A Spot in the Rough

from the novel The Years of Village Smith

A Spot in the Rough

A Short Story by JWillis

Vill had first come to golf by caddying for his dad. He was pulling the cart today for his father, Col. Samuel “Rooster” Smith, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army War College. The other three members of Rooster’s regular Saturday foursome consisted of Lt. Col. Jack Dibble, Smith’s deputy; a plump finance colonel named Arthur Pack; and a beady-eyed jokester, Shortie Thompson. Col. Thompson was the Carlisle Barracks Provost Marshal and stood only a little taller than his golf bag, about Vill’s height. Vill was thirteen.

Though their handicaps fluctuated between ten and sixteen, everyone in Rooster’s foursome played golf with the same lack of talent, so they rotated partners every Saturday and didn’t mind winning or losing a few bucks. Today’s match paired Rooster and Dibble against Pack and Thompson for fifty cents a hole, no presses or double downs.

Vill was daydreaming about the dollar his dad would pay him for caddying while the group putted out on the eighth green and moved toward the ninth tee. Col. Smith asked Shortie Thompson what he’d gotten on the hole. Rooster always kept score.

“Five, colonel. I bogeyed it.”

Heads snapped up.

“Five?” said Col. Smith. “After topping that drive? Shortie, you had at least a six, and that’s if I give you a six-foot putt, which I’m not sure I’m in the mood to do.”

Shortie affected nonchalance. “Not so, my friend. I hit a good wedge, and Arthur gave me the putt. It was a five.”

“Arthur’s your partner, only opponents can concede a putt.” Col. Pack, Shortie’s partner, wanted none of the conversation, and seemed overly confused about finding his driver, the largest and most conspicuous club in his bag.

“I sunk it anyway. It was a five.”

An uncomfortable silence descended over the foursome, as if one of them’d had the gall to claim that George Patton was a better general than George C. Marshall. Vill watched the combatants with keen interest, especially his dad, whose eyes bored into Shortie Thompson like he was sighting a downrange silhouette.

The men drove off the ninth tee, nobody commenting on anybody’s shot, and they spread down the fairway like a night patrol observing noise discipline.

When the round ended, the group neither took their usual table in the canteen nor relived their best shots over a beer. Rooster said he had yard work to do at home, and they settled up just off the 18^th green¾Rooster and Jack Dibble had won a dollar. The Smiths headed straight to the parking lot without a word of goodbye. When Vill and his father plopped into the green-and-white ‘56 Olds the family called the “Green Truth,” Rooster grumbled, “What a bum. Lying like that.”

“Does Col. Thompson cheat a lot, Dad?”

“Nope. Never done it before,” said Col. Smith. “I’ll never play with him again.”

His dad’s reaction surprised Vill. He thought of the times Vill himself had fudged his score on a hole or given himself a three-footer after he’d missed it. He never did it when he played with his dad or his own friends, only when he was playing alone. Still, Shortie Thompson’s cheating didn’t seem like the big deal his dad was making it.

“Maybe he just lost count, Dad.”

“Son, a man never loses count of his shots. And men don’t lie. About anything, let alone their golf score. If you can’t trust a man on the golf course, how can you trust him in combat?”

Combat was the litmus test for everything that mattered as far as Col. Smith was concerned. You could joke about how good or bad you were as a golfer, but lying about your score meant you might lie about how many casualties you’d suffered or whether you’d taken your objective. Lying in combat meant you could jeopardize the lives of American soldiers, and nothing was worse than that. Vill had known his father’s attitude about combat as long as he could remember, but comparing golf to combat didn’t make sense to him.

Two weeks later, Lt. Col. Dibble took his two sons and Vill to a junior golf tournament sponsored by Hershey Chocolate Company. It would be nine holes and Vill’s first official competition. The Dibble boys were older than Vill and they played golf well. The younger brother, Raymond, had played on the high school golf team in 9th and 10th grades.

The pairings had been drawn up by tournament officials, so Vill played in a foursome with three boys he didn’t know. Nervous on the first hole, he settled down after his playing partners duffed a few shots.

