A Handicap of Shades Read online

told Ken spent many afternoons beneath the sun. Ken’s athletic achievements helped fill the local newspaper’s copy since the young man’s sophomore year. During summer, Ken threw complete game shut-outs for the legion baseball team. In fall, Ken side-stepped tacklers and executed an option offense with such flare to make all-conference and all-state squads both his junior and senior year. And in winter, Ken’s penchant for rebounding set him as top-scorer on the varsity basketball team. Of all of the young man’s athletic prowess, Ken’s golf swing most awed Lyle for the fluid, easy tempo that drove a golf ball both far and straight.

  “You bring all your nickels, Mr. Davenport?” Ken greeted his golf partner as he swiveled his waist and bent to his toes to loosen his back.

  Lyle grinned. “I got so many nickels and dimes jangling in my pocket that I’m surprised you didn’t hear me walking up from the clubhouse. I don’t mind losing a little change after each hole as long as you’re willing to give my swing a little help.”

  “The least I could do for how often your nickels have covered the cost of my fees.”

  Ken stepped back from the first tee’s markers. The first tee’s honors always belonged to Mr. Davenport’s swing. Lyle removed his favorite driver from his bag. It was an old club with a wooden head and shaft in place of the titanium and aluminum parts stocked at sporting stores. The club felt balanced in Lyle’s hand, felt soothing to the touch of a man who golfed with ghosts. Lyle clasped a golf ball atop a wooden tee and prodded at the ground searching for a soft spot that would make the standing of tee and ball easier on his wrist. It took a few moments, but Lyle stood back from the waiting ball optimistic for his round.

  “You given any thought yet, Ken, towards what you’re going to do for a career?”

  Ken paused in his ritualistic stretching. “Suppose about as much as anyone else my age. Hoping some of the ball scouts drop by again this summer. I would prefer to enter the draft as a pitcher instead of an infielder.”

  Lyle cleaned his wooden club’s head with his fingers. He remembered how confident he too felt when he was a young man so many years ago.

  “And what if you get hurt? What if your talents fail you in some way?” Lyle prevented a chuckle as he saw Ken’s forehead wrinkle. “It happens to the best of us. It’s good to have some kind of backup plan.”

  “My old man tells me that all the time,” Ken answered, “but I don’t want to work so hard on any back-up plan that it replaces all my original dreams.”

  “There is some wisdom in that,” Lyle nodded, “but it’s the wisdom of the young.”

  Lyle stepped to his waiting ball and prepared for the morning’s opening drive. He stiffly addressed the ball, his knees hardly bending and his hands choking at his club’s grip. Lyle drew back his hands as steadily as he could muster, forcing himself to move slowly through his short backswing. He did not raise the club’s head very high. He hardly pushed his hands beyond his hips before he sensed he reached the zenith of his take-away. He felt a moment’s pause before shifting his weight to his front foot as he willed his hands to fire at the golf ball. The strike coursed through his club’s wooden shaft, and Lyle knew in a millisecond that his contact was not flush. Lyle kept his chin tucked to his chest, thus denying the temptation to prematurely look up to see the swing’s results too soon, lest he compound the imperfections of his effort.

  The golf ball sped away from the tee in a low line drive, drawing to the left and shooting towards the fairway’s boundary. It was not the straightest of his drives, but it would play. Lyle hoped his conservative mechanics, more than his age, dampened the consequences of his swing’s faults. The ball was not struck with such power that it would find the trees lining the fairway’s left side. The ball struck the ground and rolled after a few bounces, coming to rest in the rough only a few yards past the fairway’s edge, standing up in the grass so that Lyle’s eyes easily located its resting spot for a second strike.

  “A smart play to take the out of bounds to the right out of play on the first hole,” Ken smiled. “You just got in a little hurry with your swing is all. Shifted your weight a little too quickly onto your left foot. That’s why your shoot drifted left. But it’ll play, and it’s never a bad drive off the first tee when you can hit the same ball again.”

