Fast Greens (25 page)

“The course record is sixty-three,” I said. “You could beat that easy.”

“Well,” said March. “We've still got four sets of clubs.”

“Me and Sandy against Fromholz and Grandpa!” I said, pulling off my torn shirt.

“Look out!” said Sandy. “It's the Wild Indian!”

The four of us were walking toward the number one tee, then March remembered Jewel and turned to her with his most beguiling smile.

“Jewel honey,” he asked her. “Would you drive down to Mona's Restaurant to pick up some cheeseburgers for everyone?”

“Cheeseburgers?” she said in disbelief. “Cheeseburgers!”

I think for the first time in my life, my grandmother was totally flabbergasted.

Victorious, our foursome headed back onto the playing field with jewel calling after.

“Bill March!” she said. “You get back here this minute!”

Bill March, I thought. What a grand name!

I turned to March. “Is she talking to you or me?”

March put his arm around my shoulder.

“Both of us,” he said.

We walked on, together.

EPILOGUE

A lot of hooks and slices have come and gone since that memorable match, and knowing that I'd never be able to forget its participants, I've done my best to keep up with them.

Fromholz, who I first thought was a bad man, turned out to be a good man to have around, and despite his lack of peripheral vision, quite handy with his six-shooter against snakes of all kinds.

“Just call me Dead Eye!” he told me.

Now he runs a private poker game in Vegas, where he personally deals the high-dollar games to rich suckers. The last time I visited him there I took in a few hands of cards and quit when I noticed that his longtime lady friend was winning most of the money.

In an ideal situation, I suppose Roscoe and Beast would have gone away wiser or more understanding, but if there's one thing I've learned, it's that nothing is ideal. Roscoe went on to the North Sea as head of the Glomar Explorer team and found a massive oil and gas field just where March's nose had indicated it would be. The last I heard of him, though, Roscoe had abandoned the cold and wet of Scotland for the sun and sand of Iraq. Soon after, war engulfed the country. Despite that, I can't help but think the old curmudgeon hasn't chewed—or swallowed—his last.

Carl “Beast” Larsen, I'm sorry to say, runs a driving range.

Sandy won the Texas State Amateur the year after our big match, and went on to qualify at the PGA school. Though he had toppled the giant and found the confidence his game was lacking, much to his disappointment, and my own, Sandy didn't make it when he went out on the Tour. He has, however, done just fine as a club pro these past twenty-some-odd years, and around the dinner table, carrots still become clubs and peas become balls as he tells his gaggle of blond-haired kids about his glory days competing against Arnie, Fat Jack, and Beast, the golf monster.

As always, he still has a breathtaking swing. His greatest claim to fame is a remarkable accuracy on par threes. Thus far Sandy has recorded twenty-seven holes-in-one.

March, Jewel and I, after moving to the Devil's Sanctuary, reclaimed the Dry Devil's Golf Club and operated it as a public course until—as Roscoe had predicted—the federal government sliced it in half with four silver ribbons of asphalt. It was just as well. The town of Sonora built a more civilized course, and I didn't have to mow the grass greens March was planning.

And March? A dead man, it seemed, before the game began (and even more so before it concluded), I saw him reborn or rejuvenated or reinvented of himself, and it was only the ghosts that had haunted him that went to an early grave.

We took our trips on horseback and our long drives to Mexico and Montana, but we were always happy to get back to Jewel and her little adobe house overlooking the Dry Devil's River. I still see him there, that wink, that smile, both indicating that he knew something the rest of the world had missed out on. He was my grandfather, he became my father; and in his last bedridden months, I suppose he became my son.

There's no doubt in my mind that March really is playing matches on that big golf course in the sky. My guess is he's managed to team up with Francis Ouimet, Bobby Jones, or Ti Thompson himself. Spotted one stroke too many, at the end of the round he collects the other team's halos or wings or golden putters, keeping them only long enough to polish them for another round tomorrow. Now that the Old Course at St. Andrews is open on Sundays, my guess is they sneak on for a little night golf.

