Captain's Day (3 page)

“
Wonderful,” said Chapman.

“
Isn't it,” said Mr Captain, fully aware that Chapman was being facetious but not caring a fig about it. If bigots like Gerry Chapman didn't like it then it was just too bad. He checked his watch. “Eight thirty precisely gentlemen, best be getting your round underway, you don't want to be holding up the rest of the field.”

Bagley tipped his cap politely and the three golfers stepped onto the first tee.

The first at Sunnymere, as is the case with the opening holes on many golf courses, is a relatively easy par four. The reason for most opening holes being fairly straightforward is that there is less chance of the golfer, not yet fully into the swing of things, making a pig’s ear of the job and ruining his round before he has hardly begun it, which in all probability is what might very well happen if the opening hole presented any sort of challenge. Quite simply an easy opening hole gives the golfer the opportunity to ‘play himself in’, and although most golfers, having played themselves in on the first hole, somehow contrive to play themselves out and ruin their card on the second hole, or one of the subsequent holes, an easy opening hole is still regarded as a good thing.

“
Your honour I believe, Baggers,” said Arbuthnott, in recognition of the fact that Bagley had the lowest handicap of the three and was thus entitled to tee off first.

Bagley strode confidently onto the tee and drove off, hitting his usual high fade of two hundred and twenty yards or so.

“
Shot,” said Mr Captain generously.

“
I ought to be,” said Bagley, forlornly. “Twenty years I've been playing this game and I still can't hit the ball much over two hundred yards.”

“
You've always had an excellent short game though, Des,” said Arbuthnott, offering encouragement to his playing partner whilst at the same time taking out a little insurance against Bagley moaning all the time if things weren’t quite going his way, as he was wont to do, and possibly spoiling his own chances by putting him off his game.

Next to tee off was Chapman, who hit a poor shot off the toe of his driver. He followed the flight of the ball as it bounced once on the fairway before scuttling into the right-hand rough, then said, in honest judgement of his lamentable attempt at a drive, “Crap. Absolute crap.”

There had been a long and intense debate in General Committee as to whether the word ‘crap’ was or was not a swear word. Mr Captain had maintained that it was. However the majority of the committee had argued otherwise. In the end there had been a trade-off, Mr Captain allowing 'crap' on the understanding that 'twat' was added to the list of swear words. (It had been proposed that twat be an allowed word, several members of the committee claiming it meant the same as 'twit'. Mr Captain argued differently. His Shorter Oxford had confirmed to him that a twit was someone who was a fool whereas a twat was someone who is considered to be worthless, unpleasant and despicable, and, having recently been called a twat by the window cleaner, who he had refused to pay because he hadn’t got right into the corners of one of the bedroom windows with his wash leather, was well aware that the reason he had been called a twat was not because he had behaved like a twit.)

Last to drive was Arbuthnott, who hit an absolute boomer, all of two hundred and forty yards, straight down the middle. Mr Captain clapped his hands together in applause. “Oh good shot, Andrew. Excellent drive.”

“
Thank you Mr Captain,” smiled Arbuthnott, then with his smile now taking on the hint of a smirk he turned to Chapman and said, “I told you it was going to be my day, didn't I.”

Club professional Dave Tobin had just sold the latest fad in drivers to the first customer who had entered his shop that morning. That the new club would be of no use whatsoever to its proud new owner and that he would have been far better off dispensing altogether with the services of a driver and using a three iron to drive with, Tobin did not enlighten him. Nor would he ever. The professional had always held the opinion that the customer, whilst not necessarily always being right, was always one hundred per cent right when they were intent on buying the very latest in golf equipment. Tobin was also very well aware that even if he had tried to talk the customer out of the new driver it would have been a waste of breath, so why bother? Apart from that he wasn't in the golf pro business for the good of his health, if people wanted to waste their money on over-priced golf equipment who was he to argue? The latest transaction hadn't even required any special sales skills, a commodity of which Tobin had in abundance, but had been no less satisfying for all that.

Now his second customer of the day walked into the shop. Tobin greeted him in his trained obsequious manner. “Good morning Mr Irwin, lovely morning.”

“
Morning Dave. Box of balls, please,” replied Irwin pleasantly.

“
Maxfli, isn't it,” said Tobin, reaching for a box of Dunlop Maxfli from the shelf behind him. He placed the box on the counter. “Looking forward to your round today are you, Mr Irwin?”

“
Is the Pope a Catholic?” said Irwin, picking up the golf balls. “Put it on my account, would you.”

“
Of course, Mr Irwin. Much obliged to you. All right for tee pegs are you? I've a new type fresh in. A revolutionary new plastic developed by the NASA space programme I believe. Claimed to put ten yards on your drive, only twenty five pee.”

Irwin was sold immediately. “You can’t get done for twenty five pee, can you.”

“
Twenty do you?” suggested Tobin, intent on extracting a fiver from Irwin.

“
Fine.”

“
Twenty it is then.”

Tobin handed over the space rocket-charged tee pegs, reflected once again that there was one born every minute, watched his satisfied customer leave the shop, then turned to his new assistant Darren Lancashire, a tall, gangly seventeen-year-old with, Tobin had observed, reassuringly big feet. However the jury was still out regarding how he stacked up on the brains front.

“
You will have noticed I knew which brand of golf balls Mr Irwin plays,” Tobin said to his assistant. “Know your customers, Darren. Give them good service and you'll make far more money out of them than what you will ever do giving them golf lessons. Gripping their cheque, Darren, not checking their grip, that's the name of the game, that’s what being a club professional is all about.”

“
I hear you Dave,” said Darren, nodding eagerly, anxious to learn.

