Today I bartended at the Tour Championship. The bar is next to a window that looks out at the front driveway of East Lake Golf Club.
In the fall when the TC was played last year and years before there was a tree that turned the most amazing oranges and yellows and golds and reds. Past the tree was a walkway, and past that there was a barricade. Past that were the spectators, and past that there were corporate hospitality tents, and past that was the eighteenth green. Then there was the tenth tee box, and then Alston Ave. Past that there is an Atlanta ghetto where golf may be, in fact, the strangest thing a man could do. It felt good to stand by the orange tree.
Today the tree was not orange, but I felt comfort in the knowledge that soon it will be. And long after the tour is through, the eighteenth green will be there, and the tenth tee. Have you been on a golf course alone?
Across from the bar there is a picture of Bobby Jones swinging the club. The whole of the building is quite nearly an homage to the man himself. My favorite picture is of Jones at Minikahda in 1927. He is soaked from a deluge, and his slicker is dripping wet. There next to him is the US Amateur trophy, and in his eyes there is a certain look: like he is looking directly at me.
Yesterday at lunch I looked up from the bar and a man was standing there. He was holding an umbrella and two hybrid clubs just built for him in an equipment van that follows the PGA TOUR. He ordered a bloody mary. His badge had his name on it, and it said he was a PGA TOUR Instructor. We talked, and I told him Hogan liked to drink gingerale, but "Why?" I asked.
He said, "Because it made his hands feel thin."
I knew he had studied the game well.
And then he took his clubs and umbrella and walked out through the side door. Under the tree that will be orange sometime soon, when all the ropes are gone, and the course is empty again.
Threaded Mode
