Bring Me the Head of Sergio Garcia by Tom Cox

dangerously close proximity to one another, was every swing in the book (but not, almost certainly, in the textbook). Long swings, stubby swings, exuberant swings, fearful swings, swings that looked as if they were digging for rare coins. Peering through the swaying, jeering crowd in the failing light, it was often hard to spot Scott’s signature action – an action that always seems to say, ‘There is an invisible precipice six inches ahead of me, and if I follow through properly, I may tumble into the deathly, nettle-speckled chasm beyond it’ – but it was apparent, as others fell by the wayside, that he was hanging in there. By the time the skirmish reached the fifth play-off hole, I’d offered my caddying services – I’m sure Scott didn’t need any help carrying the three clubs he’d brought out with him, but I felt I could at least offer a calming word or two and some advice on Biddenden’s trickier putts – and it had become a two-horse race. The coveted first prize (I made a note to myself: find out what the first prize was) could only go either to Scott, or to a Leeds United supporter called David with a rowdy fanbase and a swing that was beginning to show its mechanical shortcomings. With both players having executed their second shots, and Scott on the green and David ten yards left of it, the signs were good. The pressure doubled for my man, however, after David chipped to within two inches of the flag. Scott hit a poor first putt, and was faced with a three-footer which he needed to hole to keep the tournament alive.
    When reading the contours of a green, it’s important to get down as close to the putting surface as possible. Normally, this dictates a squatting position, since to flatten one’s body against the green is considered uncouth. But this was an exceptional situation. As Scott took a couple of tentative practice strokes, I pressed my stomach to the grass and eyed every nuance of the slope.
    â€˜Get the fuck up off the grass, Coxy, you hairy twat,’ shouted one of the crowd.
    I turned to Scott. ‘Left lip. Firm,’ I said.
    I walked away and rejoined Simon at the side of the green. Twenty yards away I spotted Andrew Seibert, who like the other two pros in the field had taken a back seat in the day’s action. I tried to acknowledge him, but he was too wrapped up in the moment – all Hooters-related thoughts momentarily forgotten.
    Scott crouched over the ball, took one practice stroke, then set it on its way. It started left, and stayed left, blowing a kiss at the hole on its journey past. As a dozen Leeds supporters charged onto the green and held their man aloft, Simon and I watched as ours turned to the heavens with a familiar expression. It was the same expression we’d seen not long ago, hovering above my deceased cafetière. The kind of expression that a million middle-aged mums would want to take home and bake something for.
    Afterwards, we returned to ‘the tented village’ (i.e. the canopy covering the DJ booth and the area stretching four or five feet beyond it), where I was immediately accosted by Jim, a friend of a friend, and one of the more boisterous members of the crowd. When I’d first met him three years ago he’d been a bit dismissive about golf, but now, he told me, he was blowing £100 a week on proper lessons and it was his new favourite sport. ‘All my footie mates are playing it,’ he’d told me earlier.
    â€˜But what about you?’ he asked. ‘I thought you were supposed to be good. Shouldn’t you have won this thing easily?’
    â€˜Well,’ I said, ‘it’s not that simple when people have high handicaps and you’re p …’
    â€˜Sounds like a crap excuse to me!’ he interrupted. A bit of drool had escaped from his mouth, and was working its way down his chin. Within a matter of seconds, it would land on one of his old school