“
I know what brand of golf ball every member of this golf club plays,” Tobin went on. “Every member. Gentlemen
and
ladies
. Give me the name of a member.”

Darren was apologetic. “I don't know any yet Dave. Well I've only just started haven’t I.”

“
I'll pick one then. At random. Give me a letter.”

“
Er…A.”

“
Another.”

“
B.”

“
A B. Archie Baldwin. Titleist. Another. Arnold Bradshaw. Dunlop 65. Another. Alice Bates-Weatherly. Top Flight.”

“
Awesome,” said Darren.

“
Whichever member comes into this shop for golf balls, whoever they are, even if they’ve only just joined, I am ready for them. Customers like you to know their preferences Darren, it makes them feel special. And it keeps my till ringing. And it isn't just their preferences in golf balls I have on tap. Sweaters, trousers, shoes, I know their tastes in those too. And their size. Archie Baldwin again. Pringle sweaters, 40 chest. Daks trousers, 38 waist, 32 inside leg. Size 9 shoes, usually Dunlop but has twice opted for Reebok.”

“
Awesome,” said Darren.

Not awesome perhaps, but it was certainly impressive that Tobin had been able to commit to memory the golfing equipment preferences of the five hundred and twenty strong club membership. But maybe not such a big deal so far as Tobin was concerned as he was one of those fortunate people blessed with a photographic memory. This was of no great advantage to him for most things as he hardly ever exposed himself to anything worth remembering, the pages of the Daily Sport offering little else but bums and tits, as did the output of the only TV channels he watched; but insofar as being an aid to remembering precisely which member preferred what in the way of golf equipment it was obviously a huge advantage. That many people who play golf, despite it being a sport which requires nothing in the way of special clothing save for spiked shoes and a waterproof suit, find it necessary to kit themselves out in outlandish and expensive finery, only made Tobin’s job even easier than it already was.

Now in his fifteenth year as a golf pro, the last four of them at Sunnymere, Tobin had left the amateur ranks of the game for the professional at the age of twenty. Like the majority of young men turning pro he had entertained high hopes of a career as a tournament professional, maybe even the European Tour if he worked hard enough at his game, but also like the majority he had eventually and almost inevitably fallen by the wayside. In Tobin’s considered opinion it was chiefly because of his brains and his feet.

Shortly after turning professional, and with time on his hands after missing yet another tournament cut, he had come across an ancient golf instruction manual whilst browsing in a second hand bookshop which a fellow professional had advised him was an excellent source of porn. The tips in the book were in the main similar to those given to budding golfers in most golf instruction books, ‘Keep your eye on the ball’, ‘Keep your head still’, ‘Take the club head back low and slow’ etc, along with a few tips Tobin had never come across before. Some of them seemed a bit dubious to say the least, especially the advice on the correct stance to take when attempting to hit a ball that has come to rest on top of a bunker, and which if followed, Tobin felt, could only result in the golfer not only missing the ball completely but quite possibly sustaining a rupture in the process. His perusal of the book was not entirely wasted however as he did unearth one fact that turned out to be a veritable gem of wisdom; that if you wanted to be a successful golfer it was advisable to have big feet and no brains.

Unfortunately for Tobin he had small feet and a few brains, and it was the few brains he had which soon made him realise that the big feet/no brains theory, the basis of which was the contention that big feet gave the golfer a sound platform for his swing, whilst having no brains meant that he couldn't think too much about it, was an entirely sound one. Indeed, when investigating the manual's claim by analysing the results of all the golf tournaments in which he had played that year thus far he found it to be remarkably true. The golfers at the top of the leader board at the conclusion of the tournament were invariably men who were generously endowed in the feet department whilst being singularly lacking in grey matter. He soon discovered that he could pick out from amongst the field which of the starters would be the front runners, almost always including the winner amongst his selections, simply by looking at their feet and engaging them in conversation for a few minutes. Putting this information to good use he had then proceeded to make quite a bit of money betting on the outcome of the tournaments in which he took part, certainly far more money than he ever made from playing in them.

Like all rules there were exceptions to the big feet/no brains theory and occasionally a tournament would throw up a winner who had small feet and a few brains, and on one very rare occasion small feet and a lot of brains, but unfortunately Tobin was not one of them. So it eventually came to be that he gave up the soul-destroying grind of the life of a tour professional and settled for the soul-destroying grind of the life of a golf club professional who really wanted to be a tournament professional. And in doing so found his true vocation.

When he had first turned professional Tobin had boasted a handicap of one. Now, some fifteen years later, he had no idea what his handicap was. He rarely played nowadays, certainly not in any professional tournaments, and when he did play he never counted his score, but if were to hazard a guess he would have said that on a good day he might get round the Sunnymere par 70 course in a gross 76, which equates to a handicap of six. However selling was something else. Shifting golf equipment was something different altogether. He was scratch at selling. Better than scratch. Plus two or three in all probability. The superstar of club professionals, the equivalent of Tiger Woods in the tournament game. But whereas Tiger had a sweet swing and the smoothest of putting strokes Tobin had a silver tongue and the smoothest of sales patter.

“
David Holmes.” said Darren.

“
What?” said Tobin.

“
I've remembered the name of a member,” said Darren, pleased with his achievement. “David Holmes.”

“
David George Holmes,” recited Tobin, after only a moment’s thought. “Timberland sweaters, 38 chest, Pringle trousers, 40 waist, 30 inside leg, Ultra golf balls, size 10 shoes, Dexter's.”

“
Awesome,” said Darren.

If he keeps saying 'awesome' to everything I say, thought Tobin, and with those feet, he could very well make a top tournament pro.
8.40 a.m.