  Ken addressed the ball for his first swing. Lyle had played so many rounds with Ken Sutton through the years, and still, his partner’s swing amazed him. Ken’s legs were relaxed. His hands lightly gripped the club. Ken shifted his hips and his hands pushed the driver back until his arms bent and pointed the club’s head down the fairway. Ken coiled in the pause. He fired suddenly, his back untwisting into his arms, his hands conveying the power of Ken’s mechanics through the shaft as flush contact was made with the elevated golf ball. Ken followed through with his swing and looked for the ball’s flight only after his hands pointed directly at the flag wavering in the distance. The ball roared down the fairway, settling many, many yards beyond Lyle’s effort, sparkling in the shortest cut of grass where no one would have trouble spotting it.

  “Wonderful drive again, Ken.”

  Ken mimicked his back swing. “I think I dropped my back shoulder a little. That guided the ball a bit to the right so I’ll have to hit over the bunker on the right front of the green. That’ll give me less green to work with on my second shot.”

  “I’ll just meet you at the hole.”

  “Remember to keep your head down, Mr. Davenport.”

  Lyle topped his second shot out of the rough, not reaching the green until a shank and a fourth swing later. It was an inauspicious start to the round when Lyle scolded his fifth swing and chipshot across the green before Lyle was finally able to take the putter from his bag. Lyle finished a two putt to finish the first hole in seven strokes.

  It had only taken Ken one swing to drop the ball within ten feet of the cup. Ken whisked away any of the stray leaves and repaired any of the ball marks near the line he imagined for his birdie putt. Ken gauged his putt and read the break. He struck his attempt with sufficient pace to take much of the break out of the uphill attempt. The ball found the right edge of the cup, and gravity pulled the ball beneath the surface. Ken made a quick fist after the ball dropped and winked at Lyle.

  “A good way to start a round.”

  “Put me down for a seven.”

  “Lots of golf left, Lyle.”

  Lyle agreed. He did not expect Ken, so early in the round, to fully understand his observation. Lyle did not think Ken could yet appreciate the satisfaction to be found in a triple-bogey. Lyle had struggled with poor swings. The ball had not flown as he wished. But he had persevered and was rewarded with good fortune on a finishing putt. Lyle knew the worth of his efforts; but still, he wished that Ken would not have to learn the humility of hurts that stung deeper than missed birdie putts and drives into the rough.

  Lyle considered the second and third holes at the Bounding Hart as his happiest during his Tuesday and Thursday morning rounds. Lyle’s game never rose higher than mediocre, but Ken’s game was at its peak during those holes. Ken faded his drive a hair to the right to avoid the water on the par five, second hole’s fairway. He kept the drive to hole three low to squeeze below the trees to cut the corner of a par four. Ken’s irons did not miss either green, their grooves magically pulling the ball towards the cup. Ken always made both the eagle putt to the second hole and the birdie putt to the third. The game was easy to Ken so early in the round.

  Lyle shared those opening holes with a friend in the best stages of life. Ken told Lyle of his wedding proposal plans, and before the second hole finished, invited Lyle to the wedding. Lyle laughed to hear that Ken’s wife expected their first child; and as they gauged the slopes of the third green, Lyle toasted news of Ken’s first son with a cold swallow of his beer while the aroma of Ken’s cigar tickled his nose. Lyle could never taste such a celebratory smoke, but the aroma drifted in his memory and the older man could see the smoky nostalgia drifting away in the breezes of ear
ly morning golf.

  Ken paused on the tee to the fourth hole. Lyle thought the first shadows swayed across the grass that would darken much of the remaining round.

  “Been having a hard time sleeping lately, Lyle.”

  Lyle noticed that creases gathered at the corners of his friend’s eyes when they arrived at the fourth hole. Weight had gathered about Ken’s shoulders and waste, and Ken’s back appeared to have stiffened. Ken’s form was no longer that of the lithe athlete who had met Lyle on the first tee box.

  “What’s been troubling your mind?”

  “There’s talk of trouble at the plant.”

  “People aren’t buying cars anymore?” Lyle knew the history well, but each morning round, he acted surprised. “Seems to me there are more cars than ever on the roads. People don’t need horns for their cars anymore?”

  Ken shrugged his shoulders. “You’d think so. But I guess it costs too much to make horns locally. There's talk about closing the plant. People seem to be buying more of everything, but there still doesn’t seem to be enough