“Crispin signed a deal,” Win said.
“So?”
“Please do not tell me that you want him to back out of it.”
“I didn’t say I wanted him to back out. I said I wanted to renegotiate.”
“ ‘Renegotiate,’ ” Win repeated as though the word tasted vinegary. He continued trudging up the fairway. “How come an athlete who performs poorly never renegotiates? How come you never see a player who has a terrible season restructure his deal downward?”
“Good point,” Myron said. “But, you see, I have this job description. It reads something like this: Get the most money I can for a client.”
“And ethics be damned.”
“Whoa, where did that come from? I may search for legal loopholes, but I always play by the rules.”
“You sound like a criminal defense attorney,” Win said.
“Ooo, now that’s a low blow,” Myron said.
The crowd was getting caught up in the unfolding drama in an almost disturbing way. The whole experience was like watching a car crash in super slow motion. You were horrified; you stared; and part of you almost cheered the misfortune of a fellow human being. You gaped, wondering about the outcome, almost hoping the crash would be fatal. Jack Coldren was slowly dying. His heart was crumbling like brown leaves caught in a closed fist. You saw it all happening. And you wanted it to continue.
On the fifth hole Myron and Win met up with Norm Zuckerman and Esme Fong. They were both on edge, especially Esme, but then again she had a hell of a lot riding on this round. On the eighth hole they watched Jack miss an easy putt. Stroke by stroke, the lead shrank from insurmountable to comfortable to nail-biting.
On the back nine Jack managed to control the hemorrhaging a bit. He continued to play poorly, but with only three holes left to play, Jack was still hanging on to a two-stroke lead. Tad Crispin was applying pressure, but it would still take a fairly major gaffe on Jack Coldren’s part for Tad to win.
Then it happened.
The sixteenth hole. The same hazard that had laid waste to Jack’s dream twenty-three years ago. Both men started off fine. They hit good tee-shots to what Win called “a slightly offset fairway.” Uh-huh. But on Jack’s second shot, disaster struck. He came over the top and left the sucker short. Way short.
The ball landed in the stone quarry.
The crowd gasped. Myron watched in horror. Jack had done the unthinkable. Again.
Norm Zuckerman nudged Myron. “I’m moist,” he said giddily. “Swear to God, I’m moist in my nether regions. Go ahead, feel for yourself.”
“I’ll take your word for it, Norm.”
Myron turned to Esme Fong. Her face lit up. “Me too,” she said.
A more intriguing proposal but still no sale.
Jack Coldren barely reacted, as if some internal wiring had shorted out. He was not waving a white flag, but it looked like he should have been.
Tad Crispin took advantage. He hit a fine approach shot and was left with an eight-foot putt that would give him the lead. As young Tad stood over the ball, the silence in the gallery was overwhelming—not just the crowd, but it was as if the nearby traffic and overhead planes and even the grass, the trees, the very course had all aligned themselves against Jack Coldren.
This was big-time pressure. And Tad Crispin responded in a big way.
When the putt dropped into the cup, there was no polite golf clap. The crowd erupted like Vesuvius in the last days. The sound spilled forward in a powerful wave, warming the young newcomer and sweeping aside the dying warhorse. Everyone seemed to want this. Everyone wanted to crown Tad Crispin and behead Jack Coldren. The young handsome man against the ruffled veteran—it was like the golf equivalent of the Nixon-Kennedy debates.
“What a yip master,” someone said.
“A major case of the yips,” another agreed.
Myron looked a question at Win.
“Yip,” Win said. “The latest euphemism for choke.”
Myron nodded. There was nothing worse you could call an athlete. It was okay to be untalented or to screw up or to have an off day—but not to choke. Never to choke. Chokers were gutless. Chokers had their very manhood questioned. Being called a choker was tantamount to standing naked in front of a beautiful woman while she pointed and laughed.
Er, or so Myron imagined.
He spotted Linda Coldren in a private grandstand tent overlooking the eighteenth hole. She wore sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled low. Myron looked up at her. She did not look back. Her expression was one of mild confusion, like she was working on a math word problem or trying to recall the name behind a familiar face. For some reason, the expression troubled Myron. He stayed in her line of vision, hoping she’d signal to him. She didn’t.
Tad Crispin took a one-stroke lead into the final hole. The other golfers were finished for the day, many coming out and standing around the eighteenth green to watch the final act of golf’s greatest collapse.
Win started playing Mr. Merion. “The eighteenth hole is a four hundred and sixty-five yard, par four,” he began. “The tee is in the stone quarry. You need to hit it up the hill—a two-hundred-yard carry.”
“I see,” Myron said. Huh?
Tad was up first. He hit what looked like a good, solid drive. The gallery did that polite golf-clap thing. Jack Coldren took his turn. His shot climbed higher, seemingly pulling itself against the elements.
“Very nice golf shot,” Win said. “Super.”
Myron turned to Esme Fong. “What happens if it ends in a tie? Sudden death?”
Esme shook her head. “Other tournaments, yes. But not at the Open. They make both players come back tomorrow and play a whole round.”
“All eighteen holes?”
“Yes.”
Tad’s second shot left him just short of the green.
“A solid golf shot,” Win informed him. “Sets him up nicely for the par.”
Jack took out an iron and approached the ball.
Win smiled at Myron. “Recognize this?”
Myron squinted. Déjà vu swarmed in. He was no golf fan, but from this angle even he recognized the spot. Win kept the picture on his credenza at the office. Almost every golf book or golf pub or golf whatever had the photograph. Ben Hogan had stood exactly where Jack Coldren now stood. In 1950 or thereabouts. Hogan had stroked the famous one-iron that had made him the U.S. Open champion. It was the golf equivalent of “Havlicek stole the ball!”
As Jack took his practice swing, Myron could not help but wonder about old ghosts and strange possibilities.