Feeling the need to step in once more, Ray spoke up. “Meaning what exactly?” he asked, his tone now firming as he began to grow tired of people speaking in riddles.
“Well, it’s like this,” explained Dallas, now taking to looking at Ray, as he could sense his frustration. “Right now, as you probably know, the U.S. is on a two-match losing streak to GB&I. They’ve had a core group of players in the Riggs Twins, Finn Hennessy, Maddox Breckon, and the Campbell Cousins form a formidable spine in their team that, over the last two matches, has proven too much for our guys to take down. And with the rumour going around that they’re bringing an even stronger team to Seminole? One they intend to keep together and add to for the 2022 match at St. Andrews? Well, that’s why the USGA has decided to instate me as captain for not only the match at Seminole but for when we head over to Scotland two years from now as well.”
“Ok, but what’s all that got to do with Mustang?” asked Ray, the firmness in his voice not letting up.
“Because having seen him play?” said Dallas, continuing with his explanation as he gestured at Mustang, once again, with his cigar. “And seeing how good he is now? Then if he continues to progress as I expect him to, I see him being an integral part of the team I bring to St. Andrews. So, the reason why I want him as my alternate – or, again, why I want to give him the chance to be my alternate – is because I want him to get some experience of being in the environment of the Walker Cup and around some of the guys who, chances are, will make the 2022 team as well.”
“Well, if that’s what you want …” said Mustang, putting his two cents in. “Why not just make me your alternate then?”
As opposed to answering Mustang’s question, Dallas, instead, clamped his cigar back in-between his teeth and began to walk in the direction of his plane. “You know, back in the day …” he said, throwing the words back over his shoulder as he got to within a few steps of the cockpit door. “Whether it was when I first started out with the Eagles or when I moved onto the Lions, if a game needed to be tied up or won, I was always the guy who got the ball with a second or two left on the clock. Always. Because everyone knew that, no matter what the situation was or how high the stakes were, I’d make whatever shot needed to be made. And I did. Time and time again.” Finally reaching the door, Dallas popped it open and pulled it out towards himself. “That’s why everyone started calling me ‘Swish’,” he continued, looking back over at where Mustang, Ray, and Beau were still gathered together. “Because once I got that ball in my hand? Not only was it going in the basket …but it was getting nothing but net on the way in too.”
With that, Dallas disappeared, temporarily, from view as he ducked in behind the door and leaned into the cockpit.
“You got any idea where he’s goin’ with this?” Ray asked Beau, making sure to keep his voice down so as to avoid being overheard by Dallas who, by the sounds of it, was doing some serious rooting around inside the cockpit looking for something.
“I’m afraid not, no,” replied Beau, sounding as lost as both Mustang and Ray looked. “I mean, I knew about the plan to make you an alternate, but apart from that? I’m as much in the dark as you are.”
With the sound of rummaging, suddenly, coming to a stop, Dallas leaned back out from the cockpit and reappeared from behind the door.
Except now? He had a golf club and a ball in his hands.
“So, when I say I want to give you the chance to be my alternate?” Dallas said, picking up right where he’d left off as he began to walk back over towards Mustang and the others. “What I mean is … is that even though it’s unlikely you’d actually tee it up in competition out in Seminole, I need to know that if, for whatever reason, I wind up needing to put you in the game?” Dallas arrived back in front of Mustang, came to a stop, and held out the golf club and ball for him to take. “Well, I need to know that if I pass you the ball …” he said. “That you’ll make the shot.”
Though still not exactly sure what this all meant, Mustang reached out and took the club – itself a pretty beaten-up-looking 3-wood – and scuffed-up ball from Dallas. “Ok …” he said, quietly, as he wrapped his hand around the grip of the 3-wood that, going on how smooth it felt, clearly hadn’t been changed since it was first bought. “And I can do that with these … how exactly?”
With his hands now free, Dallas removed his cigar from his mouth and brought it back down to his side. “Simple …” he replied, as he exhaled yet more smoke out of his lungs. “See, when I won the Public Links back in 1990 to finish off the Triple Crown, you ask most people what they remember about that tournament? And they’d probably say me winning the final 6&5 against Stan Stokes. What everybody forgets, though, is that during the third and final round of the stroke play section to see who would make it through to the second half of the week, I came to the 18th knowing that I needed to make birdie to grab the final spot in the last 16. Problem was, though, because of a 4-hour weather delay earlier in the day, by the time my group reached 18 – and we were the only ones left to finish at that point, by the way – though we were able to get our tee shots away? By the time we got down to where our balls ended up, the night had closed in to such an extent that we couldn’t even see the green.”
