henri, and I played the very first edition of what would go on to be the Memorial Matchplay Tournament you see before you here today.”
This time the crowd put their hands together in a polite round of applause for Beau – he had them eating out of the palm of his hand, and he knew it too.
“Thank you,” he continued, graciously nodding his head as the crowd, once again, began to die back down into silence. “But, you know, it’s funny … when I look around at what this tournament has transformed into over the past four decades – where, year in and year out, we now attract some of the finest golfers in the world to our little corner of it here at Crescent Creek – at its core … it still ain’t really all that different to that very first match between me and my brother all those years ago. Because what you need to know about Henri and I … is that whenever we played golf? We never really played each other. We always just played our own ball – it’s strange, really. But, for whatever reason, on that Sunday morning way back in 1980 – when we were both, admittedly, more than a little hungover …”.
Again, Beau was forced into pausing for a moment before continuing as the crowd laughed.
“When the pair of us stepped onto this very tee and decided to have a match? Sure, we put a hundred bucks on the match as a prize. But, in reality, we both knew the real prize that day was just gonna be who actually won. Because whoever did? Well, they’d get to say that, on that day, they were the best – them.”
With Beau pausing for a moment mid-speech, Ray glanced over towards the opposite corner of the tee-box. In the midst of Beau taking up the microphone, Byron had regrouped with Mr. Denby and Truman. And, far from hanging on Beau’s every word, the three of them were locked in, what appeared to be, quite a heated – if still whispered – discussion. Seeing Beau suddenly turn up had worried them enough, but since he’d started speaking, that worry had only served to grow larger. They knew this wasn’t heading in the direction they wanted and, deep down, Denby and Truman knew they couldn’t do anything about it – no matter how much complaining Byron was doing.
“So, sure, over the years the field may have gotten a little bigger, the prize a little richer and the talent a whole lot better …” said Beau, his voice pouring smoothly out through the speaker like honey dripping off a spoon. “But whenever a fresh batch of golfers shows up to this golf course on the Saturday of the Memorial Day weekend, what unites each of them in throwing their respective hats into the ring is an unshakeable belief that they can be the one to win this tournament. That they can be the only one left standing. And that, come Sunday, they will be the one who gets to say that they are, indeed, the best.”
In what seemed a very deliberate move on his part, Beau looked across the tee-box in the direction of where Mr. Denby, Truman, and Byron were standing.
“As we all know, however …” he said, his tone now noticeably loaded, as if speaking directly to Denby and Truman. “To be the best? You have to beat the best.”
If there’d even been the tiniest shred of doubt left for them as to why Beau had shown up, it had now all but been blown away for Mr. Denby and Truman, who now more resembled a pair of sheepish schoolboys as opposed to grown men such was the subtle, yet highly effective, dressing-down they’d just received.
“So, with that in mind …” said Beau, his tone lightening, once again, as quickly as if he’d flicked a switch. “Contrary to what you may have heard from some … well-meaning people, I’m sure – today’s final will not be Byron Ballas versus Skip Devereaux. Instead, it will, indeed, be Byron Ballas … except he’ll be going one-on-one … with Mustang Peyton! ”
Suddenly finding himself on the receiving end of Beau pointing directly at him, a quietly stunned Mustang looked up at an equally-stunned-looking Ray as the crowd surrounding the tee clapped and cheered their approval of Beau’s decision.
“Well, would ya look at that …” said Skip, dryly, a pleased smirk stretching across his face from one ear to the other. “Turns out I will have the afternoon off, after all.”
“I can’t believe you did this,” said Mustang, turning to look at Skip as he continued to struggle to wrap his head around what had just happened. “I mean … why?”
“It’s like I said to Ray in the clubhouse,” replied Skip, his smirk now turning to a warm smile as he looked at Mustang. “Handicap or not, you’ve earned the right to be in this final, kid – and seeing as I knew Mr. LaFleur would see it the same way, I knew I had to get him here to make things right.”
“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” added Beau, his cheery voice catching everyone by surprise as he, suddenly, reappeared alongside them.
“Mr. LaFleur …” began Ray, eager to set aside his own shock in order to try and speak. “I dunno what to say, I mean … thank you for this.”
“No need to thank me, Mr. Thackett,” replied Beau, dismissing the notion as a buzz of excitement continued to course through the crowd. “It’s like Skip here said, Mustang deserves to be in the final, and that’s all that matters. I mean, sure, he may not have an ‘official handicap’ saying he’s a scratch golfer, but if you come out to this course and beat Wilford Kretschko, Horton Blackridge, and Skip Devereaux to get to the final of my tournament? Well, rules be damned, you’re gonna get to play in that final.”
