“Hello, Mr. Able,” he said quietly. I had half expected some sort of an accent. “Please sit down. There — isn’t much room here.”
I sat on the one chair and he sat on the bed. I liked the look of his hands. He had the thick square wrists of the distance hitter, the long sensitive fingers of an iron artist.
“I expected you to be asleep already,” I said.
He grinned. “I’m not sleeping so good. I guess I’m nervous.”
“That was one hell of a fine round this afternoon.”
“I was lucky, Mr. Able. That long iron shot on the fourteenth was way off line. It hit a pebble or something and made a good bounce.”
“And stopped eight feet from the pin.”
“And rimmed the cup all the way around before it dropped.”
We both laughed.
“Have you had any offers from any of the sporting good companies? Endorsements. That sort of thing?”
He sobered. “No, I haven’t.”
“Well, I’ve got an option form here. What it says in all that fine print is that you agree not to sign up with any other company until we’ve had a chance to meet their best offer. I can give you a hundred bucks to sign this.”
I had thought I was going to say fifty dollars. But it came out a hundred. I groaned inwardly when I thought how the boss would react. He doesn’t like to have me kick money around, particularly when the recipient thereof is a long shot.
He read it over carefully and quickly. I handed him my pen and he signed. I signed the copy and gave it to him, along with a crisp fifty and five wilted tens.
He grinned again. “If I win, then, you have made a good business deal?”
“A very, good deal, Tommy. And I hope you do win.”
“There isn’t much chance of it, I guess.”
“How do you mean?”
“I took some psychology courses in the University of Washington. I have a hunch that my temperament isn’t right. I can’t seem to relax enough. I’ll give you the hundred back if you want it.”
“Not a chance. But to protect my investment, I want to tell you that—”
I didn’t know how to say it. He saw my confusion. “I think I know, Mr. Able. You have heard the other contestants say that they don’t want a Jap to win. Is that it?”
“It’s a little more than that. I think they’ll try almost anything to foul you up.”
“I thought that they would. I saw the way Mr. Ratchelder looked at me today. And Mr. Snyder. You can tell when people look at you like that. I’ve gotten used to it out on the Coast. They hate all of us out there. Most of them do.”
I admired the way he faced up to it. There was no false appeal for sympathy. No martyr complex. Merely a statement of fact.
I got up. “Well, you need your sleep. I’ll be running along. You’ll have a rough tomorrow, Tommy.”
We shook hands at the door. “Thanks for — everything, Mr. Able.”
I went back to my room in a downtown hotel and spent my sleeping time trying to figure out how Ratchelder and Snyder would try to fix Suragachi’s wagon.
The Upland Open is a big time tournament and the rules, though somewhat similar to the National Open, have their own variations.
Each contestant approved by the committee has the privelege of playing one qualifying round. One half of the entrance fee is paid before trying the qualifying round. Qualification consists of shooting 80 or lower. Once you qualify, you pay the rest of the fee. Usually around eighty to a hundred qualify. The tournament itself last three days. Opponents are chosen by lot. Eighteen holes are played each of the first two days and thirty-six rounds the third day. At the end of the first day, the high fifty percent of the group are eliminated. Counting the boys who flub, drop out, and turn in no score, that usually leaves forty going into the second day. At the end of the second day, on the basis of total score, another fifty percent are ruled out.
The twenty survivors have their roughest battle on the morning of the third day because once again, on the basis of total score, the contestants are weeded down to exactly eight for the afternoon round. First money is $7500. Second money-$1750. Third money-$500. Fourth money-$200. And that’s all, brother.
It is a colorful tournament, with the usual pretty girls, sportscasters carrying back packs of equipment, messenger boys running around with copy, gay umbrellas over the tables on the lawn where the lazy sit and watch the huge scoreboard which tells of the results of the weary men hacking their way across the beautifully tailored course, officials with little badges, worried marshals with bamboo poles holding the throng back, photographers, famous faces, all the mad tangle and excitement of the big time.
Tommy drew Bert Housen from upstate New York with tee-off slated for ten twenty. That gave me time to get the dozen balls to him. I had a set of irons for him to use that seemed to be about the right weight but he said politely that he was afraid to change without a chance to practise with them.
He disappeared and I watched the big board until it appeared that Ratchelder was getting hot. I caught him on the fourth green. He was matched with a boy from Massachusetts named Regan and he had the boy shaking in his pants at playing with such a famous guy.
Ratchelder racked up a fine 69. The puffy little pink man was superb. He didn't seem to work at it. The grooved swing was like honey in a warm greased pan. Swish! Click! The little white ball soaring away, low and flat, climbing up and up, sailing at last back to the manicured fairway, with just enough tail on it to give it a strong roll.
His approaches were a little ragged, with a tendency to carry too far. But the putting bought those strokes back. The little metal “clunk” of the ball falling into the cup was like a firm period at the end of a very pleasant sentence.
Once the caddy, a boy who was the captain of the local college golf team, handed Jimmy the wrong club. Jimmy didn’t say a word. He just didn’t take the club. The boy held it out for a moment, grew red, fumbled and finally brought out the right one.
“Thank you very much!” Jimmy said sweetly.
When I got back to the big board I found out that Forward had nosed Tommy out by a stroke. 67 to 68. They wouldn’t let me into the locker room. By the time Forward came out, I found that he’d been signed by Spaulding the day before. Some days it goes that way.
After the miserable, unhappy, cursing fifty percent had been eliminated, Forward, Tommy, Crebson, Lovelord, Ratchelder and Snyder were all in the running, of course. Snyder was right on the borderline with a 76, Lovelord and Crebson both had seventies. My Tommy was number two man. Ratchelder was breathing on his neck. A one stroke advantage on the first day of the Southland Open is no lead at all.
Forty tense men were left to play the second day. At five thirty all the scores were in, the brushoffs administered and the drawings made for the next day. Tommy’s name went up on the board paired with a man named Brilon from Rhode Island. Brilon had turned in a 72. I breathed a big sigh of relief that Tommy hadn’t been paired with either Ratchelder or Snyder. Unless Snyder managed to turn in a good score to add to his bad 76, he had a good chance of getting that touch on the shoulder at the end of the second day.
That evening I stayed away from Tommy. I had him on paper and the boy needed his sleep. I was reading a paper in the lounge of the Upland Club when Crebson came over pawed the paper aside and said, “Dave, boy, did you notice the board?”
“I didn’t notice you, if that’s what you mean.”
“I drew my roommate. Jolly old Snyder. I got him six strokes today and he’s going to be pushing like crazy.”
I grinned. “Does that scare you?”
“No. But listen to this. Ten minutes ago Mart says to me that he’s going to try like hell the first nine and if he can’t make up strokes, then he’s going to coach me. He says that either Ratch or I have got to knock off the Jap. How do you like that?”