'The Royal & Ancient Golf Curse' - Part 14. Make That a Double

By: Richard Voorhees


[Editor's Note: In the 13th episode, with a little help from his gorgeous caddie, Single Malt drained a quadruple-breaker and reacquired a love for the game.) This is the 14th in our friends' series of misadventures, suffered under the spell of the Royal and Ancient Golf Curse.]

As we turn to proceed to the seventh hole, the lovely waitresses hesitate. We stop, too, naturally.

"Aren't you coming?" Single Malt asks.

"They're still on duty," says the cart nymph. "All right, girls, that's enough. Back to work."

"But…" Single Malt grunts.

"Come have a drink when you finish," his darling caddie says.

"You'll still be here?"

"I'm always here."

"No rest for the wicked," says the cart nymph.

"See you a little later then," says Single Malt. "And thanks for your help on that putt."

Instead of saying anything more, the waitress just gives Single Malt a quick kiss (well, not that quick) and then she trips back to the terrace bar. Silenced, Single Malt admires her grace until she disappears into the clubhouse. I guess that's one of the perks of Single Malt being single.

"Damn," he sighs.

"No cursing!" admonishes the cart nymph.

"Sorry. Uh… 'Jeepers.' "

"That's more like it. Here, before we play Hole No. 7, have some ice water. The gals left you each a glass." As if out of nowhere, there on a tray on the ground are four very small glasses of ice water. They're exquisitely refreshing but tiny.

"How about making the next one a double?" Wild Turkey asks.

"I wasn't supposed to give you that," the cart nymph whispers.

"Why not?" I want to know, butting in.

"Water's for members only."

"Wow."

"And the curse… er, course. Trust me. They need it more than you do. This stretch is infernally hot."

I can't believe this latest indignity.

Single Malt nudges me. "How about some sunscreen?"

"Sure. Thanks." I take my friend up on his offer, do my best to protect myself. Granted, a little late. The sun is lower in the sky, though, and the heat seems to have broken. Thanks goodness. The way the sun was burning back there, we might as well have been ants under a looking glass.

"Dondé vamos?" Wild Turkey wants to know.

"Hole No. 7's tee box is through yonder leafy archway," says the lady of the cart. As she steps over to her vehicle, she smiles back at me as if to ask: "You coming?" I don't hesitate to throw myself back onto the seat next to her and off we go. My friends must wonder how I rate, except for Single Malt, who's perfectly and entirely preoccupied. All I can do is enjoy my good fortune. Who wouldn't rather be lucky than good? What's that story about Napoleon…? Asking, about the man he was considering for a generalship, "But is he lucky?"

As we burst through the foliage, I get a load of #7. It's a short links hole that skirts a majestic expanse of cliffs and beach and ocean to the right as far as the eye can see. The horizon is buoyant with cumulous clouds. For our tee shots to reach the green, we're going to have to carry a gulch and some kind of briar patch. I have time to take in the panoramic view before Single Malt, Beer Boy, and Wild Turkey catch up to us.

"It takes you breath away," my guide asks, "doesn't it, Irish Coffee?"

"Yes." Before I can be transported any more than I already am, my pals are upon us.

"Whoa!"

"Omigod!"

"Can you believe it?" I cry.

"What are we looking at here?" Beer Boy wants to know.

"Uh, heaven?"

"Indeed. That looks like a drinking fountain." I belly up to what turns out to be a working drinking fountain and quench my thirst.

"No, man," Beer Boy says, "what's the yardage?"

"Hole No. 7's a par 3," the nymph informs us. "Only 131 yards."

"Single Malt's got honors."

"How could I forget?"

"All right, then. Show us the way Birdie Boy."

"And try not to get distracted by the natural beauty."

"I'm afraid she might be an unnatural beauty," says Single Malt. "But I'm not that afraid."

"All right, Birdie Monkey."

"That was an ace, wasn't it?" asks Single Malt, wondering aloud. "Kind of an ace?"

