Captain's Day (14 page)

There were always jobs to be had as golf club professionals of course, but most golf clubs preferred their professional to play a little golf now and then, indeed many of them demanded that he not only played the game but played it to a reasonably high standard. Which lets me out, thought Tobin, ruefully.

Add to that the fact that the reason he had been booted out of Sunnymere would soon become common knowledge, the healthy club golf grapevine seeing to that, and his chances of landing a new job were slimmer than a catwalk model with anorexia.

There was no doubt about it, it was a disaster of the first water. And there was not a thing he could do about it.

9.50 a.m.

G Venables (11)

J Jenkins (16)

D Davis (18)

The many hours spent by Denis Davis's parents agonising over what Christian name to confer on their beautiful baby son were entirely wasted, as ever since he had taken up the game of golf at the age of twelve he had been known to all and sundry as Dogleg Davis.

Davis, unsurprisingly, had been given his nickname because he was in the habit of playing almost all the holes at Sunnymere as though they were doglegs. This was of course by accident rather than by design, and caused by an exaggerated in-to-out swing that resulted in either a massive push shot or a violent hook, depending upon whether the face of his club happened to be square or closed when it came into contact with the ball. (Fortunately it was only rarely open at impact, for those balls were rarely ever seen again.)

Fourteen of the holes at Sunnymere are either dead straight, or as near to straight as makes no difference, whilst the other four are doglegs. Naturally, due to the idiosyncratic way he hit the ball, Dogleg Davis played all the straight holes as though they were doglegs and all the dogleg holes as though they were straight. This resulted in his covering much more mileage than would the average golfer during his round of golf, and was the reason that led him into making the rather startling claim which he now made to his playing partners Jeff Jenkins and Guy Venables as they waited to drive off at the first tee.

“
I reckon I'm a better golfer than Tiger Woods,” he proclaimed, without so much as a trace of doubt, irony or humour in his voice.

“
What?” said Jenkins, not because he hadn’t heard what Davis had claimed but because he couldn’t believe what he had heard.

“
Are you sure you don't mean Tiger Tim, Dogleg?” said Venables, fully believing what he had heard, as he was wearing the very latest in hearing aids, but placing very little credence in Davis's preposterous claim. He was about to continue, mentioning that the shop from which he had purchased his hearing-aid, Eyes and Ears Direct, also did excellent spectacles, and to suggest to Davis he could do worse than purchase a pair as he was quite obviously in urgent need of ocular assistance, but before he could Davis had re-affirmed his claim.

“
No, really,” he said, taking a very un-Tiger Woods-ish practice swing, which didn’t even threaten the dandelion he had been aiming at, far less decapitate it. “I’ve worked it out.”

“
Give over, Dogleg,” Jenkins scoffed.

“
You’re having a laugh,” said Venables.

Davis was adamant. “All right I'll prove it. How many strokes do you reckon it would take Tiger Woods to go round Sunnymere ?”

Jenkins looked thoughtful. After a moment or so he said, “It’s difficult to say. I mean he's a big powerful lad the Tiger isn't he, he hits the ball a country mile.”

“
That makes two of us then, because I hit the ball a country mile too. And I go round in about eighty eight on a good day.”

“
Yes but ninety nine times out of a hundred Tiger Woods hits the ball in the general direction he wants it to go,” said Venables, “Whereas you usually go from tee to green via the duck pond, the car park and Disneyland.”

Davis however refused to be put off his claim. “That is completely immaterial to my argument. So what score do you think Tiger would go round in then?”

The two gave the matter a little more thought. Jenkins was the first to give his opinion. “Well Sunnymere is par seventy, standard scratch sixty eight. Not for the likes of Tiger Woods though. He'd murder the short par fours, he’d almost drive the green on some of them. About sixty four I would think; on average.”

“
Agreed?” asked Davis, turning to Venables.

“
Sixty three,” said Venables, after a further moment’s consideration. “I think he’d go round in sixty three.”

“
All right then, sixty three,” conceded Davis. “And how long is the Sunnymere course?”

“
Six thousand five hundred and something,” said Jenkins.

Venables checked the exact distance on his scorecard. “Six thousand six hundred and thirty four yards off the back tees.”

“
And what length would you say I play it at?”

“
You, Dogleg? Well you're all over the place, aren't you,” said Jenkins. “About nine thousand yards I should think. Minimum.”

“
On a good day,” added Venables. “Up to eleven thousand on a bad one.”

“
All right then, we'll split the difference and say ten,” said Davis. “Right. So Tiger Woods goes round a six thousand six hundred and thirty yards golf course in sixty three shots. Which means he takes....” He took out a pocket calculator and punched the numbers in. “....one shot every one hundred and five yards. I go round a ten thousand yard course in eighty eight shots. I take....” He used the calculator again. “....one shot about every hundred and thirteen yards. So I get eight yards more out of each shot I take than Tiger does. Obviously making me the better golfer.”

Jenkins and Venables pondered on this for a moment or two. Finally Venables spoke. “So how come you're a long distance lorry driver on about four hundred quid a week and Tiger Woods is well on the way to his first billion?”

“
I haven't worked that out yet,” said Davis.

After their approach shots to the third green Armitage's ball lay about twenty feet from the hole, Stock's ball a similar distance, whilst Grover's ball was about ten feet away.

“
Who’s away?” said Armitage, weighing up the positions of the respective balls.

“
There can't be a lot in it,” said Stock.

Armitage paced out the distance from his ball to the hole, did the same for Stock's ball and announced his verdict. “It’s just about me. By about a dick's length.”

Grover cocked an ear. “Dicks again, Trevor.”

“
What?”

“
About a dick's length? You can't keep your mind off dicks for five minutes, can you.”

