Miracle on the 17th green by James Patterson; Peter De Jonge

Author:James Patterson; Peter De Jonge
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Modern fiction, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780755331871
Publisher: London : Headline, 2005, c1996.
Published: 2007-05-10T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

"You know the line 'This Bud's for you'?" I asked Earl, as I walked over to his table at the back of the bar and handed him one.

"I think I may have heard it maybe three times," said Earl, looking up from his Barron's. Earl had finished a very respectable thirty-fourth in the final standings. It wasn't good enough to make the tour, but he seemed his usual unflappable self.

"Well, I didn't write it," I said.

"No, I guess they wouldn't have fired you if you had."

"Anyway, cheers," I said. "I'm very sorry you didn't make it. You really helped me in the second round. More than you know."

"I'm glad you did make it, Travis. I really am," said Earl.

The 19th hole at the Tallahassee Dunes, a large restaurant-bar with a television at each end of the bar, was jammed and hopping every night all week, but that evening it was empty and subdued. Those who made it had the decency to celebrate elsewhere, and those who hadn't had tried to put as many miles between themselves and here as fast as possible.

But Earl sitting there with his long chocolate brown Habanas cigar and Barrons opened to the week's market analysis hardly looked like a man who had just missed qualifying by six strokes.

"What's your secret to sanity?" I asked. "I'd thought I'd find you muttering in your beer."

"I've been through too much shit to get bent about this," said Fielder matter-of-factly, "plus Microsoft went up eleven points this week. But what's with you? You look like a sponge."

"I called home," I said, "and the next thing I was bawling. It was like my father had come up out of the grave and told me he loved me."

"How come you never tried to play the regular tour?" asked Earl. "You got the game for it."

"In high school, it's all I ever thought about," I said. "Then I went to college and fell in love, and by the time I graduated I had a wife in medical school and a two-year-old daughter. Suddenly golf seemed irresponsible. Plus, I didn't learn how to putt until about three weeks ago. The irony of course is that the job I took instead proved not to be so safe either, and now my wife is probably going to file for divorce."

"Hold on," said Earl, savoring a long draw on his Cuban. "You just got fired. Your old lady's about to give you the boot, and you got all this unresolved shit with your old man. Next thing, youre going to tell me your dog has fleas."

"Ticks," I said.

"Travis, you're going to have me feeling sorry for you, and you're the one who made the goddamn tour," said Earl with a laugh. "Well, maybe you are kind of a mess, but you've got talent, and talent is rarer than you think."

"We'll find out soon enough."

"I tell you what," said Earl, "as I'm feeling so good about Microsoft, I'll make you a sweetheart deal. I'll caddy for you for six months, and you don't pay me anything but expenses and a commission on your winnings.

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