Written by Stephen F. Moloney
“And from there?” said Ray, now sliding his hands back out of his pockets. “Well, then it was just a case of gettin’ down to work.”
“Just like that, huh?” asked Maggie, surprised at how run-of-the-mill Ray was managing to make a putt for $160,000 sound. “Just … you know … straight into it?”
“Pretty much, yeah,” replied Ray. “Cause the way I looked at it, and this is true for how I tried to run things all the way through the kid’s career, I wanted to try and, as much as I could, remove the context surroundin’ the putt – so, basically, have him try to forget how much money it was worth – and just get him focusin’ on the actual putt itself, you know, the line, the pace …”
“The nuts and bolts,” said Maggie, seeing what he was getting at.
“Exactly. And at that moment, stood just over there …” continued Ray, pointing off behind Maggie at the area of fringe beyond the front-left bunker where Mustang’s ball had just crept onto the green. “The best way I could think of to make what he was about to try and do feel as normal as possible? Was to just treat it as if it was. And, in practice, that meant stickin’ religiously to our usual routine. The problem with that plan, though, is that ‘context’? It ain’t that easy to just ignore – and, especially so, when the ‘context’ in question is ‘you’re ‘bout to try and make a putt for a whole boat-load of money in front of a few hundred people’! Ok, it ain’t easy for the pros. And, as I’d come to learn … not for Mustang either.”
“Meaning?” asked Maggie, a note of concern, immediately, infiltrating her voice as she walked casually across the green so that she was behind the spot where Ray had shown her the hole would have been cut that Sunday,
“Well, after Mustang had given Byron his par putt and I’d grabbed the flag from his caddie,” answered Ray, beginning to divulge the necessary details of what he’d meant. “The kid comes out, replaces his ball, and takes his usual few steps back from it to start gettin’ a read on the line – so, basically, everythin’ runnin’ pretty much as normal, right? When it gets to the point where I’d, usually, be expectin’ to see him get back to his feet, though – because, again, if he was feelin’ his normal self, he never really took all that long down behind the ball – instead of standin’ up, he just … didn’t. He just stayed down on his haunches, right about here …” Ray gestured down at a spot a few paces back from where he’d placed the range ball on the green to demonstrate where Mustang’s would have been. “And just kept on lookin’ down the line between his ball and the hole.”
“Well, you did say it was a tricky part of the green to try and get a read on, right?” suggested Maggie, herself now getting down onto her haunches and beginning to survey the expanse of green separating where the hole would have been and the range ball standing in for Mustang’s like a round, little stunt-double. “So, did you consider that maybe he just needed a little more time to try and find the line? Cause, I gotta tell ya, from what I’m seeing here? It’s like I’m looking at one of those subway maps they have back in New York – just lines … everywhere.”
And Maggie wasn’t lying. From her angle behind “the hole”, she could see both the line Byron had taken for his putt and the other option Ray had described which would have seen him trying to bring it in from the right (or Maggie’s left, as she was looking at it). But from where Mustang’s ball would have been – which was only 2-feet closer to the hole than Byron’s and, from what would have been the perspective of those on the bank that day, just slightly further off to the right of it – Maggie could not only see how those previous two lines may have possibly worked for Mustang’s putt, but she was seeing, at least, four other lines that looked as though they could have been the one to successfully lead his ball to the bottom of the cup as well.
It was like looking at a treasure map marked with numerous different paths leading to where the hoard was buried, but from what Ray had told her about this part of the green, Maggie was more than well aware that the vast majority of said paths could be nothing more than booby trap-laced deadends.
“Yeah, I factored that in,” answered Ray, shifting his attention, momentarily, off of the green and looking back down the fairway to make sure Lola was keeping herself out of trouble. “That’s why when he didn’t stand up when I was expectin’ him to, I gave him the benefit of the doubt for that exact reason and gave him some extra time. When that then expired, though? And he still hadn’t got back up? Well, then I just got the feelin’ that somethin’ was up. And after what had happened with his putt at 17? And then again with his tee-shot at 18? This time I wasn’t gonna hesitate – so, I stepped in …”
*
“Hey, kid …” said Ray, keeping his voice low as he came to a stop behind Mustang’s shoulder and bent over at the hip so he could get down closer to him. “How ya doin’?”
“Yeah, I’m … I’m good,” replied Mustang, unconvincingly.
“Alright, let’s try that again,” said Ray, obviously not buying what Mustang was selling. “How ya doin’, kid?”