Armitage brushed it off. “It's just a figure of speech.”

“
It's just a figure of your speech you mean. Anyone else would have said 'By about six inches'. Or whatever the length of a dick happens to be.”

“
Six and three quarter inches,” said Armitage, quick as a flash. “On average. Erect. According to my information.”

“
Yes well that’s bound to be right then, isn’t it. Because I don’t think for one moment there’s any chance of the information supplied by somebody who thinks about dicks all day long to be anything but absolutely spot on.”

Armitage protested. “Who thinks about dicks all day? I don't.”

“
No, of course you don't, Trevor,” said Grover, with a knowing wink at Stock.

Armitage noticed the wink. “Well I don't,” he insisted, and proceeded to qualify this contention. “I wasn't thinking about dicks when we were walking up to the green together just now and you were talking to Gerard about butterflies. I was thinking about Paris, because I'm off there next week for the weekend.”

“
Me and the wife went there the other week,” said Stock. “I'd never been before.”

“
I’ve been a couple of times,” said Grover. “What did you think to it?”

“
Great. It was really enjoyable. The Louvre, the Left Bank, the Eiffel Tower …”

“
That was built as a phallic symbol, you know, the Eiffel Tower,” said Armitage.

Grover rolled his eyes. “What did I tell you? What did I just say?”

“
What?”

“
Dicks again. Eiffel Tower, phallic symbol, dicks again.”

“
Well it
was
built as a phallic symbol,” protested Armitage. “It’s not my fault the French built it like a big dick; you know what they’re like. Anyway I was only saying, can't you say anything now?”

“
I'm fast beginning to think you can't say anything if it doesn't include dicks in it,” said Grover.

After Mr Captain had seen Davis, Jenkins and Venables on their way he noticed the Arbuthnott threesome walking down the ninth fairway on their way to the green, so started to make his way over to the beer tent to welcome them after they’d completed the hole.

Mr Captain was very happy with the way things had gone thus far. There had been a couple of blips – the unpleasant business with that naked youth chasing after one of the members for some reason or another, he didn’t know what and he didn’t want to know, and the disappointment of the band being double-booked and having to make do with a disco – but certainly nothing serious enough to spoil his day significantly.

The next blip not serious enough to spoil his day significantly, but a blip he could have well done without, happened just short of the bunker by the side of the eighteenth green when he looked up at the skies once again to check for signs of any change in the weather. He had done this maybe a couple of dozen times since Ifield had warned him of Fred the Weatherman's dire forecast, and he'd come to the conclusion that Fred the Weatherman didn't know what he was talking about; every time he had checked he’d seen nothing but cloudless skies and the sun. Which was exactly what he saw now. Then he saw stars. Lots of stars. When he trod on the business end of the rake he'd taken out of the bunker about an hour ago and the other end of it shot up and gave him a nasty crack on the nose. “Damn!” he said, which was the nearest he ever got to swearing, and only then when he was severely pressed.

He felt his nose. It was wet. He looked at his hand. There was blood on it. He took out his handkerchief and dabbed the blood away, then felt his nose again, gingerly. He breathed a sigh of relief; it didn't appear to be broken. Being hit on the nose by the rake had spoiled his day just a little but if the blow had broken his nose it would have spoiled it considerably. An hour later he would have happily accepted a broken arm, a broken leg and possibly even a broken neck in exchange for what was about to befall him.

No more than ten minutes after Tobin had realised he could do nothing about Mr Captain getting him the sack he realised he could. He could exact revenge. It wouldn't save him from the sack of course but at least it would wipe the self-satisfied smirk off that tight-arsed twat of a Mr Captain's face. It was just a matter of deciding what form the revenge would take. It would have to be something he couldn't be held responsible for though, something that didn't throw any suspicion on him; it would be difficult enough to obtain another position as a club pro as it already was without accusations of having taken revenge on the captain of his former club being levelled against him. And whatever it was he decided on it would have to be something that could be carried out pretty quickly as he couldn’t see himself being at Sunnymere for very much longer once the extraordinary meeting had sat and announced its verdict. And preferably it should be something that spoiled Mr Captain's day.

Tobin put on his thinking cap. A bomb scare? Possibly. Pretend to be an IRA terrorist, phone up the police and tell them a bomb had been planted in one of the course’s seventy three bunkers, guess which, and was due to go off at noon? No. It would spoil Mr Captain's day, no doubt about that, because the course would have to be cleared and all the bunkers checked out; but there was always the outside chance the call might be traced back to him; and apart from that didn't IRA terrorists have a special code they used when they phoned so that the police knew it was a genuine threat and not some crank on the other end of the line?

Allow Mr Captain to enjoy his day, and his evening, then lie in wait for him when he arrived home and give him a bloody good duffing up? Wearing a mask so he couldn't be recognised. No. Too risky again. Mr Captain wasn’t likely to put up much of a fight but something might go wrong, the mask might slip off or something, and even if things went to plan he would be a prime suspect, being a soon-to-be ex-employee with a very large axe to grind.

He looked out of the window hoping to find inspiration there. From his shop he could see out onto the lane that wended its way past the back of the clubhouse. Two young girls in riding breeches carrying large black plastic buckets under their arms were walking past on their way to the horse riding stables a half mile or so up the lane. He often saw young girls carrying buckets on their way to the stables and the only interest he had ever taken in them, apart from admiring their firm young bottoms as they walked past, was to wonder what it was they carried in the buckets. Oats for their horse? A brush with which to groom it? A spare tampon? All he knew was that whenever he saw young girls on the way to their horses they always carried buckets. He had once had the thought that you didn't need to own a horse to convince someone you were a horse owner, you merely had to walk around carrying a black plastic bucket under your arm.