With a trail of footprints left in their wake after walking through what remaining morning dew had yet to be burned away by the sun, Mustang, Ray, and Beau arrived next to Dallas’ plane. After using the time it had taken them to cover the 190-yards between the green and where it was parked to get over the initial shock that had gripped them upon first seeing it, Mustang and Ray took a moment to appreciate the rare opportunity they now had to be so close to an aircraft that, normally, they’d only get to see the underside of as it passed over them a few thousand feet or so up in the air.
It was a tidily-sized plane with one long wing stretching across the top of it; three hooded wheels; and a single, chrome-covered propeller jutting out of the nose. Save for two colourful swooshes on either side, the body of the plane was primarily made up of glossy sheets of white metal panelling bolted precisely into place from tip to tail. And though the windows were ever-so-slightly tinted, thanks to where they were standing and the angle the sun was hitting the glass at, Mustang and Ray could make out that there was room for about four passengers inside – maybe five if you were stuck. The one detail that really caught their attention, however, was the name painted on the side of the plane right down near the tail in a flowing cursive-style font.
“See that?!” whispered Ray, nudging Mustang like an excited kid on a school trip as he pointed subtly at the tail. “Swish – that’s Dallas’ nickname! How cool is that?!”
“Pretty cool,” agreed Mustang, he, too, whispering as the magnitude of the situation began to creep up on his nerves once more.
“So, how they bitin’?” Beau asked, looking off at Dallas, who was now busy reeling his line back in towards the shore.
“Well, I’ll put it this way,” he replied, his deep, raspy voice slightly garbled on account of the large cigar clamped in-between his teeth as his line skimmed along the top of the mirror-still surface of the lake. “You’ve either got yourself some real smart fish here? Or else some real lazy ones – either way, though …” With his line finally back in, Dallas lifted the rod up out of the water and turned around. “I’m out a breakfast.”
“Well, be that as it may, you’ll be glad to hear that we do quite a nice breakfast up at the clubhouse – one that, luckily for you, doesn’t require you to go out and catch it yourself either!” joked Beau, now angling himself towards Mustang and placing his hand on his shoulder. “But, before we get to that, allow me to introduce, if you will, Mr. Mustang Peyton and his caddie slash guardian, Mr. Ray Thackett.” Beau turned and cast his gaze evenly between Mustang and Ray as he held out his hand in Dallas’ direction. “Gentlemen? Mr. Dallas Rugger.”
“It’s an honour to meet you, Mr. Rugger, sir,” said Ray, sounding as nervous as he had the night he went on his first date with Jeanie.“I’m a big, big fan of yours.”
Having made his way back up the small bank of rough that separated the water’s edge from the fairway in the time Beau had been doing the introductions, Dallas began to approach the spot where Mustang and Ray were standing. And now that they were all actually on the same level? Mustang could finally get a proper look at the man who, ever since he’d first heard his name just over an hour previously, had taken on this almost mythical status in his mind. He was tall, as Mustang had expected a Hall of Fame shooting guard to be, but for someone in his early 70’s, he was still maintaining every inch of the 6”5 frame he used to bully opponents with back in the day. Though he’d gotten a little heavier compared to the pictures Mustang had looked up of him from his playing days – which, again, is what he would have expected for an athlete retired for nearly forty years – Dallas was still in good enough-looking shape where, if a pickup game were to suddenly break out, Mustang reckoned he’d still be able to jump in for a few plays and do some damage in and around the paint. And though dressed, for the most part, rather conservatively in a white mock turtleneck and sand-coloured fedora; baggy beige slacks and a pair of comfortable-looking white, spikeless golf shoes; the gold Rolex he was sporting on his wrist – one that easily cost half of what Ray had paid for the house he’d bought himself and Mustang – was a blatant reminder that Dallas wasn’t exactly the kind of guy who was strapped for cash.
What really took Mustang by surprise, though, was just how young Dallas still looked; so much so, that if it weren’t for his neatly trimmed, silvery grey goatee and the fact he already knew how old he really was, Mustang would have had a hard time believing he’d even hit 50 yet.