Mustang sighed. He knew there was no point trying to lie. Not now. Not with so much at stake.
“I can’t see the line …” he answered, sounding quietly frustrated with himself.
“You what?” asked Ray, hoping against hope that he hadn’t heard what he thought he just had.
“The line …” repeated Mustang, trying to keep his voice down despite his sense of frustration only growing deeper. “I can’t see it!”
With his fears confirmed that he hadn’t, indeed, misheard him, Ray now knew that whatever his next move was going to be, he had to tread lightly. Because as unbelievably great as his recovery shot had been, and as much as it had helped settle him back down into the match, Ray was still highly aware that Mustang’s state of mind was very much in a delicate state of equilibrium – where one single piece of advice could spell the difference between either giving him the confidence he was, clearly, in need of to step up and pull the trigger on his putt? Or see him looking for the nearest exit like he had been not even ten minutes earlier when he’d locked himself in the port-a-john. It was that black and white.
What was making Ray feel as though someone was, currently, in the process of using his stomach as a stress ball, however, was the fact that no matter how hard he tried to think of a piece of advice to actually give to Mustang, nothing was coming to mind – as in, not one single thing. And he was starting to panic. Because, despite being on the green, Ray knew he and Mustang were still up against Stan’s all-knowing and almighty clock – and with the sun only diving further down beyond the horizon with each passing second, Ray was painfully aware that he had to come up with a plan, but had no time in which to concoct it.
And what wasn’t helping matters was that the harder and harder he pushed his brain to come up with an idea, the only thing it seemed to be allowing Ray to think about was the very first evening he’d brought Mustang out onto the course.
It had been a couple of days after his first run-in with Byron on the 18th and, after finishing their final loop for the day about an hour previously, Ray had left Mustang to sweep up the Caddies’ Area in the workshop while he went outside to check on one of the fairway mowers that had started to act up earlier that day. After about fifteen minutes of working on the mower, though – and after finding the source of the problem to, annoyingly, be that of a cracked pipe which carried the hydraulic fluid needed to lift the blades up and down – Ray had gone back to the workshop to see if he could sniff out a spare piece of pipe to perform something of a ‘bush fix’ on the mower.
When he walked back in through the large, main door of the workshop, however, Ray couldn’t help but be stopped dead in his tracks by what he saw. Because over in the Caddies’ Area, no longer armed with the beat-up sweeping brush he’d left him with, Ray was pleasantly surprised to find Mustang had rooted out an old, rust-speckled putter from one of the many nooks and crannies littering the workshop, and was in the middle of swinging it back and forth as if hitting a series of invisible putts.
And, for whatever reason – as he watched Mustang pretend to drain a putt and fist-pump as if he was hearing the crowd from a few days previously cheering all over again – any and all thoughts of cracked pipes and hydraulic fluid just straight-up evaporated from Ray’s mind, as, suddenly, they didn’t seem all that important anymore. So, instead of going on his scavenger hunt for a piece of pipe as he’d planned, Ray, instead, grabbed a few clubs and a bag, brought Mustang out to the course, and let him play the four holes of ‘Dead Man’s Alley’ – from 15 all the way to 18.
And in the eight years he’d been at the Creek, and of the thousands of times he’d been through there before, Ray could, hand on heart, swear that evening had been the very first time he’d enjoyed a walk through ‘Dead Man’s Alley’. Was it the fact they’d had the course entirely to themselves? Maybe. Perhaps the fact the weather had been so pleasantly warm despite it being so late in the evening? That certainly didn’t hurt. But, for Ray, the answer as to why that evening, in particular, had been so memorable for him was easy – it was because of Mustang. It was because of seeing the freedom with which he played the game. It was because of the unbridled enthusiasm with which he played the game. And, most importantly, it was because of the way he played unburdened by expectations. If he missed the fairway? He didn’t care. If he didn’t hit a green exactly where he was aiming? He was just happy to have hit it at all. And if he happened to miss a putt? It wasn’t the end of the world.
And that’s when it hit Ray.
The lightbulb moment he’d been waiting for.
In all the commotion and all the pressure of the final, Mustang had lost that most precious of abilities which made him the golfer that he was – the ability to just play.
And, just like that, Ray knew exactly what his plan was.
“Hey, you remember that evenin’ I brought you out here for the first time?” he asked, the words tumbling out of his mouth one after the other with an excited urgency.
“What?” replied Mustang, his face screwing up in confusion at hearing a question so-far-removed from the high-pressure situation he was, currently, trying to figure out how best to navigate.