Since March passed on a few years ago, my grandmother Jewel—whose unconditional love and patient wisdom held court over all—has assumed a respectable role in Sonora society where she continues to weave her charming magic to this very day. I drove out for the annual Wing Ding last summer, and there was a long line of wrinkled, leather-skinned old men waiting patiently to dance with her. Every one of them called her “Miss Jewel.”

And me? With my hair already long, I became a part of the youth revolution of the sixties and abandoned golf for free love and Frisbees, both of which were a lot of fun. But the game of golf always knew that one day I'd come back. After an absence of almost ten years, one sunny afternoon I found myself parked by the side of a road, watching the foursomes come into the eighteenth green, and I knew it was time.

I've thought a lot about what's magic in the years since that fateful day: undying love, raising babies, playing eighteen holes without a three-putt. Now more than ever I wish that my lack of faith hadn't caused me to toss March's magic moon rock so deep into the woods. We could all use a little magic, even now, even those of us who are still able to count our friends as friends and our family as final.

As for my own son, Squirt—William March III—already he's surpassed me in getting out of sandtraps. I can only hope that my small fount of knowledge can keep up with his West Texas thirst for the unknown.

Sometimes we watch old westerns on TV, but we've yet to come across the one with the scene about what the white man and the red man know. Still, I've told him the story, and he has taken it to heart. We took a drive out into the Hill Country not long ago. I pulled over to enjoy the view, and he swept his hand across the horizon.

“See, Popi,” he told me. “That's what neither of us know.”

I haven't found him any moon rocks, but I am saving another even more important possession that March gave me. The inscription on the back of the photo is in the careful hand of a man who put his faith in salvation and sanctuary and the fact that no matter how far you wander, sooner or later, you will go home.

“Don't ever forget,” it reads, “what an incredible journey we're on.”

The photo may be old and worn, but it still shows two friends playing golf on horseback. March's was the Appaloosa.

Praise for
Fast Greens

“Endowed with a vivid sense of time and place … the characters are wonderfully drawn and the dialogue is sharp and colorful. At the heart of
Fast Greens
is the game itself, whose lore and wisdom are lovingly imparted.”

—The New York Times

“A compelling, emotional story of a golf match among some motley characters, so rich that—pardon the cliché—we couldn't put it down. Do yourself a favor and order one or more.… It may be golf's best buy.”

—David Earl,
Golf Journal

“A must-read for every golfer or anyone who just likes a great Texas story.”

—Austin Chronicle

“Turk Pipkin's hilariously poignant novel … is an absorbing, very funny book, told with skill and insight. Golfers will be particularly delighted by it, but you do not have to know much about golf to enjoy it.”

—Houston Chronicle

“Turk Pipkin proves that something very close to perfection on the golf course may be achieved in fleeting moments of grace and glory.”

—Dallas Morning News

“Enough Lone Star golf talk to satisfy those of us whose libraries include the collected works of Dan Jenkins and Harvey Penick.”

—Golf Digest

“Great! If he'd learn to putt, he'd really have something.”

—Lee Trevino

“This funny, fast-paced, picaresque romp features plenty of heroic shot-making, world-class hustling, some impressive creative cheating, a classic high-noon shootout on the finishing hole, and even a flashback cameo appearance by the immortal Titanic Thompson.”

—Golf
magazine

“A dead-on ear for Lone Star State dialogue.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“A joyful romp through the weird and wondrous world of Texas golf.”

—Bud Shrake (coauthor of
Harvey Penick's Little Red Book
)

“
Fast Greens
is a funny, sentimental story of golf and love and life, not necessarily in that order.”

—San Angelo Standard-Times

“To the engaging characters of
Fast Greens,
golf transcends the task of getting the ball into the cup. Honor, courage, and money are at stake, not to mention salvation itself. Anyone who has ever invoked divine intervention on the green will understand and enjoy the plot's entertaining undulations.”

—The Austin American Statesman

FAST GREENS
. Copyright © 1994 by Turk Pipkin. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

ISBN 0-312-34268-3

EAN 978-0312-34268-5

First published in the United States by Softshoe Publishing

First St. Martin's Griffin Edition: May 2005

eISBN 9781466872202

First eBook edition: April 2014