Double Double

Joe, there’ll be you and me and Ray and Chet Howell. We’ll figure on teeing off at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. Now wait a minute. I know what you’ve said about never playing golf with Chet Howell again, but I tell you things are different. Certainly a guy can change. Even Chet.

So, you won’t take my word for it, Joe, I got to tell you just how it happened. It happened a couple weeks ago. We made up a foursome, Ray and me and Chet and Johnny Garsik. Well, Johnny didn’t show up and I can tell you I wasn’t too surprised, on account of the last time we’d played, Chet had got Johnny so mad he couldn’t hardly talk and he certainly couldn’t hit a golf ball.

We waited as long as we could and it was a busy day, and Charley wasn’t letting any threesomes off the first tee. But he said he had a single to fill us up, and when that guy showed up, we didn’t groan out loud but nobody looked very happy. It was a stringy old guy named Mr. Jonah Brewster, and he looked about a hundred and ten, and like the sun had dried him out to old leather. He had a ratty canvas bag, a red baseball hat, a couple of dingy golf balls, and honest to God, Joe, he only had four clubs, a putter, an eight-iron, a four-iron and a three-wood. They didn’t match and he could have sold them anyplace for two bits each. Ray took a caddie like he always does, and Chet and I used the pull carts, and old Mister Brewster, he carried that bag of his over his shoulder. We asked him what his handicap was so we could get some bets going, and he said he’d played a lot in the old days but now he just played for fun and he didn’t keep much track of the score or turn in any cards for handicap. So we decided it was him and Ray against Chet and me, and we’d adjust after nine. If Mister Brewster could make it that far, which didn’t seem likely, looking at him. Mister Brewster kind of hesitated and then said he guessed a dollar Nassau would be all right with him. But I figured he’d stay out of the press bets when Chet started throwing his weight around.

We went off first and Chet got all his beef behind his drive and really put it out there. Old Mister Brewster clucked and said, “My goodness, Mr. Howell, you drive like the professionals.”

“Call me Chet,” he said, sticking his chest out.

When Jonah Brewster drove off the tee, it happened so fast I almost didn’t get a chance to see it. He just teed the ball up, straightened up and hit it. He had a funny-looking swing with a loop at the top, and he used that old three-wood, and he belted it out there right down the middle and about a hundred seventy-five yards, the shortest drive of the bunch.

That first hole is four ten, you know. He took out his old four-iron and he smacked it another hundred and sixty down the middle. Then he took that rusty wooden-shafted eight-iron and lofted one onto the green that hit and bit six feet from the hole. And tapped the putt home for the par without hardly lining it up.

“Pretty lucky,” he said. And he cackled.

On that long second, Mister Brewster proved it had been luck all right. He chopped and scuffed and shanked and hacked his way down the fairway and got down in thirteen. When Ray got down in par, Chet rimmed the hole for a bogey just like he had on the first one. On that hundred and sixty-five yard third, Mister Brewster used his three-wood and got on the green and sank a long snake of a putt for his birdie two. And that put them three up. Chet’s face looked sort of red and swollen. You know how he gets. So he started storming and stomping around, saying, “Let’s make it interesting, boys. Let’s get some side bets riding on this thing.” He made one with me and one with Ray and he tried to make one with Mister Brewster. But the old man said, “I know I beat you two out of three holes so far, Mr. Howell, but I’m not much of a one for gambling.”

With the side bets working, Chet started leaning pretty heavy. You know how he gets. Always trying to rattle you. It’s like he was kidding, but there was a mean edge to it. He likes to win. And he started winning from Ray and me, but that old man was a thorn in his side, believe me. He’d mess up one hole something awful, and on the next hole he’d be right up there with his par, and he’d tie Chet when he was least expecting it. Chet tried to ride the old man, too, but he didn’t seem to notice it.

Well, Ray and the old man were five up at the turn, which meant they had to give us three holes up starting the second nine. Even though we were losing the Nassau, Chet’s game was hotter than usual, and while he was losing his part of the dollar Nassau, he looked as if he was going to take maybe twenty apiece off me and Ray.

On the tenth tee, Chet said, “Look at the money you’re throwing away, old man. You win a lot of holes. Make some side bets and maybe you win enough to buy another golf club, old man.”

Jonah Brewster looks at Chet in a kinda uncertain way and says, “Well now, I’ve gambled some with my son-in-law. For ten cents a hole, double-double on carryovers.”

“Let’s play with dollars, old man.”

“Well now, I’ve been pretty lucky today. Double-double on the carryovers, Mr. Howell?”

“You’ve got yourself a sucker, old man. Hit the ball.”

And Jonah lined it out, down the middle for his one seventy-five. Chet had trouble on that hole, and took a seven. Jonah was on the green in three, but his putting fell apart, and he four putted for the tie. They both bogeyed the eleventh and they both parred the twelfth and thirteeenth.

When Mister Brewster stepped onto the fourteenth tee he said, “My goodness, this is getting awful expensive, Mr. Howell! This is a sixteen dollar hole.”

“What!” Chet roared.

“Well, we’ve tied four holes. With double-double on carryovers, that’s one, two, four, eight, sixteen, isn’t it?”

Chet grinned and said, “So it is, old man. So don’t fall apart now. Don’t get one of those thirteens.”