Beau turned his attention down onto Mustang. “Now, if you want, young man, I can give you maybe fifteen minutes to go hit some balls and get yourself ready?”
Having appeared a touch distracted up until that point after the insanity of the preceding few minutes – coupled with the fact there’d been a sea of phones taking pictures and videos of him since Beau had made his announcement – Mustang, with that laser-like, determined expression on his face he only got when he was fully dialed-in to something, looked Beau dead in the eye and said, “If I don’t need to change, I’m good to go right now.”
With an impressed smile on his face, Beau looked over at Skip, “I see what you mean about this kid now, huh?!” He looked back down at Mustang. “Alright, Mr. Peyton, if that’s good for you … then let’s play.”
*
“Go on, ball – break … break!”
Despite Ray’s encouragement – and the accompanying hand motions to somehow get it to telekinetically move in the direction he wanted – Maggie’s ball refused to listen and continued on its line straight past the high side of the hole.
“Awwwh, darn it!” groaned Maggie, smiling frustratedly, as she leaned all of her weight down onto the putter. “I’d too much pace on it!”
“Yeah, just a touch,” agreed Ray, feeling Maggie’s pain. “Cause the line was perfect, it just needed a hair less speed to take the break. Still, though, nice roll all things considered.”
“Thanks,” said Maggie, who’d already reached the hole after walking across the green. “The big question now, though, is do I have to finish out or will you give me the par?”
“Uhmm …” hummed Ray, jokingly, as if really mulling over whether or not to give Maggie the measly 2-footer she had left for par. “Alright, take it away – but only cause you’re a guest.”
“Oh, how gracious of you!” laughed Maggie, dryly, as she deftly flicked the ball up into her hand with the back of the putter.
After a chuckling Ray had carefully slipped the heavy, metal base of the flag back down into the cup, Maggie – who’d now taken to trying to steal a glimpse of the clubhouse through the thicket of trees which separated the back of the green from the lake beyond – spoke up again.
“So, once you knew that Mustang was, in fact, gonna be playing in the final,” she began, just as she noticed a rather large heron loping nonchalantly through the grass near the base of the trees, its spindly legs and languid gait causing it’s long, rubbery neck to bob rhythmically back and forth with each step. “What was that like to try and manage?”
“Honestly?” replied Ray. “It was such a crazy situation that … well, it kinda just made everythin’ really simple. I mean, at that point, we probably had, at most, a two or three-minute window before the match was actually gonna start, so my main focus just became the basics, you know? Like, get the kid’s clubs; ask Bill to book it to the pro-shop and pick up some food; load up the bag with some of the bottled water they, luckily, already had in a cooler on the tee; grab the new pin sheet. And by the time I’d done all that? Well, next thing I knew I was watchin’ Mustang and Byron hittin’ a pair of matchin’ drivers down the 1st, and we were off.”
“And how were the two of them?” asked Maggie, now turning to look at Ray as the heron saw it fit to take to the air and head off over the trees in the direction of the lake. “As in, did they seem nervous at all?”
“Well, if they were, they were hidin’ it pretty darn well ‘cause the two of ‘em came out firin’ right from the off,” answered Ray, now resting his hand on top of the flag. “I mean, you couldn’t have asked for two better openin’ tee-shots – like, two of ‘em just stepped up and split the fairway like it was nothin’.”
“And had you come up with a strategy for how you were gonna approach the match with Byron? You know, like how you did with Skip and the others? Or, with the way everything worked out, were you having to fly somewhat blind?”
“Naw, I’d a plan, alright,” smiled Ray, confidently. “See, when I wound up with some extra time on my hands the night before ‘cause Mustang was hangin’ out with Kiko, I drew up three gameplans: one for Skip, then one each for Hiro and Byron – you know, ‘fail to prepare’ and all that.”
“Or more like you can take the man out of the military, but not the military out of the man, huh?” smiled Maggie.
“Yeah, I guess that’s another way of looking at it,” said Ray, returning Maggie’s smile with one of his own. “Either way, though, from the second we walked off that 1st tee? I’d already played out the match a hundred different ways in my head …” Ray trailed off for a moment as a wry grin curled the corners of his mouth. “The problem with golf, though,” he continued, his smile not getting any less wide. “Is that it’s like anythin’ else in life – you can plan and plan all ya want … but sometimes things are just gonna work out the way they work out.”
“Meaning what exactly?” probed Maggie, sensing there were juicy details lurking in the long grass.
