Lucky Eddie - Chapter 5

by Jim Wile

The author has placed a warning on this post for language.

Background
Two young men meet as opponents during the finals of the golf club championship and soon become lifelong best friends. It is their great friendship that helps them navigate many of life's challenges.

(See the Author Notes for the definition of any golf terminology used as well as a description of the main characters.)

Recap: The story is narrated by Kenny. Eddie arranges a match with he and Kenny against two prospective members of the club. Kenny is reluctant because he senses they are hustlers, but Eddie, knowing they are hustlers, has plans of his own to hustle them.

They begin the match the following day, and the bet is $2,000. By the end of the third hole, the match is even. By the end of the ninth hole, Kenny and Eddie are 3-down and Eddie assures a doubting Kenny and Abby that it’s going according to plan. Eddie spikes a coke to give to E.J. who is caddying for his opponents in hopes he will start screwing up and costing his opponents some holes. On the 10th hole, Eddie fakes a sprained ankle and convinces the opponents to let Kenny hit all the long shots and he would just putt on the remainder of holes. They agree.

They start their comeback as Eddie sinks putt after putt and Kenny continues with his great shot-making. After accepting Eddie’s proffered flask of rum and downing it, E.J. begins messing up and costs Fairbanks and Welborn a hole. The match is now even with three holes to go.

The 16th was a shortish, dogleg-right par-4 and not a handicap hole, meaning we had a decent chance of actually going up in the match. It was a tight hole, though, with a narrow fairway, deep rough, and trees both left and right. Accuracy with the tee shot was imperative because the approach was to a tiny green with a huge bunker on the left. I asked Gary for my 3-iron, planning to lay up to the corner of the dogleg 130 yards out from the green. The shot came off as planned, and I lay safely in the fairway.

Welborn, who had been hitting first for their team since the start of this nine, blasted his driver deep into the trees on the right. It was not his style to use anything but driver, and it cost him dearly on this and several other holes. He decided to hit a provisional ball with almost the same result.

Fairbanks was a much smarter player, but still fuming from the previous loss of hole, he also (unwisely) took his driver to let out some of his anger. His plan was to hit a long fade around the dogleg and hopefully end up with just a short pitch to the green, but the ball didn’t fade, and instead went through the dogleg and deep into the rough on the left side of the fairway.

Eddie quickly sized up another opportunity and bounded off in his cart to look for Fairbanks’s ball. Except for Eddie, we all went searching for Welborn’s balls, but after 5 minutes we gave up, having found neither. Welborn was out of the hole; it was now up to Fairbanks (again).

Eddie was still driving back and forth in his cart, looking for Fairbanks’s ball. Unbeknownst to us, he had actually found it 30 yards back from where he was currently looking. We all spread out and started helping Fairbanks look for it.

Eddie positioned his cart close to E.J. and drove in such a way as to guide him in the true direction of the ball. As E.J. got close to it, Eddie asked him, “Hey, E.J., you got that flask I gave you? I’d kinda like it back, ‘cause it belonged to my grandfather and all.”

E.J. started digging in his back pocket for the flask, and thus distracted and not paying particular attention to where he was walking, he swayed a little and stepped on something hard.

“Wha’ wazzat?” he said as he bent down to see what he had stepped on. And there was Fairbanks’s ball, now partially embedded in the soft earth. We called the rest over to explain what had happened. Under these circumstances, Fairbanks was to be levied a 1-stroke penalty because, under the Rules of Golf, if a player or his caddie moves a ball, the player is to be assessed a one stroke penalty, and the ball must be replaced into its original lie.

Fairbanks was apoplectic. “God damn you, E.J. What the fuck’s a matter with you?” It was then that he spotted the hip flask still in E.J.’s hand. This set him off in a new tirade. “You goddamn drunken fool, I’ll kill you, you stupid shit!” He raised his club and started after E.J., planning to bash his head in until I stepped in his way and grabbed his arm with the club in it.

“Come on, Fairbanks. He didn’t do it on purpose. Leave him alone!”

He shook me off. “You’re fuckin’ fired!” he hollered at E.J. “Drop those bags and get the hell out of here, ya fuckin’ drunk!”