“The pleasure’s all mine, Ray,” Dallas said, pulling his cigar from his mouth as he arrived in front of him and shook Ray’s outstretched hand. “And, please, call me Dallas.”
From the first moment he’d ever spoken to him in the clearing of the LaFleur Cabin, one of the things that had always stuck with Mustang about that encounter was just how large Ray’s hand had felt when they shook on their deal for him to go stay in Ray’s trailer for the night until he could get Maisie the new radiator he said she needed the next morning. And in the proceeding weeks and months since then, in all the travelling they’d been doing to go play in junior golf tournaments and the qualifier for the U.S. Amateur, that opinion had only been further galvanized in Mustang’s mind; for, in meeting the plethora of new people such an endeavor entailed, Mustang had yet to see Ray come across someone whose hand he couldn’t comprehensively envelop with his own.
Until, of course, he saw him shake hands with Dallas, that is.
“Yeah, sure!” replied Ray, who had, once again, returned to sounding like a giddy teenager as he eagerly moved his arm up and down to try and feel as though he was having some level of say in how their handshake was going. “Dallas it is!”
With Ray’s reaction drawing a warm smile that showed off his polished-looking teeth, Dallas released his hand from his mighty grasp and dropped his attention down onto Mustang. “That goes for you as well, young man,” he said, reaching out for another handshake. “It’s Dallas – nothing else.”
“Ok …” replied Mustang, making a concerted effort to speak confidently and look Dallas right in the eye just as Ray had taught him to do when introducing himself to people. “It’s nice to meet you, Dallas – I’m Mustang.”
Just like he had with Ray’s, Dallas’ giant hand promptly swallowed Mustang’s like an anaconda having its lunch, leaving him with no alternative but to try in vain to impart some level of firmness into their very much one-sided handshake.
“Oh, I know who you are,” Dallas said, regurgitating Mustang’s hand just as he began to lose the feeling in the tips of his fingers. “I watched you at the U.S. Amateur. And to get all the way to the final? At your age? Well, I gotta say, I was mightily impressed.”
“Thank you,” replied Mustang, unable to prevent the corners of his mouth from stretching into a proud smile.
“You’re very welcome,” Dallas said, bringing his gently smoking cigar up towards his mouth and letting it hover there while he finished his point. “Though I assume at this point you’ve worked out why you didn’t beat Fletcher, right?”
As Dallas, finally, took a deep drag from his cigar – causing the smouldering end of it to burn a deep orange colour as the ash reignited – Mustang, caught completely off-guard by his question, looked to Ray for any indication as to how he should possibly answer it. When all he got back from him was a shake of his head coupled with a lost shrug of his shoulders, however, Mustang looked back up at Dallas and just hedged his bets.
“Uh … I guess my second at 18?” Mustang said as Dallas blew out a large cloud of white smoke, the aromatic smell of burning tobacco mixing with the fresh morning air and his cologne making for a memorable aroma. “Took 3-wood to try and hit the green in two ‘cause I knew that from where Fletcher’s tee-shot had ended up he could easily reach with an iron; so, I felt I needed to, at least, try and get my ball up there first. But, instead of getting the bullet fade I wanted, I ended up catching it too high up the face, flared it right into the junk, and … well, you know what happened after that.”
“I do,” replied Dallas, pausing for a second to casually flick some of the spent ash from off the end of his cigar. “But you didn’t answer the question.”
“Excuse me …?” said Mustang, his confusion at the sudden turn their conversation felt as though it had taken causing the back of his neck to feel flush – like he’d just been handed a pop quiz in a class he’d never so much as even cracked the book of.
“I asked you if you had worked out why you didn’t beat Fletcher, right?” Dallas said, repeating his question firmly.
“Yeah …?” answered Mustang, his neck not feeling any less warm.
“Ok, except what you told me,” continued Dallas, now taking to aiming his cigar at Mustang like it were a pointing device. “Is why you lost. What I wanted to know is why you didn’t win?”
“Aren’t they the same thing, though?” Ray asked, jumping into the conversation to give Mustang some much-needed backup.