“So, you had to come back the next morning then?” asked Ray, finally getting an inkling as to where Dallas might be headed with all this.
“Yessir,” he answered. “I went to bed that night knowing that, come sun up, I’d be heading back out to that 18th hole with my chance at taking home the trophy on the line. As Beau will, surely, attest to, though … making a birdie on the 18th at White River Golf Club is no walk in the park … right, Beau?”
As it suddenly dawned on him what Dallas was getting at with his leading tone, Beau let out a sigh and dropped his head down into his chest. “Of course that’s what you’re doing …” he said, the words hitchhiking out with another exasperated-sounding breath as he shook his head.
“Doing ‘what’?” asked Mustang, now taking to looking between both Dallas and Beau for any clue that might help him figure out what the heck was happening. “What does that mean?”
Given Dallas had set it up for him to be the one to do it, Beau lifted his head and took it upon himself to break the news. “It means, Mustang, that the par 5 18th at White River is notoriously difficult – and this is primarily down to the fact that to have any chance of reaching the green in two … you have to carry your second shot the bones of 220-yards over a huge lake that guards the hole.”
“And, as it happens … from here?” said Dallas, tagging himself back into the conversation before turning and pointing out over the water towards the 14th green nestled off in the far right corner of the lake. “All the way to that green there? Is around the exact same yardage.”
“So, that’s what you want me to do?” asked Mustang, everything becoming clear as day as he looked across the lake and the light layer of fog hanging just above the surface of the water. “Hit 14 from here?”
“You get that ball onto the green and keep it there?” Dallas said, laying out the details of his offer in no uncertain terms. “Just like I did that morning in White River to end up two-putting for birdie? Then I’ll know you have what it takes to be my alternate in Seminole.”
“And if I don’t I’ll …?”
“Just have to watch it on T.V. like everybody else,” said Dallas, bluntly cutting across Mustang before he could finish. “So … the question you have to ask yourself is … do you want the ball or not?”
Before a conflicted-looking Mustang could give his answer, Ray stepped in. “Could I speak to you for a second?” he asked, growling the request somewhat as he stared Dallas right in the eye. “In private?”
“Of course,” agreed Dallas, stepping aside and gesturing in the direction of his plane.
“Hmm, something tells me I should go act as a referee for this,” said Beau, leaning down and talking to Mustang as the pair of them warily watched an annoyed-looking Ray marching off towards the plane with Dallas following closely behind. “You just stay here; we’ll be right back – I promise.”
Knowing that plan was probably for the best, Mustang just nodded his head and looked on as Beau, hurriedly, went to go catch up with Ray and Dallas, who, though speaking quietly, were, clearly, already in the midst of a heated discussion.
“Can’t you see how ridiculous this is?!” hissed Ray, just as Beau landed alongside him and Dallas. “I mean, you said it yourself how good the kid is and how you want him to gain some experience, so why not just make him your alternate?! Why bother with all this pageantry?!”
“I know that this may seem a little … ‘unorthodox’,” replied Dallas, his voice sounding all the deeper as he tried his best to speak quietly. “But I can assure you that what you call ‘pageantry’? Is merely an attempt on my part to see if Mustang truly has what it takes to be an alternate. Because you’re right, I did say that he was good; in fact, he’s up there with the best I’ve seen at that age – and, bear in mind, I watched Tiger win his first U.S. Junior Amateur when he was 15. But to be an alternate at the Walker Cup? It’s one thing to have the talent. But, more importantly than that, I need to know if Mustang has the mentality to handle the pressure of stepping up at a moment’s notice and performing at the highest level. And the best way I know how to find that out? Is to see if he can do something that I myself did.”
“And while I’m sure Ray here understands that, Dallas,” said Beau, jumping in to act as mediator before an increasingly irritated Ray could fire back his response. “I’m just wondering if we could perhaps make the challenge a little fairer on young Mustang?”
“Fairer how?” asked Dallas, sounding reluctant about the idea.
