As he shifted his feet and got set, he looked into the geometry of the grass, a few blades touching the ball, the rest growing in the direction he would hit. He would caress a little of the grass on his way to the ball, but he would not bruise it, and it would affect nothing. In front of the ball, about two inches from it, was where his small carpet of divot would be cut cleanly and lifted. He would see sky as the ball left him, then he would see the fine carpet rise up, then he would see the ball again about fifty yards from him, flying, then the carpet would re-enter his vision as it reached its peak of flight, then it would drop out of his field as it fell to the ground.
He addressed the ball with the club shaft held by its grip at a level with his crotch. He held it as firmly and safely as he would have held himself there in other circumstances. Then he moved his hands slightly to the left, bringing them over the ball, angling the club shaft slightly so that the head was behind the ball, his hands over it, and when he came through it and hit it the whip at impact would give it backspin, the letters of its name spinning toward him as it left the club face, and it would stop close to where it landed.
Then he was ready, relaxed, still, and set. He made of his head the fixed center of his body, picturing a plumb line hung from a point below the fossa containing his pituitary gland in the center of his skull, standing in space and ending at his crotch, with the line held still by the weight of his scrotum. The club head and the glint of the shaft left his field of vision; his left hip turned inward slightly, his right back, but his head remained still in the pivot. He reached the top of his backswing, and the shaft paused for a fraction in time before starting down. As it moved into its arc, he could feel in discrete increments the growing weight of the club head as the centrifugal force increased. His body compensated, the plumb line swinging fractions to the left as his hip moved, toward the potential line of flight. Then the shaft and the club head entered his vision again, moving toward the waiting ball. The ball swelled out and hardened as the head approached it. Then there was the click and the bite of the blade cutting the back of the divot. The ball lifted, the divot rose, his head began to turn on its axis; he saw the ball and the totem pole, large and imposing and silly in the sun, then the divot came up, showing its green side, then it floated away. When it was gone, the ball was at the top of its arc. It stopped there, and then it started its gradual decline. When it hit, it stirred nothing, it simply disappeared into the top of the mound, six feet to the right of the pole.
He sighed. Then he inhaled. Then he lowered his club from where he had brought it to rest on his left shoulder after finishing his swing. He walked up a few feet and picked up the pelt of divot. He came back and fitted it into the space from which he had cut it. He stepped on it and tapped its edges down with the head of his club, folding the edges of grass together. Then he walked back to the cart and replaced his club in the bag. He stood beside the cart and looked over at the others.
“Are you all right?” Frankie called over to him. All three were looking at him. From where they were they could not see where his shot had landed; they had no vision of the mound top and the pole.
Frankie addressed his shot then and hit it. From where Allen was he could see it come down. As he. expected, it came to rest to the right of the mound, between its base and the rough, an open shot to the green. Frankie looked over at him. He made a circle with his thumb and index finger, raised and shook it in the air.
Lou’s ball came to rest somewhere in front of the mound; it was obvious from the trajectory and force of his hit that it was well out and safe. Lou looked over at Allen quickly, but before he could give any sign, he looked as quickly away. Steve hit the best shot of the three. He was to the right of Lou, well out in the fairway beyond the mound and visible from where Allen stood. Steve gave him no glance at all, letting him know that he knew where his shot had gone and did not need any confirmation.
When they came around the turn in their carts, the mound loomed even larger than it had appeared from the openness of the fairway before the turn. It was monstrous, and the totem pole, he thought, must have been a good six feet in circumference. Looking up at it from the base of the mound, it stood against the clouds in the sky. They stopped their carts short of Frankie’s ball.
“Am I away?” Frankie asked Allen.
“Depends upon height,” he laughed, “but maybe so.” The other two refused any hint of curiosity, and when Frankie looked over at them, they did not look back. “I’ll hit then,” he said.
He used a seven-iron, hit his usually low, short iron shot, but he hit it too firmly. It landed on his side of the flagstick over the small trap, but it had a lot of roll in it, and it crossed the green and moved well into the rough on the other side.
“Shit,” he said, and rammed his club back into his bag.
Allen reached to his bag and selected a nine-iron; then he put it back and took out an eight. He put that club back and unbelted his entire bag from the cart. He slung it over his shoulder and started up the slope of the mound. When he got to the top, he slung his bag from his shoulder and rested it in the grass.
At its crest, the mound was still curving; and he could see that the massive totem pole had been set directly in its navel. He glanced down to where the others were waiting. He was about twenty yards to the right of the pole, and the three below him could see most of him. At the same time that he was about to suggest that one or more of them come up, he saw Steve bend over and talk sharply and briefly to Lou. He guessed the reason. Steve thought he might be partly out of sight when he found his ball, and he did not want him improving his lie. Lou jumped from the cart and trotted up the mound, slowing to a walk when he was about halfway up. This was the first time he and Lou had been alone, and he decided to use that. He knew that any prolonged talk between them up there would get to Steve.
“Hey, Lou,” he said, “good view from up here, huh?”
“Right,” Lou said, then quickly, “where’s your ball?”
“Somewhere over there,” he said, waving vaguely with his arm but keeping his eyes on Lou, and then looking past him to where Steve was sitting in the cart watching. He reached down and got a club out of his bag, a five-iron, and toyed with the grass at his feet while he talked. He figured Steve might think his ball was where they stood. He would surely wonder what he was doing with the club. He took a practice swing, not touching the ground.
“You like coming up here on an errand?” he said. He was surprised at Lou’s directness.
“Fuck no, I don’t like it! Come on, let’s find your ball.”
“We’ll find it. Let’s talk a little.”
“Look man, this is my livelihood we’re dealing with. You wanna talk, we’ll talk later, okay?” He had started his statement strongly, but there was a slight tone of pleading as he ended it. Allen could see that he had underestimated Steve’s pressure.
He also knew that Lou’s opening up in this way, though he may not have intended to, was a measure of disaffection. He felt himself wanting Lou out of this hole; he hoped that Lou’s putt was of sufficient difficulty when it came to remove decision from him. For a moment, he felt helpless in having no control over that aspect of what would follow.
“Okay,” Allen said, “I get it.” He turned away, his five-iron still in his hand, and walked up toward the base of the pole. About ten yards from it, to its right as he approached the crown of the mound, he saw his ball, a part of it visible through the low growth it sat firmly in. He moved on up to it to check his lie, but before he got to it something else caught his attention. He laughed to himself, visibly shaking his head as he came to the mound’s crest. Down on the other side, at the foot and running out a good thirty yards toward the green, was a sand trap. The trap must have been at least fifty yards wide; it covered a good portion of the green side of the mound, stopping on either side only a short distance in from the rough. Its size was remarkable, though it was on scale with the size of the mound and pole. More remarkable was its depth; its front lip must have been a good five feet high. He realized that had he played his shot a little longer or tried to clear the mound, he would have wound up in the trap, either by roll or on the fly, and he would have had one hell of a difficult shot to the green from there.