The three wood was sacred. Transcendent. It belonged to my maternal Grandfather, as did all my left-handed clubs, and came to me after he died. I hadn't used it till my Grandpa Sloan was in his 70s. Then we started to play together, along with my father. Grandpa Anderson's clubs were too much for me. He, after all, was over six feet tall. Weighed over 200 pounds. And he had worked hard all his life doing physical labor. He was a powerful man. I, on the other hand, stood about five foot five and weighed 135 after a meal. To me, his clubs were long and heavy.
It didn't matter. I played with them anyway. He died when I was 12 or 13. Too young. I never played golf with him. Not once. But I do remember that when my dad's sister went up to the lake with us, we'd no sooner be out of the car than Grandpa Anderson was leading Susan up to the top of the hill with two clubs and two balls. Susan used my Grandmother's driver, but I can't really tell you why Grandma owned one. She never played.
Grandpa and Susan would tee up while we unloaded the car. No one else seemed to notice, but I would steal glances as I made my way down to Grandma's front door. The house was built into the slant of a steep hill with the first floor nearly level with the lake and the roof of the third floor just a few feet above the top of the hill. There was a clear shot out to the lake that ran from the side of the house out about ten feet. Initially, this had been a driveway when they constructed the house, but anymore it was just a walk-way. On the opposite side from the house, huge trees stretched up at random, living pretty much as they had before all the human intrusion. I always worried over the windows in the house, but they survived the ritual just fine.
I guess that to everyone else, the outcome seemed inevitable. But, to me, there was always the chance that things would be different, just this one time. Grandpa was big and powerfully built. He scared me to death as a child. He'd told me once that he'd skin me alive, and I believed him.
Susan, on the other hand, was shorter than me. She hadn't played golf since she'd started college and, were it not for the ritual, probably wouldn't have touched a club again in her life. On that hill at my Grandparent's house was the only time I saw her hit a golf ball.
Mom would be distracted with greetings and I'd set down my stuff on the porch and peer around the corner, hoping they'd drive before I heard my name called. Mom had a weird sort of radar that seemed always to know when to spoil the best fun. Sometimes I'd have to watch through the dining room window as the balls went by. Sometimes I'd miss it altogether. Not that it mattered. The result was always the same.
Clinging to my spot on the porch, I'd watch intently. Susan and Grandpa always exchanged a little trash talk before the shots were taken. This year would be different. I sat, squirming out of my skin, wishing they'd just get to it before my mother's voice pulled me into the house.
Susan hit first. Visitor's prerogative. She was the proud owner of an all but legendary slice and this seemed ideally suited for a broken window in Grandma's house. It never happened. Beautiful loft, straight as a string, right out into the lake. For one shot a year, Susan played perfect golf. I'd breathe a sigh of relief that the windows had been spared for another year.
Grandpa always gave her an arrogant sneer before he stepped up to the ball. Being left handed, he could slice all day and the only house in danger was my auntie Nette's, which stood up a little from the tee area and about 50 yards left of the walkway. She wasn't nearly so intimidating as my grandmother, so I never gave it a thought.
I'd be like a jack-in-the-box on the last crank with the excitement of the competition and the certain knowledge that my mother would call before I got a chance to see it to its conclusion.
"ED-WARD!" she'd yell. "Get in here and give your grandmother a hug."
"Just a minute, mom," I'd practically whisper. I didn't want to disturb Grandpa and get myself skinned. "Grandpa's about to hit!"
"Now!" she would reason. Then the conversation would turn to the silly ritual and wonder as to why it had to be done. The conversation was always the same and I loved it. It distracted my mother and bought me a few more minutes outside.
I think Grandpa pulled it all out for this. I watched him sometimes, driving balls out into the field behind the house. Those balls sailed so far that I lost sight of them and never once did Grandpa have the look of concentration that he did for this one shot. He'd whip that club head down--I could hear the shaft whistle all the way down the hill, all the power in his huge frame centered on one, small, round spot.
It felt like the whole world deflated when the ball trickled down the hill like it was on a leisurely Sunday drive. Not much of a drive, at that. The collapse of all that anticipation into an equal, if not larger, amount of disappointment seemed so powerful as to be able to suck the anticipation of every Christmas morning from now to eternity inside of it and tear it to the smallest of atomic parts. Like all the air was suddenly sucked out of the world.
