call it the midnight moon

call it the midnight moon, call it what you will but as the world ventures towards some very difficult times, I think it's time to resurrect a story I wrote sometime ago.

It's a story that goes back to a time men were made of honor and the only contract you damn well needed was a handshake and look in their eyes.

Times have changed as the saying in many ways and that handshake doesn't seem to mean much anymore amongst the two-faced lepers that troll the world. It gets rarer each day to shake a man's hand and know that his word is his bond.

But all that is another story for another time, instead right now...with glass raised high, this is for the closers in a time long ago, when what was right, was right.


Old Dogs

They were the most unlikely of pairings, two young 20-30 somethings slickly attired from some last minute shopping in the pro-shop and two older dodgy characters. Pairing up the two was going to be, shall we say, an interesting adventure over the next few hours, from the loud boisterous young guns to the two crafty old vets with a bit more than a faint hint of Anjou on their breath.

The round began innocently enough, after the starter’s call to the tee. A subtle comment between two-some and with little debate, how’d you say a “friendly little nassau” was made amongst the four-some. With the younger two feeling invincible against their much older and surely outmatched opponents, the first hole began characteristic of the entire round. The younger two hit long off the tee but voyaged deep into rough while the older two hit quietly, much shorter but finding the greens consistently in or around regulation. As the match wore on, the little wager somehow found a way to grow until it shall we say it was not so little anymore as we hit the 18th.

With the overall match still in question, the elder member of the group prepared to make his final shot to the green. His ball rested some twenty paces to its edge and was crisply guarded with a majestic lazy bunker to its left and another caressing its front. Pin placement was nestled twenty-five feet from the front of the green which was now glassy-fast, burnt from a full day’s summer sun. Up and down in two would be a tough challenge for any golfer and more likely fate would settle-in for 3, much less a 4. The most typical route would be to hope for a near-perfect pitch and run, followed-up with a nerve rattling 8 to 12 foot putt. Anything else would be an adventure in mayhem to rattle the calmest of players.

He stood before me, his game now beaten down to a plus 15 handicap as Father Time betrayed his once powerful body that had marched so many miles where others failed. His heart weakened and only a few short years from beginning to give out, befriended time for just this moment. He confidently, if not surprisingly, surveyed the situation walking from the pin to the ball and barked out his instructions as if striding through a battlefield or corporate boardroom. “You better go hold the pin,” I was told and he coyly asked the playing partners “a hundred, with five to one, I drop this—who will take some?”

Of the foursome, the two younger nattily-dressed players quickly anteed-up taking the full amount, a sure-fire win from the elder, surely mad player. The other, his playing partner, he too an older veteran not long for this world was standing close to me, had the faintest glimmer of youth in his eye and breathed deeply, he knew, he just knew.

And so, the shot was on.

He returned to the cart and from the side case of the natural-hide colored bag of some 30 years old, quickly pulled a fresh Romeo y Julieta, clipped and lit it. Inhaling deeply, rolling and savoring it’s unmistakable sweet aroma. To the club selection he turned to a Bobby Jones 6 iron that he had played with for what must have been twenty-five some years. The weighting, new technology aside, was perfect; the feel of the leather grips had a warm comfort of home to them. Striding now, just for the briefest of moments with an eerie youthful confidence to the ball as if through the sienna sky that young warrior, the closer, emerged for just one more battlefield, another march and he surveyed the situation one last time. He took a deep inhale and stared intently

…seeing the shot.

I stood by the pin, held the lifeless flag still and waited now for what seemed an impossible moment. Squinting into that late summer sun, he bent down over the ball with the club now serving as a cane, took the cigar from his mouth and placed it gently beside the ball on the burnt, Bermuda grass. Hitching the typically fashionable burgundy polyester of the era, pants up slightly and opening his stance, he dug his feet in firmly. He was ready. One last intense look, no series of practice swings, no wag, no debate, he pulled the club back and then quickly punched at the ball sending it skittering off the club face with a modestly low trajectory. Clearing the bunker, just barely, the slightest amount of sand left over from a not-so-perfect raking job, leapt up. The ball, took one, two, three short hops slowing its speed fast but still flying young Palmer-like hot on the fast, fast green. I glanced up quickly and seeing him painfully reaching down to pickup the cigar, the club returned now to being a faithful crutch. The ball traversed down the green, in line, with a bold, confident speed. I pulled the pin and took two short steps to my left, with my eyes affixed on its path. Closer and closer it sped, closer and closer the impossible unfurled. Finally zeroing in on the cup, it pounded hard to the back of the cup and dropped into the hole, with that resounding un-mistakable sound of victory.

Not a hush, not a word was said.

The younger players stood in disbelief and began to pay off the debt of both the shot and the nassau. As we made our way off, them to celebrate over some fine 30 year old scotch, I, still amazed, conferred to him that the shot was incredible. Not simply an extraordinary piece of high pressure golf but one with a solid bet of a few hundred on the line (in a time when that was a serious amount of coinage). To which I then received this reply: “Kid, the pressure wasn’t the scratch on the line but that I only had a double-sawbuck in my wallet.” A few hundred on the line with only a 20 spot requires ice water cursing through your veins. Back to the wall, closing the deal.

See the shot, be the shot, drain the shot—get the job done.

The closer.