For starters, the holes nearly always got more demanding as we got nearer to the flag. Golf is the world's best gambling game, right? When players of disparate skill compete — Burt is a solid 3-handicapper and I'm a solid duffer — you want the holes decided by pitch shots, chip shots, greenside trap shots, lag putts and, most painfully, short putts. (I have, as a New England golfer might say, a wicked case of the yips. I plan to attack it straight-on: My name is Mike and I am a yipper.) Who wants to win a hole with a wayward tee shot, or something out of bounds or in the water or lost in the hay? Not Burt and not I, for that matter. (The lost ball is the bane of the modern golf course.) In general, the fairways were wide and forgiving off the tee, and the thing you had to factor most was the wind. If you lacked confidence with the driver, you could always hit something with a shorter shaft and still think about reaching, or getting close, in regulation. The architect Tom Doak once told me, wistfully, that nobody ever hires him to build a short, wide, playable golf course. In Rhode Island, we played short, wide playable golf courses and had about as much fun as you can have while wearing soft spikes.
I won't torment you with any shot-by-shot recitations, or even hole descriptions. I will say the overall pleasure of Rhode Island golf approaches the general state of euphoria you get when playing golf in Scotland. I love trees — we all love trees — but not so much on a golf course. On the courses we played, the trees had been planted, or left, with a purpose. In Scotland, birthplace of the game, trees are found only here and there. The first architects figured out that you can't hit a ball through a tree and that they make for a poor obstacle. (Rough, when it's fertilized and watered, is overrated, too.) The early designers also knew that golfers cannot stand to lose golf balls.
When you travel in golf, as in life, the people you meet along the way add a dimension to the whole experience that cannot show up on a scorecard or in a glossy shot-at-dawn travel-story photo. For starters, there were the kids working the driveway at Newport who explained that the parking spots with the initials were for members — and certain members at that — and that our parking area was down by the entrance gate, and did we need a ride over there? There was the young assistant pro at Metacomet who described a recent golf exhibition for 500 underprivileged Providence kids, the local pros — Brad Faxon among them — introducing the great game to children who might not otherwise ever hold a club. There was David Fay and his detailed missives about where to eat and stay and watch amateur baseball played with wooden bats. (Next time, next time.) There was Jim Field and Bob Barrett, our hosts on the Little Compton course, Bob leading the way at lunch by ordering root beer (Burt and I followed suit), Jim leading the way on the course in a round that took not even three hours and change to play and never felt remotely rushed. (Jim, the club president, still had plenty of time to tell the stories of the holes and the players on them.)
On the second night of our trip, a Monday night, we had dinner at Brad's house. Brad showed Burt and me his club room in his basement, where we could see the evolution of the driver lined up on a wall: the tiny wooden driver with which he began his Tour career in 1984 and all the iterations leading up to the thin-walled titanium flying saucers that he, and most everybody else, plays with today. "And people say it's the ball," Brad said.
Brad's at the core of Rhode Island golf, and New England golf, too. He's been with Titleist — next door in Fairhaven, Mass. — forever, and he's consulted on or designed courses all over New England. He's close to Peter Broome, a Titleist executive, and has been watching the development of Peter's son, Matt, a promising Furman golfer. When I asked Brad if he was teaching the junior Broome, Brad said, "I ask him questions."
In the early part of the evening, Brad had some people at his house, part of a Fidelity outing. Brad was talking about his Tour experiences and the rigors of the 108 holes of Q-School, played over six days. One of Brad's Fidelity guests, pointing to Burt and me, said, "That's two days of golf for these guys." We walked and carried our bags, except at Metacomet, which required a cart.
We concluded our two days of golf with a 27-hole match at Misquamicut. Burt gives me half a shot a hole — any hole we tie I win — and through 26 holes our match was tied. Our final hole was played in the semi-dark and Burt made a pro's par and won the match. The locker room was closed and we showered in the employees' quarters — next round is on us, guys, and thank you — and made the drive home, richer in golf hats, hardly poorer in golf balls. I keep score by lost balls and played the final 27 without going to the bag once. Ross would be pleased to hear that, I'm guessing. On the way home, late at night, Burt and I split the driving, as traveling golf partners do.
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