Then Grandpa would look up at Susan and his menacing face would ease into a sheepish grin. The world breathed again. He'd laugh and make jokes about it all evening, but I always wanted, just once, for him to hit one the way he could--right out to the middle of the lake. It never happened in all my years of watching. Not once.
I think that desire to avenge my Grandfather is at the root of one of golf's larger problem areas for me. Put water anywhere on a course and I can hit it. You might think that I am exaggerating the problem and that everyone hits water now and again. I hit it every time. Once, on a golf course in Spencer, I managed to lift a ball with my seven iron, keeping it on the club face till it released directly behind me on my follow through and dribbled into the little creek separating holes 2 and 3. And that is the way golf is for me. A series of amazing disasters that would be funny if they weren't mine.
Grandpa Sloan spent a pretty fair amount of time giving me tips and pointers so that someday my skills might take me above the level of slap-stick golf. To some extent he succeeded, though never near a water trap. I could be two feet from the edge of a creek, wondering at my luck to have stopped short rather than rolling in as expected, and it did not matter whether I pulled a pitching wedge or a driver from my bag; the result would be the same. I've clanked dribblers off the blade of my wedge to find the water. Dropped, only to cut the next shot so smooth under the ball as to pop it straight up and into the drink. I've hit my driver so hard into the opposite bank that I'd have sworn the ball would, at the least, have to stick in the dirt. But, always, it comes free and Grandpa Anderson is avenged once more.
Grandpa Sloan always encouraged me and didn't even laugh out loud till the second summer that we played together. We were on a little nine hole course, playing our way around for the third time that day. The second hole was a straight shot of about 225 to an elevated green on the far side of a small creek. The first nine, I tried to drive the ball over the water only to hit the far bank neatly on the fly. The second time, I laid up and then pitched for the green, only to hit the ball off the bottom of the blade, rolling it in for a second time. By the time we were starting our third round, I was tired and a little grumpy. When we came to the tee, I pulled my eight iron out of the bag, deciding to play the hole like a par three with the imaginary green being the far side of the creek. About 150 yards. Grandpa and dad both told me to lay up and try the wedge again from there. That I would surely get it this time. But I'd have none of it.
I hit the ball as well as I've ever hit an eight iron, with plenty of loft and distance. The ball cleared the creek by nearly two feet and I prepared to let out a victory cry, till I saw the backspin pull it neatly back and into the creek. I didn't yell. I didn't curse. I just let out the most pathetic whimper that a golf course has ever heard and sat down on the tee. I always felt like I let Grandpa Sloan down. All his patient instruction and my play remained appallingly bad. But when I looked up and saw his face a bright pink and scrunched up like a prune, trying not to let loose his laughter, I felt much better. I didn't worry much about my play after that and improved some for it.
Near the end of that last summer, I cracked the head on my three wood. Grandpa Sloan took the club home with him, as well as my driver. He repaired the head on my three wood and polished up the driver so that they looked almost new instead of the thirty-one years old they actually were.
We took them out to the driving range on my birthday to give them a try. Grandpa made the rounds while dad, Susan and I hit a bucket apiece. He had me hitting straighter and further than I think I ever have and even straightened out Susan's slice. All was right with the world.
Near the end of my bucket, I split the head of my three wood again. Grandpa said that it was probably shot, but that maybe he could put a new head on it. I couldn't tell him that I didn't want a new head. That I would rather have it useless as it was, because its only real value was that it came from Grandpa Anderson. I let him take it and felt doubly sick: that the club was gone and that my Grandpa, doing what he thought was best, was about to do what I wanted least.
When we met next to play, he said he had a surprise for me and my heart sank. I tried not to let it show in my face and put on the mask reserved for distant family. He pulled a club from his bag and handed it to me.
"I found this one used," he said. "It's more suited to your size." I smiled weakly and thanked him. Then he pulled another club from his bag and handed it to me.
"I got to thinking on the way home," he said, "that you might like to keep this club since I know it was your Grandpa Anderson's. I fixed the head again, but it probably shouldn't be used." I don't know how he knew, but I never loved him more.
It stayed warm on into the fall that year and we played a few rounds after the leaves had turned. Grandpa died a week and a day after our last round of golf. I haven't played much since that summer. It isn't the same. I still love those water traps. But sometimes, I look in my bag and spot that old three wood. I know, somehow, that it holds something special. That it would get me over the creek. I smile to myself and pull another club. No reason to get better, now.
I'm going to take out that club someday. I'm going to drag Susan up to the top of that hill. I'm going to take out that three wood and win that drive. Just one time. |