“Well, when it came to playin’ Byron,” replied Ray, beginning his explanation as he moved away from the flag. “In my mind I’m thinkin’, in a lotta ways, it’s gonna be quite similar to playin’ Skip. I mean, Byron was similarly long off-the-tee. I knew he’d be comfortable playin’ aggressively – not as comfortable as Skip, mind, but if a shootout was on the cards, he’d be able to hold his own. And, again, like Skip, Byron was ruthlessly efficient – if anythin’, maybe even a touch more-so than Skip; so, he wasn’t gonna be makin’ a whole load of mistakes and just handin’ holes over – you were gonna have to win ‘em, and, more often than not, probably win ‘em with birdies too.”
“And did things not go that way or something?” asked Maggie, trying to guess where this particular train of thought was going.
“No, they went that way, alright,” said Ray, taking a quick second to readjust his hat. “Byron was hittin’ it long, bein’ aggressive, bein’ efficient – all that. The only problem, though, was that it weren’t makin’ a blind bit of a difference. Cause no matter what Byron did? Mustang not only had the answers, but from the 3rd hole on? He was the one askin’ the questions and Byron was the one havin’ to pull out his ‘A’ game just to stay in touch.”
“Seriously?!” exclaimed Maggie, genuinely taken aback.
“Yes, ma’am,” confirmed Ray, smiling at the memory. “I mean, the way Mustang played on that front 9? It’s probably up there with one of the most complete performances I’ve seen from the kid – as in, ever. Each drive was right out the middle of the bat. He didn’t miss a fairway. His irons were immaculate – his wedges even more so. And when he wasn’t making everythin’ in sight on the greens, he was damn sure scarin’ the hole every other time. Like, he was just relentless – there’s no other way to describe it.”
“So, in a way, the match was playing out exactly how Mustang’s match with Skip had played out,” noted Maggie, quickly comparing the two in her head. “Except Mustang was now like Skip and Byron like Mustang.”
“Yeah, pretty much, actually,” said Ray, after taking a moment to think about the comparison. “Except when Byron was walkin’ off 9 against us, instead of findin’ himself down by just one hole like we were against Skip, it was three’.”
“Alright …” replied Maggie, now sounding a touch confused. “So, where does the ‘but’ come in that I feel like you’ve just been waiting to drop? Because, to me, 3UP with 9 to play sounds like the ‘plan’ couldn’t have been going much better, no?”
“Undoubtedly so. And when we were still 3UP after 14 holes? Well, the plan was beginning to look like a dream … but,” said Ray, a rueful smile curling his mouth as he confirmed Maggie’s suspicions. “Well, remember how I said sometimes things are just gonna work out the way they work out?”
“Yeah …?”
“Well, as it turned out for us,” sighed Ray, as if mentally transporting back to the final. “That meant Mustang was about to learn one of the hardest lessons in golf: that no matter how good you are, closing out a tournament is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do – and, especially so, when you have to go through ‘Dead Man’s Alley’ to do it.”
*
Byron’s ball popped off the face of his putter and set off rolling across the 17th green. Though it didn’t have much ground to cover – no more than 12 feet at most – there’d been enough break in it to warrant a full, in-depth inspection from both Byron himself and his caddie, wherein, between studying the greens book, aim pointing, and even plumb-bobbing at one stage, there hadn’t been a centimetre his ball would be travelling that hadn’t been carefully surveyed or verified first.
And, after covering 6 of the 12 feet, it appeared their research had not been in vain as Byron’s ball looked to be the perfect combination of both speed and line.
After another 2 feet it looked destined for nowhere else but the hole.
Then 4 feet later it rattled into the bottom of the cup.
“COME OOOOOONNNNN!!!” roared Byron, fist-pumping violently and raising his putter aloft as his voice clattered around the green and back across the water towards the tee. “LET’S GOOOOOOO!!!”
Even though it had just been for par, Byron and everybody else around the green knew how big a putt that one just was – and none more so than Ray. The thing is, though, before Byron had even finished studying the line on it, Ray had known that ball was going nowhere else but in the hole – it was just the way the match had turned from the moment they’d entered ‘Dead Man’s Alley’ two holes previously.
Having not won a hole all day, Byron had finally gotten on the board with a win at the par 4 15th to cut Mustang’s lead to 2UP after Mustang had failed to match his birdie with one of his from all of 6-feet. Reinvigorated at seeing the door open just a crack, Byron then went on to take the par 5 16th with another solid birdie to cut the deficit to just 1DN after a slightly flailed second shot with a 3-wood from Mustang had seen him, in the end, have to settle for nothing more than a par.
And when their failure to figure out the gusty conditions at 17 saw their respective tee-shots wind up in the rough and, essentially, turn the hole into an ‘up & down’ contest, even though Mustang had gotten his second shot a foot closer to the hole than Byron’s effort, Ray had been in the game long enough to know that the momentum had still most definitely been with Byron – ‘momentum’ he’d then channelled to knock down his par putt and heap all of the pressure back onto Mustang.