“For all the 20-plus handicappers who’ll be rolling through here later and losing a ball every two holes? Probably, yeah,” answered Dallas, flatly, as he shifted his laser-like focus off of Mustang and onto Ray, instead. “But for the likes of you two? Guys going toe-to-toe with someone of Fletcher Rhodes’ calibre? There’s a huge difference – and the sooner y’all learn that, the better.”
Mustang and Ray both looked at one another, exchanging a glance that silently asked the other if they’d any idea what Dallas was talking about. And, between the two of them, they were both drawing blanks.
“Well, don’t leave them hangin’, Dallas!” snapped Beau a touch impatiently, intervening on Mustang’s and Ray’s behalf. “This ain’t a soap opera for cryin’ out loud! Explain to them what you mean!”
Having busied himself taking another long drag from his cigar, Dallas sent another billow of smoke floating up over his head. “Alright, alright, I was getting to it …” he said, looking to calm Beau down before turning his attention back to Mustang and Ray. “Now, have y’all had a chance to watch back the coverage of the final yet?”
Again, Mustang and Ray looked at one another. Not only had they not watched back the coverage, but it wasn’t even a case of not having done so ‘yet’, because such an idea had never even occurred to them.
“Uh … no, we haven’t … uh … haven’t quite gotten ‘round to it,” bluffed Ray, painting a serious expression across his face to aid the lie. “You know … what with all the travellin’ and such.”
“Well, luckily for you, I have,” continued Dallas, unfazed by Ray’s response as he could make his point regardless of whether or not they’d watched it. “Twice, in fact. And the reason you didn’t win? Simple – you were too aggressive.”
This time there was no need for them to look at one another, for, both Mustang and Ray were already on the same page.
“What?” said Mustang, his voice tinged with just the faintest hint of indignation at Dallas’ summation of his performance in Bandon.
“Too aggressive?!” added Ray, piling in on the back of Mustang’s response, his efforts to mask his slightly bruised ego falling just short of the mark. “What are you talkin’ ‘bout?”
Sensing that he’d gotten their backs up with his remarks – as he’d hoped would be the case – Dallas paused for a moment to knock yet more ash from the tip of his cigar. “Well, it’s like this …” he began, choosing his words carefully as he gently ground the fallen flakes of ash down into the grass with the sole of his shoe. “I could see why you chose to use that particular tack; given Fletcher was gonna be outdriving you on every par 4 and 5, you probably figured that to try and impose yourself in the match, you’d take on more risks to try and put him under pressure – see if you couldn’t get him to respond in kind and make a mistake that you could then capitalize on.”
This time Mustang and Ray didn’t respond. The looks on their faces, though, were enough of a giveaway for Dallas to know that he’d hit the nail on the head. Because, the fact of the matter was, that was, indeed, the exact strategy Mustang and Ray had cooked up between them the night before the final in the makeshift ‘war room’ that had been their hotel room. They’d used a similar way of thinking in the Memorial, to obvious good effect; the same could be said for the handful of stroke play junior tournaments Mustang had entered and, subsequently, won at a canter; and even likewise for both the qualifier to get into the U.S. Amateur in the first place and the actual week of tournament play itself. Being aggressive and going after his shots had proven to be a more-than-lucrative plan of attack for Mustang and Ray ever since they’d teamed up. But to hear now that it may have been the very reason they’d failed to topple Fletcher? Well, it was something of a shock to the system.
“The problem with that plan, though,” said Dallas, continuing with his highly accurate dissection of Mustang and Ray’s gameplan. “Was that, unknowingly, you were playing right into Fletcher’s hands. Because even if you wound up even slightly out of position? As you did on several occasions? Then, all of a sudden, you were giving him the greenlight he needed to go ahead and get aggressive himself. Because here’s the thing with Fletcher Rhodes: yes, he’s the number one amateur in the world, but don’t for a second think that he stormed his way to the top in a blaze of gunfire. Instead, ever since he burst onto the scene in the last year or so? Every time I’ve watched him play it’s like watching an assassin or …” Dallas paused for a second to see if he could come up with a more apt analogy. “Oh, you know what he’s like, actually?” he asked, having thought of the perfect way to put what he wanted to say.
