Fromhere, out of a clean playable lie, he cold-skulled a sand iron, sending the ball rocketing across the green, the far-side gallery ducking in terror as it screamed toward them at an altitude of five feet, when it struck the pin and dropped straight into the hole. A birdie! Junah bogeyed the sixth after letting a driving iron get away from him in the wind, watching it dive-bomb into the left wall of a revetted greenside bunker and having to pitch rearward just to get a chip at the green. Still he hadn’t lost any more strokes on those two, as Hagen and Jones parred both.
We now stood on the seventh tee. The state of the Savannah gallery was approaching apoplexy. Judge Neskaloosa River Anderson looked ready to burst from the crush and strangle Junah personally, while it was all my father could do to force his eyes to watch. Junah’s swing, which for grace and power was every inch the equal of Jones’, was utterly gone. He couldn’t even take his grip. You could see his hands struggling futilely to find position on the leather. Nothing fit. His fingers looked bloated and swollen. The club was an alien instrument; he couldn’t set his hands on it right no matter how he tried.
But let me recount the gallery’s emotions from my father’s recollections, which I heard him tell and retell in subsequent years at various cocktail parties and club dances. This, the tale from his point of view as he strode the galleries with Judge Anderson, Joel Dees and Dr. Eben Syracuse, the three most prominent elders.
As Junah’s play got worse [my father invariably began the tale], I feared not just for his reputation but for hislife. These birds wanted his scalp. None more so than Judge Anderson, who had been his most ardent champion what seemed like mere moments ago. How they hated him now! “What the hell’s wrong with his grip?” Anderson clutched my arm as tight as a tourniquet. “He looks like he’s holding his pecker out there, not a goddamn golf club!”
Junah was not trying hard enough. He was trying too hard. He didn’t give a damn about Savannah. He cared so much he was freezing up. “By God, look at his Adam’s apple,” Judge Anderson declared in a voice raging with frustration. “If he was choking any harder, he’d suffocate on the spot!”
The solons began casting about for ways to pull Junah off the course. A fabricated emergency. An injury. Anything to bring this ignominious display to a swift and merciful close. “If I ever open my fool mouth again,” the Judge declared of his idea that recruited Junah in the first place, “shoot me and put me out of my misery!”
It was inevitable that the elders’ wrath would swing from Junah, who despite their frustration in this painful moment they nonetheless acknowledged to be a patrician and a hero, to some more easily sacrificeable target. His caddie. The mysterious stranger, Bagger Vance. “What the hell advice is that sonofabitch giving him?” Dr. Syracuse fumed as Junah took his excruciating rearward stance in the bunker on the sixth. “He hasn’t stopped talking since thefirst tee! Look at him, he’s lecturing the man! Insolent bastard. Since when did he become Harry Goddamn Vardon?” The Judge and Syracuse ordered Dees to get closer, to find out what fool nonsense the caddie was stuffing into their champion’s ear.
Crossing from the green Dees succeeded. He scurried back to us with his report. “He’s talking about detachment. Telling Junah not to root for his ball. Don’t say, ‘Get legs!’ or ‘Bite!’ Just let it be.” “Don’t root for his ball? What the hell does that mean?” Judge Anderson thundered. Dees continued, “He’s telling Junah to release the shot mentally the instant he hits it, not to be attached to where it lands or what happens to it.”
The Judge declared that the most damn-fool thing he had ever heard. How the hell can you play golf and not care where the ball goes? He caught up with the caddie on the rise just
We now stood on the seventh tee. The state of the Savannah gallery was approaching apoplexy. Judge Neskaloosa River Anderson looked ready to burst from the crush and strangle Junah personally, while it was all my father could do to force his eyes to watch. Junah’s swing, which for grace and power was every inch the equal of Jones’, was utterly gone. He couldn’t even take his grip. You could see his hands struggling futilely to find position on the leather. Nothing fit. His fingers looked bloated and swollen. The club was an alien instrument; he couldn’t set his hands on it right no matter how he tried.
But let me recount the gallery’s emotions from my father’s recollections, which I heard him tell and retell in subsequent years at various cocktail parties and club dances. This, the tale from his point of view as he strode the galleries with Judge Anderson, Joel Dees and Dr. Eben Syracuse, the three most prominent elders.
As Junah’s play got worse [my father invariably began the tale], I feared not just for his reputation but for hislife. These birds wanted his scalp. None more so than Judge Anderson, who had been his most ardent champion what seemed like mere moments ago. How they hated him now! “What the hell’s wrong with his grip?” Anderson clutched my arm as tight as a tourniquet. “He looks like he’s holding his pecker out there, not a goddamn golf club!”
Junah was not trying hard enough. He was trying too hard. He didn’t give a damn about Savannah. He cared so much he was freezing up. “By God, look at his Adam’s apple,” Judge Anderson declared in a voice raging with frustration. “If he was choking any harder, he’d suffocate on the spot!”
The solons began casting about for ways to pull Junah off the course. A fabricated emergency. An injury. Anything to bring this ignominious display to a swift and merciful close. “If I ever open my fool mouth again,” the Judge declared of his idea that recruited Junah in the first place, “shoot me and put me out of my misery!”
It was inevitable that the elders’ wrath would swing from Junah, who despite their frustration in this painful moment they nonetheless acknowledged to be a patrician and a hero, to some more easily sacrificeable target. His caddie. The mysterious stranger, Bagger Vance. “What the hell advice is that sonofabitch giving him?” Dr. Syracuse fumed as Junah took his excruciating rearward stance in the bunker on the sixth. “He hasn’t stopped talking since thefirst tee! Look at him, he’s lecturing the man! Insolent bastard. Since when did he become Harry Goddamn Vardon?” The Judge and Syracuse ordered Dees to get closer, to find out what fool nonsense the caddie was stuffing into their champion’s ear.
Crossing from the green Dees succeeded. He scurried back to us with his report. “He’s talking about detachment. Telling Junah not to root for his ball. Don’t say, ‘Get legs!’ or ‘Bite!’ Just let it be.” “Don’t root for his ball? What the hell does that mean?” Judge Anderson thundered. Dees continued, “He’s telling Junah to release the shot mentally the instant he hits it, not to be attached to where it lands or what happens to it.”
The Judge declared that the most damn-fool thing he had ever heard. How the hell can you play golf and not care where the ball goes? He caught up with the caddie on the rise just
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