“Well, for instance, I’m sure you would have had the chance to go warm-up and practice the exact shot you were gonna have to face before you went back out onto the course that morning,” answered Beau, convincingly making his case like a lawyer in a courtroom drama. “You would have had a golf glove too; nevermind the fact you would have gotten to use your club to hit the shot with as opposed to some busted up hand-me-down of a thing that -…”
THHHHHWWWIIIINNNNGGG!!!
Having heard the high-pitched metallic sound of a ball getting absolutely pummeled by a 3-wood, Ray, Dallas, and Beau, instantly, all whipped around and looked back at where they’d left Mustang. And, sure enough, as soon as they laid eyes on him, all they saw was him standing in his follow-through pose; the black, graphite shaft of the 3-wood pressed up against the back of his neck; and his gaze locked on the sky high above the lake.
“Then again …” Beau said, dryly. “He could just take a swing at it – that works too, I guess.”
Desperate to see the outcome, Ray, Dallas, and Beau quickly scrambled back out beyond the nose of the plane and turned their eyes skyward.
“There!” said Ray, promptly pointing out Mustang’s ball for Dallas and Beau after scanning the cloudless blue sky serving as its backdrop. “Coming in from the left!”
In the time he’d been left alone while Ray, Dallas, and Beau attempted to hash things out, Mustang had taken to weighing up what his options were for taking on the challenge Dallas had set him. Because while he could understand that Ray was just trying to look out for him, deep down, Mustang desperately wanted to go to Seminole as the U.S. team’s alternate; and if doing that meant getting the ball Dallas had given him onto the 14th green? Well, he was going to do it.
So, he’d contemplated hitting a nice high draw to make that happen, thinking the right-to-left ball flight would best navigate the significant distance he’d have to cover over the water. When he remembered that the 14th green was a touch longer than it was wide, however, the idea of a draw coming in hot from the right-hand side with next-to-no green to work with quickly changed Mustang’s mind, thus leaving him with only one other option. A fade. And a high one at that. The distance was a worry, as his fade tended not to fly as far as his draw did, but Mustang reckoned if he caught it perfectly? As in, right out the middle of the face? He could get it there. It would be tight. But he could do it.
And after finding the sweet spot on the 3-wood Dallas had given him, watching the ball take off low over the lake, as a result, before then steadily climbing up into the air like a fighter jet turning on the afterburners, that belief had only grown all the stronger inside Mustang’s stomach … until Dallas, Ray, and Beau started watching, that is. Because even though it had faded, as planned, onto a perfect trajectory with the green, Mustang’s ball had now, seemingly, lost one of those very same afterburners as it was starting to lose far too much altitude far too soon.
And everyone could see it.
“She’s not gonna make it …” lamented a grimacing Beau as he trailed the flight of the ball.
“She needs to go …” warned Dallas, suddenly sounding a tad nervous.
“Naw, she can get there!” encouraged Ray, whether he actually believed that or not, even he couldn’t tell at this point.
The only person who didn’t say a word, though, was the one who’d sent the ball sailing out over the lake in the first place.
Because that feeling in Mustang’s stomach? It was now back telling him everything he needed to know.
And soon everyone else would know too.
Because after looking as though it was straight nose-diving towards the murky depths of the lake or, at best, heading on a direct collision course for the wooden sleepers wrapped around the base of the green, Mustang’s ball, after eking out an extra yard or two of length from out of nowhere, crashed into the fringe no more than a few inches beyond the top of one of the sleepers …
Took a huge divot that completely killed the pace it was carrying …
Popped straight up into the air …
AND ROLLED GENTLY ONTO THE GREEN!
“OOOOOOHHHH!!!” cheered Ray and Beau, their loud screams and jumping around startling a collection of nearby ducks to such an extent that they took off flying in a panicked mess of ruffled feathers and wings slapping against the water.
“Well, I guess that answers my question about whether or not you want the ball, huh, kid?!” laughed Dallas through a big, wide grin as he took a few steps away from where Ray and Beau were still celebrating in order for Mustang to hear him. “You got anything to say for yourself, man?!”
“Yeah, one thing …” replied Mustang, wheeling the 3-wood down from the nape of his neck and holding it at waist height before looking over at Dallas and smiling confidently. “Swish!”
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Chapter Artwork illustrated by the incredibly talented Kyle Petchock.