“What?” replied Mustang, now religiously falling on every word Dallas was saying.
“He’s like a great counter puncher in boxing,” Dallas answered. “Like the way Ali boxed? Or Floyd? That’s Fletcher. He doesn’t go out and chase you; he waits for you to try walking him down; to start throwing haymakers; and then bam! That’s when he slips the shoulder and pops you right in the mouth with a jab and a straight right. And up in Bandon? That’s exactly what you did. You came out swinging for the fence tryna’ land those big knockout punches, gassed early in the afternoon session as a result, and all Fletcher had to do from there was sit back and wait to pick you off one hole at a time – which he duly did.”
Mustang didn’t quite know what to say. When it came to losing his match against Fletcher, the thinking he’d done about it was pretty basic – primarily, he’d lost and … well, that was about it. But to listen to Dallas break down in such stark detail that, before he’d even hit a single shot, him losing to Fletcher had been, almost, inevitable? It blew Mustang’s mind. And he wasn’t sure if it was in a good way.
“So, what should I have done?” Mustang asked, now desperate to hear that there could have been something he could have done differently to, at least, have had a chance of beating Fletcher.
“Been a counter puncher too …” said Ray, quietly, as the answer suddenly dawned on him.
A smiling Dallas brought his cigar up towards his mouth. “Bingo…” he said, sounding satisfied that Ray had figured it out as he, temporarily, clamped the cigar back in-between his teeth. “Because if you don’t throw punches at a counter puncher, what happens? You take away what they do best and put the onus on them to go make something happen. And in the context of the final in Bandon? If y’all had come out and played with the idea where your main goal was to just keep the match all-square for as long as possible? Like, 24 or 25-holes in? Then I guarantee you that would have turned the heat up on Fletcher just as much as you thought going after him would. Because trust me, he’d have known full-well heading into Sunday that he was the raging hot favourite to win. He’s older; hits it further; has far more experience – in all reality, he should be putting someone like you away with holes to spare. And even when you’re as nice a guy as he is? Well, that kinda threat to your ego always has the potential to dial up the pressure the deeper into a 36-hole final you go.”
Feeling slightly overwhelmed at the depth of information they’d just had to process, Mustang and Ray took matching deep breaths in through their noses and let them out in the form of long sighs.
“Yeah, I’d …” began Mustang, his sentence coming out in broken up blocks as if they were downloading from a computer with particularly slow internet. “I’d never really … never really considered that.”
“Yeah … uh …” added Ray, he, too, using the same internet. “Me … me neither … wow.” Thinking he should try and lift their energy levels before they started to feel too sorry for themselves, Ray looked over at Mustang and clapped another encouraging hand on his shoulder. “Aw well!” he said, his voice now loud enough that it travelled halfway across the fairway and reverberated back off the large bank separating the 18th from Old Abe’s demesne. “It just gives us somethin’ to work on! Right, kid?!”
“That it does,” agreed Dallas, cheerily, just as Mustang looked up at Ray and smiled weakly for his benefit, knowing he was just trying to cheer him up. “Being in Seminole will help, though …”
After dropping it in so casually that what he’d said had barely even registered with them, Mustang and Ray, with their mouths both slightly agape, turned and looked at Dallas.
“Does that mean what I think it means?” asked Ray, trying his hardest to fight the smile his mouth was, suddenly, now desperate to form. “He made the team?! He’s going to the Walker Cup?!”
“Well, in a way …” said Beau, feeling the need to interject rather quickly before Ray and Mustang got too carried away with themselves.
“Yeah, Beau’s right, boys,” added Dallas, taking over the reins once again. “See, as it stands right now? The ten slots on the team have actually been filled.”
“Then I don’t understand …” said Mustang, his head now spinning from the rollercoaster of emotions that had been the last thirty seconds. “Why would I be going to Seminole if you’ve already picked the team?”
“Because, Mustang …” Dallas replied, his tone softening just a touch as he made a point of really focusing his full attention on him. “I want you to be my alternate. Or, to put it more accurately … I want to give you the opportunity to be my alternate.”
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