Still elated, Single Malt knocks an 8-iron high into the air but his ball bounces off the side of the green on the left and trickles down out of sight. The shot only elicits a shrug from Single Malt, who's still high from the previous hole. It's impossible to know what kind of lie he'll have.

Beer Boy steps up next, oh-so-casually wielding his 9-iron. The ball safely soars over the nastiness in front of the green and lands pin high. Wild Turkey allows me to go next. I pull my 7-iron and try not to think about the hazards to the left of me and hazards to the right. Such grandeur is intimidating and I press, slashing instead of swinging. My ball never gets over 10 feet off the ground. But my luck holds. My ball carries the briar patch, bangs into the slope before the green, and catches on the front fringe. It stays put, a few feet shy of the dance floor.

"Whoa."

"Man, that was ugly."

"I know."

"You're one lucky sumbitch."

"Clearly. At least sometimes."

"Yeah, like right now!"

Laughing, we start after our balls.

"Hey! What about me?" Wild Turkey wants to know.

"Oh, sorry!"

"Dudes, Wild Turkey still has to go!"

"A little overeager there."

Wild Turkey pulls an 8-iron and goes through his routine. His waggling of the club looks pretty good in blue-and-white seersucker. He catches the ball square and it flies toward the flag in the back right, not far from the sheer drop-off to the sand and sea below. As we watch the flight of his ball, the surf thunders. His ball comes to earth a few feet to the left of the flag and bounces off the green above the hole.

Now to find Single Malt's ball. Thanks to skill and dumb luck, the rest of us can see where our shots landed. It turns out Single Malt has a shot, too. His ball's nestled in a little patch of rough off the green to the left but not all the way down in the gulch. It's a patch of ground with some dead grass and rocks and scrub. A so-so lie.

"You're away, Malt."

"Yeah, yeah."

He takes a little longer than usual, does Single Malt. Finally he decides to be bold and pulls his lob wedge. He whistles it through the air a few times. Then he takes an uncharacteristically tentative poke at it, or maybe the club catches on the grass. In any case, he makes lousy contact. To compensate he follows through with a jerk, trying to give it a little extra help.

"Dammit!" he snarls.

Wait. Was that two clicks we heard?

Eyebrows are raised. Glances exchanged. The wind starts to howl. Single Malt looks irked and embarrassed. But instead of turning livid, or red, he turns a deep Highland blue. The pounding of the surf, rising up over the cliff, roars in our ears. At the horizon, thunderclouds cluster. The sky is rent by a bolt of lightning! And another! A few seconds pass, not many, and two claps of thunder explode and rumble in rapid succession!

"Uh, I think… I think that was a double hit," says Single Malt, a deep martial blue in the face.

"You 'think' that was a double hit?" the cart nymph asks sharply.

"No. I mean… Yes. What I meant to say is I hit my ball twice there."

"Aha. Well, that happens sometimes," says the nymph, in her most conciliatory tone. "That would mean that you're lying three?"

"Uh-huh. That's what I'm doing. Hitting my fourth shot."

"Well, you're still away."

As this little misunderstanding is cleared up, the surf calms back down. And the blue that overcast Single Malt's features immediately washes away. He wastes no time. He takes his pitching wedge and knocks his next shot up onto the green, his ball rolling neatly to within 18 inches of the hole. He cleans it up for a double. Beer Boy nails his birdie putt with a whoop. Wild Turkey makes a neat up-and-down par amidst a hip-hip-hooray, and I quietly card a bogie, well deserved at that.

We linger-we'd be crazy not to-to inhale the salt air and savor the view, taking it all in. The thunderclouds now look more like cotton candy-fluffy, sweet, benign.

When not writing about golf, Richard Voorhees is a novelist, filmmaker and lexicographer. His novel, "Shooting Genji," and his dictionary of occupations, "The World's Oldest Professions," are available on Amazon.com and at his website, www.rgvoorhees.com.