E.J. looked around at all of us, then set the bags down without a word. I could barely keep a straight face. He straightened the grungy sports jacket he was wearing, and with as much dignity as he could muster, he turned around and lurched off in the direction of the clubhouse.

Fairbanks dug out his partially embedded ball and proceeded to smooth the ground and replace it into its original lie as best we could determine. He was so rattled by this point that his third shot sailed 20 yards over the green into deep rough behind.

I hit a beautiful wedge shot to six feet. When we got to the green, Eddie didn’t even bother getting out of the cart. We found Fairbanks’s ball nestled up against a tree in the deep rough behind the green, now lying three. He took one look at it and picked it up, conceding the hole. We had finished 16 holes, and Eddie and I were now ahead for the first time in the match. We all made our way over to the 17th tee.

Welborn took Fairbanks aside for a couple of minutes to try to settle him down. They were 1-down in the match, and this was not supposed to be happening. Welborn pointed out that 17 and 18 were both stroke holes for them, so they had a distinct advantage. As he continued to try to calm Fairbanks down, I walked over beside Eddie’s cart.

“Hey, Sport, you’re doing great! Just hang in there for two more holes,” he said to me.

“Thanks. Any more tricks up your sleeve, Eddie? We just lost one of the key elements in your plan, and we’re facing two stroke holes.”

“We’ll see, Sport, we’ll see.”

We ended up losing the 17th hole when my approach shot missed the green by six inches, meaning I had to putt the first one since we were not on the green yet as the rules we had made stipulated. Eddie probably would have made it if he had the chance to putt it, but I missed. The match was now all square going into the final hole.

To be continued...

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Handicap: A method of allowing golfers of varying skill levels to compete against each other when betting. A number of strokes are given to the players with lesser ability. To have a 10-handicap means you will have 10 strokes deducted from your score in an 18-hole match.
Handicap ranking for a hole: The scorecard shows the relative ranking of each hole. The #1 handicap hole is the most difficult hole, while the #18 handicap hole is the easiest. If you are to receive 4 handicap strokes, you would get one on each hole marked #1 - #4 (meaning you would deduct 1 stroke from your score on each of those holes. Remember that in golf, the lowest score wins.)
Handicap stroke hole: A hole on which a handicap stroke is given to the team with higher handicaps.
Best-ball match play: A best-ball match means only the best score of each partnership is used to determine the outcome of the hole. Match play is a type of golf match where only the number of holes won is kept track of, not the score for each hole. Thus there's no difference in winning a hole by 1 stroke or by 4 strokes; it results in a +1 for that hole. A best-ball match play match combines these two criteria together.
Scratch: A zero-handicap
Halve a hole: Tie a hole
Chip shot: A short shot from near the green
Pitch: A slightly longer short shot from near the green
Fade: For a right-handed player, a ball that curves from left to right
Fringe: The closely mown area immediately adjacent to the green
Birdie: One under par for a hole
Bogey: One over par for a hole

Kenny Payne: The narrator of the story. He is a mechanical engineer who recently graduated from college and joined Brentwood Country Club where he meets Eddie in the finals of the Club Championship. He and Eddie become best friends.

Eddie Phillips: Described by Kenny as the loudest, most flamboyant, often obnoxious person and the kind you either loved or hated, who he had ever met. He is known for his phenomenal luck and his extreme prowess in putting.

Abby St. Claire: Introduced to Kenny by Eddie, she works at the snack bar and as a waitress at the club for a summer job while she finishes college. She is a smart and beautiful redhead who Kenny falls in love with and eventually marries.

E.J. Budrowski: A notoriously bad caddie who has a problem with alcohol. He caddies for Fairbanks and Welborn during the money match.

Jimmy Fairbanks: One of the two hustlers who challenge Kenny and Eddie to a high-dollar match. He is probably a scratch player (0-handicap) although he is a sandbagger who said his handicap was 10.

Bucky Welborn: The other hustler playing with Fairbanks against Kenny and Eddie. He is not as good as Fairbanks.

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E.J. seals his fate

A chapter in the book Lucky Eddie

Lucky Eddie - Chapter 5

by Jim Wile

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