At first he plotted to snare them both. “It will be considered by everybody here that this is a terrible insult to me personally,” wrote Hughes. “I had already come to the conclusion that some kind of a special deal will have to be made with N. and P. So I have decided to offer the two players a contract to appear in a feature motion picture.”
After more brooding, Hughes changed his mind. He would make only one of them a star.
“Re: golf,” he wrote, “I am willing to forget Nicklaus, but I am not willing to forget Palmer. I insist we take steps, more than ever, to insure Palmer’s participation.
“Now, look, Bob, I am going to get Palmer some way, so why not save us both a lot of grief and help me with it,” he cajoled Maheu, who kept pressing him to bring the tournament back to the Desert Inn. “I am not willing to move it back here. I am not going to be pressured into it by Nicklaus’s refusal.
“I am willing to talk movies to Palmer. In some ways it would be easier to handle than with the two Prima Donnas in one film. Since we are only shooting for one player, I think a short subject (about ½ hour) should be enough. I very definitely do not think we should tell him it will be a short subject, but I also do not feel we should tell him it will be a full length motion picture.”
The more he brooded, however, the less willing Hughes became to offer Palmer even a short subject. Why make either Nicklaus or Palmer a star, when instead he could make it hot for both of them?
“I have just worked out a plan for doing without Nicklaus permanently—as to Palmer, I dont know,” wrote the billionaire, unveiling his latest scheme.
“I want to consider opening a massive book on the P.G.A. Golf Tour and certain other selected sporting events. I want our book to become the bible in determining odds. That is the key to the deal. I want our book to be the last word in determining the odds on any player, and thus the determining factor in the standing of that player in his sport.”
The plot to entice Nicklaus and Palmer had evolved into a plot to destroy them. Not content to fix the odds, Hughes decided to really fix their wagons. He would find a new man and make him a star.
“Ever since Nicklaus’ and Palmer’s rejection of our invitation, I have taken a sacred vow to find another golfer and groom him to supplant and far exceed these two. I have been determined to shove these two bastards into the background. Well, I have watched every bit of golf news avidly, and with my intimate knowledge of the game, I have settled on Casper as our man.”
Billy Casper was a real comer. Hughes would build him up, leave Nicklaus and Palmer far behind, and win by proxy the golfing crown that had eluded him in his youth.
“Now, I read some encouraging news,” he continued with vindictive glee. “Nicklaus and Palmer are at the low-point of an all-time record slump that started exactly 8 months ago—about when they gave us the brush. So, my reaction to that is: it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy!”
But there was no time to gloat. Hughes had bigger fish to fry. He planned to make himself the global impresario of golf, just take over the entire sport.
“It is my desire to establish Las Vegas as the Golf Capitol of the World,” he declared. “I am prepared to put up purses that will far exceed anything yet—$500,000 and even $1,000,000 tournaments!”
But the first crucial step in the whole grand scheme was to bring the Tournament of Champions back to Las Vegas. And Maheu had failed in his mission to La Costa.
“I told you it was mandatory to announce, no later than the conclusion of play today, that the tournament would be returned to Las Vegas,” complained Hughes, hammering away at his henchman long-distance.
“I said if this was not done the public here would turn against me in force.
“So, here we are Bob, the first bitterness that has existed between us in a long time, and I dont want it to happen again.”
Maheu absorbed the diatribe over a telephone that seemed glued to his ear. Hughes had kept him on the line almost the entire day, as always unable to bear his absence or his freedom. Maheu had missed the golf match, he had missed the awards ceremony, he had missed the big postgame gala. All he had seen of La Costa was the inside of a phone booth. Now he exploded. He had been busting his ass trying to put the big deal together while Hughes just sat back watching the tournament on television, and if Hughes had others more qualified to handle it, he was more than welcome to give them this plum.
Well, it had taken long enough, but Hughes finally had Maheu exactly where he wanted him. Boiling in a phone booth. The grandiose golf schemes no longer mattered. It was once more time to discuss their relationship.
“Quote more qualified than I unquote,” wrote Hughes. “This is a well-worn phrase in your vocabulary, Bob, you have used it often.
“I dont know anybody more qualified than you are, Bob, but I sure as hell know some people who are easier to get along with than you are. It is a fact, Bob, that I have never in my entire life tried as conscientiously, as hard, or as dilligently to get along with anybody as I have with you.
“When I first started writing my messages to you, it was for one reason only. I was afraid that, on the telephone at one time or another, I was going to lose my temper. So I started writing messages to you in order that I could read them over word by word and pick out any slight details I felt you might consider offensive.
“It is too bad that, after taking all of these pains, I should write you a message which does not contain any slightest suggestion of criticism, yet apparently I have somehow offended you.
“Anyway, to return to the Golf Tournament, you will see that I did not even remotely suggest I have anybody more qualified to handle it. I certainly have learned by now not to say anything as dangerous as that to you.
“I just feel there are about 500 other matters requiring your skillful handling, and I also feel, in spite of the denials that I know you will make, that you and I are separated by a wider chasm today than at any time recently.
“And if the word I used before, the word ‘bitterness’ does not describe your feelings, it sure as hell describes mine.
“Incidently, what right have you to say I am sitting here comfortably watching TV while you suffer at some dancing function in La Costa?
“In other words, how—just how do you know I am comfortable? Maybe I am sitting here wracked with pain, how the hell do you know any different?
“I am sure that most unbiased people would certainly prefer to be dancing at La Costa, at the presentation ceremonies of the golf tournament, rather than confined to a bed watching TV—and most particularly, if the subject on TV is a critical unpleasant one.”
It just killed Hughes to see Maheu traipsing about, whether to La Costa or to Cape Canaveral.
If with the golf tournament Hughes took something trivial and made it seem momentous, with the Apollo space shots—the quest to land a man on the moon—Hughes took something truly momentous and made it seem trivial. Merely an excuse for another fight with Maheu. Once again, it was triggered by what Hughes saw as Maheu’s maddening wanderlust.
“I am not eager for you to attend the event at Canaveral,” wrote the billionaire, stifling his man’s dangerous urge to roam.
“I view this purely and simply as a situation where you have asked to do something which you personally want to do. And which will take you away from my orbit for a certain period of time, and then return you later with all of the attendant risks of illness, accident, airplane highjacking, airplane accident in the over crowded skies, etc., etc., ad infinitum.