By the fourth hole, he was no longer nervous, so Vill reached back to hit a long drive and he pulled it into the left rough. The hole was a short par 4, and the rough did not look too bad: no trees or bushes, just a bed of clover. As he marched down the fairway he thought that he should surely get a par, maybe a birdie if he could put his second shot close to the pin. He reached the spot where the ball should have been, but the clover was deeper than he’d anticipated, and he couldn’t find it. He started to circle the area to look for it, but he checked himself; he knew the rules allowed him five minutes before he’d have to declare it a lost ball and assess himself two penalty strokes.

Vill glanced at his playing partners, who were all sizing up their next shots, not looking at him. He reached nonchalantly into his pocket, took out his other ball, and, using his body as a shield, dropped it in the clover. He picked out a 7-iron and hit his shot to the green.

The rest of the round passed without incident, and he ended up shooting a 43 for the nine holes, which earned him fourth place in his age group. Vill started feeling guilty when the official handed him the gold plaque for fourth.

“Way to go, Vill,” gushed Ray on the way home. “Fourth place for your first tournament is great.” Ray added that he hadn’t won anything until his second summer of competition. Vill squirmed.

Unaccountably, he blurted, “Yeah, well, I lost a ball on the fourth hole and dropped another one without anybody seeing.” He’d meant it to be a confession, but a nervous giggle escaped so it came out sounding more like bragging.

The car went silent, everyone stunned by Vill’s admission and his seeming to revel in it. An hour later, the Dibbles dropped him off, Ray somberly helping Vill get his golf bag out of the trunk.

Inside, Vill told his parents about getting fourth place, and he accepted their enthusiastic praise. For the next few days Vill lived in fear of his dad finding out about his cheating. Surely Col. Dibble would tell on him. But punishment didn’t come.

The following Sunday, Rooster Smith invited his son to play golf with him, which was rare because Vill’s dad played mostly on Saturdays and usually with his regular foursome. Because of Shortie Thompson’s stunt, however, the colonel had not played the last two Saturdays, waiting for a new foursome to reconstitute. Vill enjoyed playing with his dad, so he accepted the invitation, relishing the chance to show Col. Smith how good he was getting. Maybe he could beat his father for the first time.

Rooster was having a pretty good day, but Vill was shooting lights out. After seven holes, he led his father by two strokes. On the eighth hole, his dad hit a long drive that rolled into a fairway hazard, a sand trap. Vill laced his drive straight down the middle.

“Gotcha now, Dad,” ribbed Vill.

Vill reached his ball and spent a moment looking over the shot, and then hit a 5-iron to the back fringe. He felt confident he could take the hole from his father, who didn’t play well from the sand. When he turned to watch his father’s shot, he was shocked to see Rooster Smith addressing the ball from a perfect lie in the fairway. I saw the ball go into the sand trap, thought Vill. I suppose it could have trickled through.

“Wow, that’s lucky, Dad. I thought . . . .” Vill almost said he thought his father’s ball was in the hazard, but it was unthinkable for him to challenge his dad’s integrity.

Rooster’s soft 9-iron to the green left him a putt of about two feet, which he tapped in for birdie. Vill could no longer concentrate. Had his father cheated? He stubbed his chip from the fringe and three-putted. For the rest of the round he played his worst golf of the year, averaging double bogey.

In the clubhouse, Rooster bought Vill a coke, as he always did, and they started walking to the car, which was parked near the putting green. Vill noticed Lt. Col. Dibble and his sons practicing their putting.

“Good morning, Jack,” said Rooster.

Jack Dibble looked up. “Morning, colonel. How’s the game?” He gave Vill a smile.

“Not bad, Jack. Not bad.”

Vill couldn’t look at the Dibble boys.

On the way home there was no conversation inside the Green Truth. The colonel parked in the driveway. Vill hurried into the house, mumbling, “Thanks for the game, Dad.”

Rooster Smith sat impassively behind the steering wheel for five minutes before entering the house.