The Putt

It's Only a Game

The cup looked no bigger than a shot glass. The green was rolling like a kitchen countertop. He stood behind the ball, trying to see the line of an impossible 15 footer that breaks at least twice and picks up speed as it gets to the hole.

His legs were rubbery. His hands were so sweaty he thought the putter would surely slip right through his fingers. He stepped up and stood over the ball, trying to convince himself he wasn’t going to cardiac arrest on the spot. He doubted he could take a stroke that would keep the ball in the same zip code as the hole.

He tried to hold the club lightly, knowing that his typical death grip always makes him pull his putts to the left. He noticed that his hands were actually trembling. “Christ, it’s only a putt”, he tried to clear his head; “I’ve made thousands of these”. The thought didn’t help relieve the pressure. Not at all. Not even a little bit.

Loosening up, he tried to waggle the putter behind the ball but it was more of a jab; a little yippy motion. His heart leapt as the putter stubbed the green, digging to a stop. Fortunately, the ball remained motionless. “Yeah”, he muttered to himself, “wouldn’t that be the way to piss away another stroke”.

Almost in a daze, he tried to smile, failing in his attempts to detach himself, to forget how difficult it was to accomplish something as seemingly inconsequential as rolling a little white ball into a 4 and ¼ inch hole in the ground.

***

His father had introduced him to the game. Every Saturday morning, for as long as he could remember, his father played at the club with the same foursome. At a very young age he began carrying his father's bag and watched intently as they played. He listened to them as they laughed and gambled and enjoyed everything the game had to offer.

He found himself at the club every day. After school and all through the long summer days he rode his bike to the club and spent hours on the range hitting balls. He hit thousands of shots from the practice bunkers. He stood over innumerable putts imagining a day when the putt would mean something, when the gallery would be cheering for him.

He loved the game. He loved everything about it. He pursued golf with a relentless passion. He had a small circle of friends and all of his friendships centered around golf.

He started to play competetively and found success. He became more and more accomplished. He played on his High School golf team and was offered a full scholarship to play in college. He was on his way.

***

Five minutes earlier, he had stood in the middle of the fairway, 103 yards from the pin. All day he had been on the bubble, hovering around “the number”. The number was the score he needed to shoot to take the next step; his reward for the countless balls he had hit; payback for endless days of practicing from first light until he couldn’t see 10 yards in front of him.

He held a wedge in his hands, his emotions were level for the moment. “Where do we stand?” he queried his caddie. “Get up and down for birdie, you’re in. Make a par and you’ll need a lot of help”. He had confidence in his wedges; he believed he could hit this close. He knew the green sloped sharply from back to front and he did not want to get the ball past the hole. He took several practice swings, trying to get a feel for how to take it back, how hard to hit it.

He pured it, pinching it crisply on the turf and getting it up high. It flew a little further than he wanted and he ended up sticking it, above the hole on the right, about 15 feet. Just the downhill putt he didn't want to leave himself.

“Damn”.

***

He met her in college. He was playing on the university golf team at the time. It was a miracle, really, that they had even met each other. Between studying and playing golf he really didn’t do much socializing. And he really wasn’t doing much studying. His grades were barely keeping him above water. He was dangerously close to losing his eligibility. A victim of his own priorities, he spent way too much time pursuing golf and left himself very little time for anything else.

He found himself teetering on the edge of flunking out. He questioned whether he even wanted to continue in school, and often pondered the notion of dropping out and pursuing golf full time. His father hounded him to keep his perspective. “You know how many guys try to make a living playing golf? You know how many actually make it? You’re going to need something to fall back on. Golf will be there when you’re done school”. Easier said than done.

Figuring he had to do something, he picked up a flyer in the dorm lobby. “Tutoring”, it offered. He wasn't going to pass on his own. He called the number and made an appointment. He opened his dorm door and there she stood.

She helped him get his grades up. They spent all their time together. She was bright and beautiful and somehow, much to his amazement, she had fallen hard for him. And he for her. For three years, she got him through essays and exams and helped him get his business degree. All during that time she sat and watched him practice for hours. She followed him faithfully as he played his way around the course in college matches. She sacrificed her time to his pursuits.

He had become a good player, very good as a matter of fact. He played in the US Amateur and finished ninth. After college, he desperately wanted to continue playing golf, to make a living at it. But his father’s words rang in his ears. It was true that there were a lot of very good players out there. It was also true that very few players can make enough money playing golf. He had talked to enough people to know that living out of a car and playing on the mini-tours was no way to start a family.

They talked about it at great length. She would support him, no matter what he wanted to do. He loved her even more for that. But she had sacrificed much for him. He felt it was his turn now.

***

He was literally shaking. His heart felt like it would come out of his chest. Again he tried to smile, to cut through the unimaginable tension. He took the blade back slow and short, and stroked through the ball, just getting it started on line. It looked like it was barely moving but he knew the surface was so slippery it still might slide by. He watched it gather speed as it broke towards the cup, and in that instant he realized that it was almost absurd that so many important things in his life were riding on the simple act of making a putt.

***

So, theirs became a familiar story. They married and he joined the corporate world. He went to work every day. She got pregnant, and they had a beautiful daughter and a couple of years later they had a son. He played on the weekends, and snuck in a few holes or hit a bucket after work during the summer when the days were long. He won the club championship a couple of years in a row. He had settled in.

But at times, it was almost unbearable to him. He was only 25. He loved his wife and children so much he couldn’t imagine a life without them, but every day he sat at his desk and looked out the window, wondering what could have been.

She looked at him anxiously when he mentioned to her that he still thought he could play, that he still could make a living at it. “How would we do it?” she asked. This made her even more remarkable to him. She never questioned whether it was a good idea, only wondering how they could pull it off.

He figured he could take one last shot. No mini-tours. No Monday qualifiers. No scrambling for mortgage money. They had some savings. He would take a few months off work. He would work at it every available minute and go to Q-school. If he qualified, he would get his PGA tour card. His ticket to The Show. His dream to get paid to play the game. It was a long shot, a very long shot, but even if he didn’t make it, he wouldn’t wonder anymore about what might have been.

***

He stood, watching the putt trickle towards the hole. He thought of his wife, he thought of his children, he thought of his father. He marveled at the thought that the entire course of his life could change as easily as the course the ball was taking.

He was frozen in place, wondering if he was paralyzed. The ball broke towards the hole, and spun around the lip of the cup. His legs buckled. The putter fell from his hand. The ball tumbled into the hole. He dropped to his knees, unable to breathe. Then he looked up. Across the green, he could see his wife bursting through the gallery, running towards him.

Finally, he smiled.