With his ball retrieved from the hole, a still massively pumped-up Byron landed back alongside his caddie and the two of them shared an adrenaline-fuelled, skin-stinging high-five, leaving the stage clear for Mustang. Knowing how important this putt was, as making it would keep them 1UP heading down 18 and therefore still in the driving seat, Ray, recognizing that Mustang just hadn’t seemed like himself for the last few holes – whether it be down to the energy he’d expended against Skip finally beginning to catch up to him or just the enormity of the situation starting to get to him – decided it best to have a word in his ear.
“Alright, kid, you’re up,” he said, trying his best to sound relaxed as the crowd began to calm back down after the excitement of cheering Byron’s par putt. “You feelin’ good? You want me to come over and help you read it?”
“No, I’m fine,” replied Mustang, the words tinged with a tense, somewhat curt, sharpness. “I already know what it does – it’s right-to-left. Easy.”
“Ok, well, if you’re sure,” said Ray, not feeling thrilled at how on-edge Mustang seemed, but not wanting to worsen the situation by questioning him too much. “You maybe want a drink first, though? Cause there’s no rush-…”
“No, I just wanna putt,” said Mustang, impatiently cutting across Ray before marching off with his putter in hand. “I’ve got this.”
Knowing there was nothing more he could, realistically, do – apart from literally grabbing him and forcing him to take an extra minute to try and calm down – Ray watched helplessly as Mustang strode purposefully up to where he’d left his ball-marker in the back-left portion of the green. Seeing he had begun the process of taking his putt – and thanks to the stewards gathered around the green holding up their arms to signal for it – the crowd fell completely silent and watched as Mustang went about beginning his routine.
Having been the one who first placed a putter in his hands a few weeks previously, however, Ray could immediately tell that Mustang wasn’t comfortable. His routine, even though it was never lacking for pace anyway, now seemed noticeably rushed – so much so, that he didn’t even crouch down behind the ball like he usually would after replacing it and look down the line of the putt. When he moved in to address the ball, he looked stiff and tense standing over it, like he was addressing a ticking bomb as opposed to a golf ball. In fact, such was the level of apparent discomfort he was now feeling, Mustang even began to take some practice strokes – something he normally would never do when about to putt – and even then those looked unlike his usual stroke. The whole picture was just “off”. It was like a clone of Mustang had, suddenly, appeared out of nowhere, and everything he was trying to do just seemed ‘alien’ to him.
And yet … Ray held out hope. Because the reality was, this wasn’t a clone of Mustang he was looking at. It was Mustang. A kid with one of the strongest wills and mentalities he’d ever come across in his life. A kid he’d seen do things with a golf club and ball that he was pretty sure not many other people on this planet could replicate.
A kid who could do anything.
So, Ray watched. He watched Mustang rock his shoulders. He watched the putter collide into the back of the ball. And he watched that same ball then set off rolling smoothly across the green. Though the usual cries of “GET IN THE HOLE!’ and ‘GET IN!’ began to rain down on the green from the crowd, for Ray they were nothing more than muffled, faraway-sounding bits of background noise. He was too busy concentrating on the ball and willing it to dive beneath the surface of the green in about two second’s time – and, after traversing 7 of the 11-feet of its journey, it was looking good to do just that.
4-feet out.
It was looking all but destined for the bottom of the cup.
3-feet out.
It just needed to break a touch to the left.
2-feet out.
Now it really needed to break to the left.
1-foot out.
“BREAK!” shouted Mustang, desperately.
But his ball didn’t listen.
“OOOOHHHHH!!!” gasped the crowd, almost in disbelief, as they watched his ball speed past the right edge of the hole and come to a stop 2-feet past it.
“BALLAS WINS THE HOLE IN THREE!” bellowed the Scorekeeper above the sound of the crowd, some of whom – like Byron and his caddie – were already rushing away to the 18th. “THE MATCH IS ALL-SQUARE!”
Amidst all the commotion which had, suddenly, descended on the green, however, Mustang remained firmly rooted to the spot where he’d just hit his putt from, eyes never leaving his ball.
He couldn’t believe it had missed.
‘It was right-to-left …’ he thought, utterly dismayed. ‘How could it have missed?! How?!’
No matter how much he thought about it or questioned it, though, it didn’t change anything.
The facts still remained the same.
And as Ray picked up his bag, slung it over his shoulder, and looked off across the green at Mustang, those same ‘facts’ were as clear as the late afternoon sky above them.
Mustang had missed.
The match was all-square with one to play.
And now everything was left to fight for.
The only problem, though, was Ray wondered how much actual ‘fight’ Mustang had left in him.