Roaring Back by Curt Sampson

Author:Curt Sampson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2019-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

Part Three

Fire At It

“All great events hang by a hair. The man of ability takes advantage of everything and neglects nothing that can give him a chance of success; whilst the less able man sometimes loses everything by neglecting a single one of those chances.”

—Napoleon

Sunday, April 7

“Almost miraculous.”

The words of the week are always “usually” and “always.” As in “I always eat at Rae’s Coastal Cafe on Tuesday night and I usually have the shrimp pâté and jerk chicken” or “they always put the pin front left on number six on Sunday” or “we usually rent the same house at Jones Creek every year” and “we always get drunk on Jameson whiskey at the Irish Tourist Irish Board party.” Rituals are a crucial part of the fun at the only one of golf’s four majors to return to the same place year after year.

Masters rituals make people happy. Happy people have one more drink than when they’re at home. They order bigger steaks, tell better jokes, and make better friends—and all that sweet stuff becomes part of the ritual, too.

My same-as-always pattern requires a Tuesday arrival to gear up for the big Wednesday game in Waynesboro, a little town down in Burke County that bills itself as The Bird Dog Capital of the World. Waynesboro Country Club is no dog, however, and it takes great pride in not gouging your eyes out during Masters Week, unlike virtually every other golf course and hotel in the Central Savannah River Area. Twenty-five bucks for eighteen holes and a cart. Beer is just a dollar and a half per can, and it is cold. Better give me ten.

First among the communicants in Waynesboro is Tat Thompson, a retired Augusta banker, and an animated and masterful first tee debater. On this special day, he paces the grassy stage like an electrified Baptist preacher on a hot Sunday morning. “No, no, no, that’s not gonna work!” says Tat. His Georgia accent is thick enough to slice and put on bread. “I want Mully, Danny, and Tim. Ten dollahs a man. Non holes. Four-man Lauderdale. What do you say, Baggah?”

For reasons unknown, I am “Bagger Vance” to Tat, whose overmatched opponents in the negotiations are Danny Fitzgerald, Tim Wright, the Ash and Hopkins brothers, Mike Rucker, Doc Coleman, Brian Leonard, Walt the Pharmacist, and several other colorful and budget conscious personalities. Sometimes—depending on degree of drunkenness—we retire to Tat’s house to convene an après golf game of Termite, which is three-card guts.

“A tradition unlike any other,” Jim Nantz says, but he could drop the A and add an s to convey a truer sense of the place. It’s all of a piece: from the glory game at Waynesboro to the flabby egg salad and pimiento cheese sandwiches you always buy at the concession stand to the right of thirteen to the holy of holies, the Champions Dinner on Tuesday night. In the chill of first light on Thursday morning, a couple of beloved old pros always get the thing started by whacking out a tee ball, and they always will.

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