True story, I swear it:
It was a foggy day in the summer of 1972 and I was going into 8th grade, playing with my father and one of his customers - who also had a son three years my senior.
Armed with my mother’s Patty Berg clubs, we wound our way through Highway 17 on our way to Santa Cruz and Pasatiempo. Mackenzie’s jewel had already been the site of my most horrific golf experience and I had begged my father to pick a different spot.
You’ve seen me on the tee a thousand times from memory. Corfam shoes with spike cuts in the toes, Faultless golf balls, floppy hat from home club, pants too loose in the waist and too tight on the thighs, glove that has gone accidentally through the wash several times and head-covers attached with a leather string where the 2-wood actually held the five wood.
The previous summer - in my very first tournament as a 12 year-old member of the NCJGA (Nor Cal Junior Golf) - I had shot 126, with 56 putts. This, with rolling in a 25-footer for par at the last. I had never seen greens even remotely like those in speed and contour and had completely lost my composure after five-putting the 2nd hole for a snowman.
Naturally, I was paired with a couple of local prodigies who sneered at me all the way around the golf course. Humiliation does not describe how I felt and 38 years later I still get a pang of shame in the pit of my stomach at the mere thought of that 3rd putt lipping- out and rolling down to the bottom tier.
So I was not looking forward to another emotional trauma at the hands of Dr. Mackenzie in front of my father - and to make matters far more intimidating, the other man’s son – we will call him Scotty because that is still his name – was a big strong kid who already played on his high school golf team.
Naturally, because both our fathers are a couple of roosters, they had to have a hefty wager on the outcome – which made both Scotty and I uneasy given that $100 was a lot of dough during the Nixon administration.
To make a long story short, I decided to hit 3-wood off of every tee and following my father’s instructions, played for bogey on every hole. Even so, I was headed for about 100 – which compared to my previous Pasatiempo train wreck – kept the match close.
Scotty helped my cause by being wild off the tee, losing a couple in the trees, starting on #7. No surprise that we are still good friends, fellow Trojans and golf partners nearly 40 years later.
We stood on the 16th tee all square, but this was a couple years before my hands caught up with my golf swing and a draw was not anywhere to be found in my puny arsenal of non-shots.
Determined to hit one far enough to give me a chance at clearing the ditch on my second shot (Idiot then, idiot now) despite the fact that even a six would have sufficed, I hit my longest 3-wood of the day down the right side.
“You are out of bounds,” said Scotty’s dad with just a hint of malice. I was never really fond of him and truth be told, don’t like him as an old bat any more than I did as a middle-aged produce hustler.
Dear Old Dad rolled his eyes while I fished another Faultless out of my corduroys. I nearly had tears in my eyes (okay, I did, screw you for asking) and took a swipe as only an angry, frustrated kid can do.
Miraculously, I hit a screaming hook that started down the right tree line and drifted around the corner as if on a yo-yo string. How this occurred at that moment remains as big a mystery as the next series of bizarre events.
My father had carved his Orlimar persimmon around the corner in line with my ball, but 30 yards further down the fairway in that basin towards the bottom of the hill.
Scotty had skulled a driver into the right rough and his smirking father had followed my tee shot with a snap hook into the left rough on a hanging lie.
You've met Scotty’s old man before, too. Red, white and blue golf shoes, Hogan woods, a questionable 16 handicap (too high) at Sharon Heights and the biggest, stiffest collar I had ever seen on a heterosexual. A walking fire hazard of polyester with a white belt and blobs of sun screen on his bald head.
Scotty had an oak tree in front of him and decided to lay up short of the ditch. My father whacked a 6-iron on the green far past the pin, which was set on the bottom tier and guaranteed him an impossible two-putt unless he hit the hole.
Captain Smirk cold-topped his approach shot into the ditch – the only time I ever heard him curse at the top of his lungs in the strange Lebanese patois he had brought from the old country.
So there I am, standing next to my ball and my father comes over and asks me, “What are you going to do?”
I’ve got a special relationship with my Father to this day because we both love and drive each other insane.
“I’m going to LAY UP! Duh! It’s 185 yards to the green and they are in trouble.”
“Hit your 4-wood,” said my dad, in yet another of many ‘Burning Bush’ moments growing up when he somehow knew something that was unknowable at the time.
“No no no!, are you crazy, what if I hit it in the ditch?” I instantly launched into a monologue about the 126 I had shot and how this hole was impossible and that I was doomed to make a 10 and on and on and on.
My Father is stubborn and if nothing else, completely fearless. I miss him because he was a great man and I’ve long ago lost my nerve in all things golf and life.
My self-appointed caddy ripped the 4-wood headcover off and handed it to me like the Lady in the Lake presenting Excalibur to the village idiot.
“Look son,” said dad, “I don’t give a shit if we lose $100, win $100 or blow it on something stupid. Just hit the ball and I guarantee you something good will happen.”
This is true. I swear to God on my children's lives.
I caught it absolutely square, and watched in complete shock as the ball shrieked like a guided missile right at the pin as if fired straight from the gun-sight of a hunting rifle.
My eyes must have been closed because my pre-shot visualization was the nine I took on the same hole the previous summer.
My ball flew right over the flagstick and stuck in its own ball mark right next to my father’s ball, 20 feet above the pin on the upper tier.
“
Good shot kid, but the putt is going to be impossible,” said the crabby, merciless curmudgeon who I still don’t like much.
With visions of the best shot of my life being remembered for a five-putt, I picked up my red leather bag with the strap too long and dragged it down the fairway . . . . .
“Your ball is moving,” said Scotty. I paid no attention.
“Gib, look,!” said my father, pointing at the green where my ball was creeping slowly done the slope.
I stopped and stared, watching my ball totter towards hole, one tortured turn at a time . . . . until it fell into the cup for a four.
3 wood O.B. off the tee . . . . and draino with a four-wood from the fairway. It still seems impossible to this day.
My father made the six footer coming back from the front fringe for his par and the rest was a mere formality.
Dad gave me the $100 bill . . . . . I spent it on a new glove, more balls and a new pair of black-on-black Foot Joys, not made of corfam – although I still wore white socks even with dark pants, just like today.
Ironically, I think that was the last par I ever made on the 16th at Pasatiempo . . . . . .