You know how miserable that dogleg can be, Joe. Chet was on in two and took two putts. The old man was on in three and took one putt. On the fifteenth, Chet hooked his drive into the rough, came out into a trap, exploded into a trap on the far side of the green, exploded back to the green ten feet from the cup and took two putts for the six. The old man was on in three and three-putted, to tie the double bogey. They both took regulation threes on the sixteenth. And that made the seventeenth hole worth one hundred and twenty eight bucks. One thing about Chet, he’s a good pressure player. He belted a tremendous drive, and then he put a five-iron about eight feet from the pin, and there he sat with a chance for the bird. Mister Brewster got a longer drive than usual, and he used his three-wood off the fairway. It looked real good and then it faded a little and rolled toward a trap and stopped right on the lip of the trap.

Well, that old man had been stepping right up and hitting the ball. But not this time. He took out that four-iron to chip with. And he took his time. He walked up and he looked over every inch of that green. He had the caddie tend the flag. He took a couple of practice swings. And then he hunched over the ball and he chipped it. It hit on the green beyond the apron, bounced a couple of times and rolled right on up there. The caddie yanked the pin and the ball plopped into the cup. Chet took a long long time over his putt. I was afraid he was going to take too long. When he hit it, he hit it weak. But it managed to make that last half turn that dropped it in.

The eighteenth is that long stinking par-five, and I guess Chet felt confident then, knowing his greater length would give him the edge. He got one out there about two sixty-five, and then put his three-wood across the creek and pin high, off to the left of the green. Jonah let out another notch and got nearly two hundred yards. He played short of the creek, and then came up with the most beautiful eight-iron I have ever seen. It floated, landed soft as a cream puff, and stopped not over three inches from the cup, for a gimme bird. Chet’s chip rolled too far past the pin and he couldn’t hole it out coming hack. And there went two hundred and fifty-six bucks.

Chet looked very unhappy, but he said, “I’ll have to write you a check, old man.”

“I was pretty lucky, Mr. Howell. And I certainly don’t want to take that much money away from anybody.”

“You won it.”

“I’d like to give you a chance to get it back, Mr. Howell. I’d feel terrible, winning that much money. I’m too tired to play any more holes, but... we could have a driving contest. Double or nothing. I haven’t got a driver, but if you’d let me borrow one...”

“You want to try to out-drive me, old man!”

“Well. I’ll certainly do my best. Mr. Howell, but it’s just that I’d hate to win all that...”

“Let’s go.” We all went over to the practice range. Jonah dug around in that ratty old bag and came up with a brand new golf ball, one that’s advertised as giving you a lot of distance. He swung Ray’s driver and Chet’s and mine, and picked mine. The caddie was sent out to recover the balls. Just one drive each. They matched and Chet drove first. He didn’t make the mistake of trying to overpower it. He just met it squarely and nicely. It sailed and soared and it drove the caddie back. I guessed it at about two fifty.

Jonah teed up the new ball. He waggled my club. For the first time I noticed that, scrawny as he was, he certainly had a big pair of hands and wrists on him. He planted himself solidly. And he took one of those big slow backswings that didn’t stop until he could have seen the head of the driver out of the corner of his left eye. And then he uncoiled. You could hear that clubhead whistle. There was no loop in his swing. There was a crack like a rifle, and that ball sped out and started to climb. After a few moments the caddie turned around and ran like Mantle heading for the fence.

“That will be five hundred and twelve dollars,” Jonah said, and he didn’t sound at all hesitant.

Chet stared at him, his mouth open. He was pale and then he turned red. “You’re a damn thief, old man. You’ve shilled me!”

“You made the bet and you’ll pay the bet,” Jonah said, and in some magical way he’d dropped thirty years off his age.

“You ought to be run off the course.”

“You’ll pay.”

“Come on and I’ll write you a check.”

Nobody was coming in on nine and Jonah said, “Let’s see just how chicken you are, Howell. Come on over here.” He went to a trap and dropped a ball into the trap and stepped on it, burying it completely. “One more bet. I’ll bet you double or nothing, the whole works, that I can take the three-wood and drive that ball over a hundred yards. Make it over a hundred and fifty yards.”

Chet was pale again. He looked at the sand where the ball was buried. “It can’t be done.”

“Then bet, if you want your money back.”

Chet swallowed hard. He stood on one foot and the other foot and then he said, “G-go ahead, old man.”

Jonah went ahead. When he swung, the muscles in his stringy arms stood out like ropes. About half the sand in that trap flew out as if he’d touched off a buried grenade. And the ball came out like a rocket. And nobody had to pace it off to see that it went better than a hundred and fifty yards.

“That’s one thousand and twenty-four, Howell. Want to make another bet?”

“No more,” Chet said. “No more for me! I shouldn’t pay off to a damn thief!” And he looked at Ray and me for support and he saw he wasn’t going to get any.

So we all walked to the clubhouse. He got a blank check from Charley and made it out to Jonah Brewster. As he handed it over, he looked as if he was going to cry. And the old man examined it, and gave Chet a very cold smile and tore the check up. That was the signal, Joe. Johnny Garsik showed up all of a sudden, laughing so hard he couldn’t talk. And Charley was damn near rolling on the floor. Chet just stared at them.

When Johnny could talk he said, “I rigged this on you, Chet. Before Jonah Brewster reformed, he took more money off the pros than they won in their tournaments. I got sick of you being the big shot around here, bragging and pushing people around and suckering them out of their money. You’ve been had by an expert, Chet, and you’ll never look sillier.” And he walked away. Chet didn’t say a word to anybody. He didn’t shower or anything. He got in his car and took off.

So, Joe, it will be okay tomorrow morning, honest. I’ve played with Chet twice since then, and you wouldn’t want to play with a nicer guy. He’s a real gentleman. And listen, Joe, if he should start any of his old habits tomorrow, any little tiny bit like the way he used to be, we’ll just mention Jonah and he’ll straighten out, fast.

Okay. Eight o’clock then.