I was sure he’d missed it on the right, dead certain; and so was he, I reckoned, for he started to walk after it, a sure sign of golfer resignation.
The impossible never happens. Sometimes you think it has, but it’s only an optical illusion. The hole doesn’t really move sideways into the path of the ball. In reality there’s a borrow, an extra slope so slight that no one can see it, until it takes effect. That’s how it was, but it really did look as if Jonny’s Titleist had been gulped down and swallowed, rather than simply falling into the cup.
The roar exploded again. (I must record that the Irish cheered as loudly as everyone else. The most admirable thing about European golf galleries is that they appreciate the shot regardless of who plays it, of whom they may be supporting and of how they may be betting.) If anything it was louder than before, and not just because I was yelling too. I looked at Tom, and felt a surge of overwhelming love for the way that he wasn’t quite able to stay professionally neutral, but managed nonetheless to control himself far better than I did as he peered into his bag and changed Jonny’s score, not to the red nineteen I’d been expecting, but to a twenty, tying for the lead. Of course, I’d forgotten; the fifteen was a par five on the card, so his putt must have been for a three.
It might not have been as busy as the Old Course at St Andrews but I was swallowed up by the crowd nonetheless, and swept towards the next tee in what I can best describe as a human tidal flow. I didn’t fancy that, so I broke free; since the sixteenth is a par three I headed straight for the green, and found a spot behind the flag, up against the rope. It was a perfect vantage point. I had a clear view of both tee shots; the hole was dangerously close to trouble and neither player took the risk of shooting at it, leaving themselves putts that were no more than outside birdie chances.
Tom saw me as he approached the green; he gave me a discreet wave with his free hand, but otherwise kept his game face on. He looked more determined than anxious. Jonny looked at me too. He was frowning when our eyes met, and for a second or two I was worried that I’d broken his concentration, until he winked at me, flashed me his uncle’s smile, then held out his hand to Uche, for the putter that the caddie had taken from his bag.
As he surveyed the green, studying the slopes and borrows, I looked around the gallery. Suddenly I felt sorry for him, and a little angry too. The crowd was predominantly green; the shamrock seemed to be everywhere. The navy blue of Scotland and the thistle were conspicuous by their absence. And so, it seemed, were three other people. I looked right, left, and all around, yet saw neither hide nor hair of Shirley Gash, and since there is a lot of both, if she’d been there I would have. And Patterson Cowling would have been easy to spot too, because he’d have been stood right alongside her. I took another look around, acknowledging the possibility that Shirl might have gone in search of a comfort station, but still I couldn’t spot him. If he’d been there, even without Shirley as a marker buoy, he’d still have been obvious, since there were no other double-breasted blazers with gold buttons in sight. Not surprisingly, there were no other tailored, pale-blue, silk blend, Nehru-jacketed suits either. . not even the original.
For Kalu Wigwe was missing too. There was no question about it, for even if he’d nipped back to his plane and changed in my absence, and he’d had time to do so, I wouldn’t have missed him, for his would have been the only black African face on my side of the rope. To me, that was strangest of all. Neither Shirley nor Patterson were in the first flush of youth and eighteen holes around a golf course on foot, on a warm Spanish day, is quite a hike. If they had bailed out or had decided to sit and wait for the finish at the eighteenth green, I had no problem understanding that; indeed that was my assumption. But Kalu? The guy. . the middle-aged, fit-looking guy. . had flown for eight hours, on impulse, to ‘support the team’ as he’d put it. I guessed that he’d gone for lunch, maybe even found someone else to entertain, and had decided that the live TV feed in the dining room was a better way of supporting than being out there mingling and jostling with the crowd. After all, the guy was a princeling.
I dismissed him from my thoughts and concentrated on Jonny and on staying with him to the end, however it worked out, even though I didn’t have a Scottish flag to wave.
And so I was there, on that great day. I was there as the Irish kid’s putt just lipped out on the sixteenth, matching my nephew’s more cautious par. I was there as they negotiated the tricky seventeenth, playing short of the fairway bunkers, taking the safe line into the green and settling for four each. I was there as they came to the final hole. . although, possibly, it wasn’t, as there would be a sudden death play-off in the event of a tie.
Jonny had the honour; he drove first. His body must have been pumping adrenaline, for he carried the bunkers that were meant to catch the careless. Unfortunately, he carried the fairway as well and his ball settled down in the rough. His opponent had been in last-day combat before; he knew to take a deep breath and to hit a three metal rather than a driver, arcing the ball into the centre of the fairway, and giving himself the advantage of playing first to the green from a perfect lie. I looked at Tom; his mouth was set in a tight line and I could feel that mine was too. Jonny? He was smiling as he reached his ball, but his eyes looked like steel.
Half of Ireland seemed to hold its breath as the kid. . did I tell you his name was Cormac Toibin?. . took out an eight iron. (No, I wasn’t close enough to read the number, but I caught the finger signal his caddie sent to Telly Man.) I’d seen him hit that club a few dozen times by then; I knew how good he was with it. Nine times out of ten he’d have knocked it in close, but the tenth is usually the one where the big money is on the line. That’s how it was. His ball flew beyond the flag, took a hard bounce and disappeared into the back left bunker.
‘Come on, Jonny!’ I wanted to shout it out loud, but my tongue was sticking to the roof of my mouth, so I willed the thought to him.
I got as close to his ball as I could, close enough to see that it wasn’t lying too well, close enough to hear him ask Uche what he thought.
‘Strong wedge and fucking murder it,’ the caddie replied, loud enough to make Telly Man wince under the Aussie hat. He was standing just in front of me, on the other side of the rope; I guessed that his microphone was live and that the prissy director would be making the prissy commentator apologise for the language lapse.
Jonny took the advice to heart; he did indeed fucking murder it, so effectively that his ball flew clean over the flag and disappeared into the same bunker as his opponent’s.
The crowd scrambled towards the green, rushing to fill the last few seats in the stand or to get as close to the action as they could. I left them to it; instead, when I got there I found a marshal and flashed the ‘Competitor’s family’ badge that Jonny had given me at the start of the tournament and that I’d never had to use. I found a vantage point in front of the stand, beside a couple of guys I’d seen on the range and knew to be Cormac’s dad and older brother. Senior pointed to Jonny. ‘Mum?’ he asked. ‘Aunt,’ I replied.
‘Good luck,’ he murmured. ‘Your lad’s done really well, regardless.’
For a moment I wondered whether he was being patronising, but he wasn’t, just kind. ‘Yours too,’ I whispered. As I did I looked up and into the stand, in search of Shirley and Patterson, but there was no sign. Bugger them, I thought. Serves them right.