Fast Greens by Turk Pipkin Page B

This from a man who really enjoyed his work. He busted my butt; worse yet, he broke Jewel’s heart. She was just down the hall listening to each echoing blow while pretending to teach second graders how to read. Looking back on it, I realize that this was the event that started our move away from San Angelo the following year. Jewel didn’t believe in beating children, especially her baby.
    I cried softly on five of the swats and howled like a dog on the rest. During the week’s enforced vacation that was added on for not telling who else was involved, I played a lot of golf and found that much more enjoyable than sitting on my sore ass.

16
    â€œThat lyin’ sumbitch!” said Beast. “He’s got a lot of balls to pull that crap on me.”
    March’s medicine had not set well on the big man’s stomach. Not only had Beast’s tee shot ended up under an oak tree on number four, but the ball had dropped down so that the trunk of the tree stood between the ball and the spot where Beast should have been standing to make a swing. He could take a left-handed stance and rotate one of his long irons so that the toe of the club pointed straight down at the ground, swing like a southpaw and probably hit it a hundred yards. But hell, March was putting for eagle. Beast had to do more than hack it back into play. He had to pull something out of his hat.
    He snatched his one and only fairway wood from out of my hand and began to experiment with various stances: both feet ahead of the tree, both behind it, standing on one foot or the other, and finally bear-hugging the trunk with both arms as if he were humping it. But it was just no use; he couldn’t see the ball for the tree.
    The best option, at least the one he chose, was to stand with the tree between himself and the green, his body aiming to hit the ball way left, and the face of the three-wood opened to hopefully slice the ball back in the proper direction. He also had to start the ball low to avoid hitting the overhanging oak limbs, and he had to stop his follow-through dead or he was likely to carry the club and possibly his hands into the trunk of the tree.
    It was cool there in the deep shade, a pleasant spot to watch him consider each of these options as his attention turned step by step from being duped by March to the business at hand.
    Taking the club back faster than usual, he tomahawked the ball, carving hard and furious at its upper right corner. Launching out from under the tree like an artillery fusillade, the shot exploded as the clubshaft slammed into the hardwood trunk and snapped cleanly into two pieces.
    â€œSon of a bitch!” Beast screamed as he threw down the short end of the stick. “Son of a bitch never sliced!”
    I couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t cursing about the broken club or the pain that must have vibrated through his hands to his brain. He was pissed off because the ball had failed to do exactly what he wanted, furious because he’d hit it straight when he wanted it to slice.
    â€œSon of a bitch! I should have hit it left-handed!” he said as he stomped off.
    The ball’s straight flight path had taken it into the woods left of the green—out of bounds. Beast declined to take the penalty stroke and drop another ball beneath the tree, so he was out of the hole—and so was I.
    I picked up the two pieces of the three-wood, marveled at the sharp edges of the broken steel, and put them both in the bag.
    â€œThem new shafts break a mite cleaner than the old hickory clubs.”
    I jerked my head up and saw Roscoe sitting in his cart nearby.
    â€œI used to break a club or two myself, but I got tired of picking them hickory splinters out of my hands so I had to give it up. But like the man said, ‘It’s better to break one’s clubs than to lose one’s temper.’”
    I had to laugh at that one.
    â€œNow you’re laggin’ behind, Spud, so quit