“The first evenin’ I brought you out here to play,” repeated Ray, hoping that repeating himself would not only jog Mustang’s memory but sprint it. “Remember? You had just found that putter in the workshop, I asked if you wanted to go play some holes, and you ended up playin’ from 15 to here? You know, it was practically dark by the time we finished?”
“Yeah, I remember,” answered Mustang, jumping on Ray’s train of thought but not sounding any more clued-in as to why exactly he was on it. “But what’s that got to do with anything?”
“Because, right now, I want you to close your eyes for me,” instructed Ray, sensing he was going to have to battle to get Mustang to listen to him.
“What?!” hissed Mustang, his confusion now at such a level that he just had to turn around and look up at Ray.
“Just do it, man, alright?!” insisted Ray, managing to smile in spite of the ever-mounting pressure he could feel beginning to emanate from not only Stan and his clock, but the crowd surrounding the green as well for Mustang to do something.
Despite, clearly, thinking that this was nothing more than a waste of time, an exasperated Mustang, nonetheless, turned his attention back down towards the hole before, begrudgingly, closing his eyes as instructed.
“Now, all I want you to do is …” said Ray, quickly continuing with his plan now that he’d completed the first stage in actually getting Mustang to close his eyes. “Is that when I walk away, I want you to take three deep breaths for me, ok? But after the third one, when you reopen your eyes, I want you to imagine that it’s just like that first evenin’ you came out here. So, there’s no Byron. There’s no crowd. No Bill, no Jeanie. Your grandpa isn’t even here. Ok, it’s just you and me … and this putt. And if you do that? I guarantee you’ll see what the line is.”
“Or, counterpoint … ” argued Mustang, his eyes flicking open before looking back up at Ray. “Couldn’t you just tell me what you think the line is?!”
“In a moment like this? To have any chance of actually makin’ it?” replied Ray, placing a reassuring hand on Mustang’s shoulder. “You’re the only one who can see it, kid – it has to be you.”
Then, just like he said he would, Ray walked away from Mustang – leaving him with nothing more than the memory of his instructions echoing in his ears to keep him company. Though still not buying the idea that he and he alone had to be the one to decipher what the line was, Mustang – with no better-sounding one coming to mind – turned his attention back off towards the hole with the intention of trying Ray’s idea.
“Well … here goes nothing …” he whispered, skeptically, before reclosing his eyes.
He took his first deep breath.
“No Byron …” he whispered.
He took his second deep breath.
“No crowd …”
He took his third deep breath.
“No Bill. No Jeanie. No Grandpa …”
Then, slowly, Mustang reopened his eyes and … silence. Pure, blissful silence. In fact, the only thing he could hear was the sound of some faraway birds in the trees across the lake at 14 getting some final singing in before the sun bid its final adieu for the day. And, yet, as much of a relief as it was to feel as though he could, finally, hear himself think for the first time in what felt like hours, Mustang couldn’t help but feel thrown by the fact everything now sounded as if someone had found the Creek’s volume control and turned it practically down to zero.
So, he turned around to see what was happening with the crowd to make them have fallen so quiet.
Except the crowd? They were no longer there. At the top of the bank? Outside the rear of the clubhouse? It was now completely empty. And it wasn’t just up there. Everywhere Mustang’s eyes fell, where there had been masses of people previously – stretching off towards the pro-shop and down on the fairway – they were now devoid of life. Even the green had been abandoned.
Byron and his caddie? Gone.
Bill, Jeanie, and Travis? Gone.
Even Denby and Truman had disappeared, seemingly, on the breeze.
But the one person Mustang could see, however – standing off to the side of the green and leaning on the flag he had propped up alongside him – was Ray. And he smiled. And he nodded. Because he knew his plan had worked.
And so did Mustang.
So, with a feeling of nervous excitement bubbling up inside his stomach, Mustang whipped his head back around, looked off towards the hole, and … there it was.
“Oh my God …” he whispered, barely able to believe what he was seeing.
Stretching right the way from his ball all the way to the hole, lit up and glowing like a highway at night, was the line for his putt that Mustang had been searching for.
And he wasn’t going to waste it.
Springing back to his feet – and keeping his eyes laser-focused on the line for fear doing otherwise would see it vanish on him – Mustang marched back in behind his ball and, hurriedly, got into his stance.
And from there? It was just pure muscle memory.
He placed the head of his putter assertively down behind his ball and looked back along the still glowing line leading to the hole. He registered the double-break it had right near the end of it and, with all the speed of a supercomputer, worked out how much pace he’d need to put on his ball for it to actually take said break without being thrown off-course by it. Then, with the final calculations locked in, Mustang dropped his eyes back over his ball … and pulled the trigger.
Drawing his putter back and then through with a relaxed rocking of his shoulders, Mustang felt his ball come solidly off the face – and, suddenly, things weren’t so silent anymore.
As if hitting his putt had accidentally bumped the Creek’s volume back up, Mustang’s eardrums were subjected to a relentless barrage of noise as a loud, excited chorus of “GET IN THE HOLE!” and “GET IN!”, suddenly, washed across the green courtesy of the people, once again, crammed in atop the bank and in the fairway.
And they were right to sound excited.
Because after gobbling up the first half of its journey to the hole, Mustang’s ball was now tracking right for it. The only problem, though, was that it still had to navigate the gnarly double-break occupying the final 3-feet of the remaining half – and his ball was starting to pick up a little too much pace to do that.
“Slow down …” urged Ray quietly, recognizing, even from where he was standing, that Mustang’s ball was now moving slightly too fast. “Slow down!”
But Mustang’s ball didn’t want to listen.
Crashing inside the final 6-feet lying between it and the hole, his ball was now riding the knife-edge between ‘fast’ and downright ‘out of control’ as it barreled towards the point of no return – and there was nothing left for Mustang to do but watch … and hope.
It hit 5-feet out.
His ball wasn’t slowing down.
4-feet out.
It still wasn’t slowing down.
3-feet out.
It veered sharply to the left of the hole as the first part of the double-break sent it careening off of its original line.
2-feet out.
The brakes were now completely off as it continued to travel on a line left of the hole. Worse still, if it didn’t take the second part of the double-break, at the speed it was now travelling at, not only would Mustang’s ball miss the hole, but it would end up rolling so far past it, that he could easily be left looking at 10-feet back for his par putt.
1-foot out.
Mustang’s ball hit the second part of the double-break and, as if pulling on a handbrake, swooped back to the right at the very last second like a rally car taking a corner – leaving it, suddenly, on a direct collision course for the hole it was now mere inches away from!
This was it.
Glory or a playoff.
Everyone was about to find out.
So, they watched.
They watched Mustang’s ball clatter into the right edge of the hole.
They watched it ride the lip right the way around the entire circumference of the hole, then …
STOP ON THE VERY FRONT EDGE!
“OHHHHHH!” groaned the crowd, despairingly, unable to believe what they were seeing.
But they couldn’t see what Mustang was seeing.
And, little did they know, that his ball wasn’t quite yet done.
Because it was teetering.
And it was tottering.
“Come on!” whispered Mustang, begging gravity to do him a favour. “Drop! Drop!”
And this time? Well, this time, Mustang’s ball did decide to listen to him.
Because a second later … IT TOPPLED DOWN INTO THE HOLE!
“YEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHH!” shouted Mustang, punching the air in triumph as the crowd erupted in an explosion of noise that swept down over the bank and engulfed the green.
Bill, Jeanie, and Travis were all hugging and jumping around in a massive circle – ecstatic disbelief coursing through their veins. Skip and Beau were both clapping and smiling as Kretschko, Horton, and the other players joined them in applauding the new champion. And as for Ray? Well, from the second he’d seen Mustang’s ball disappear down over the edge of the hole and into the cup, he’d quickly abandoned the flag and begun running and jumping around the green like a newborn lamb seeing grass for the first time.
With the crowd still firmly gripped in the unyielding grasp of utter elation, however, a beaming Ray, eventually, turned and looked across the green at Mustang, just as he went about doing the same to him. And as their eyes met and they exchanged the most deliriously happy of smiles, Mustang let his putter fall harmlessly over onto the green and set off sprinting across the tightly mown grass towards Ray.
Thinking he was about to be on the receiving end of an almost nuclear-level high-five, Ray stuck out his hand in anticipation of Mustang’s arrival. When he actually reached him, though, instead of a high-five, Mustang completely bypassed Ray’s outstretched hand and hugged him, squeezing him as hard as he could. Though initially caught off-guard and, as a result, somewhat unsure how best to respond, a smiling Ray quickly wrapped his arms down around Mustang and hugged him equally as hard back.
“Way to go, kid,” he said, proudly, in a moment, right there and then, he knew he’d never ever forget. “Way to go …”.