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Hahn: "But he's putting lights- out. On their [Louisville] tour they play the back tees."
Mays: "He's won his flight every year here. He blew away the field by 12 shots. He shot 5.6 shots better than his handicap index would indicate. How many times has he broken 70 on that score sheet?"
Hahn: "Never. Not since March."
Mays: "The thing is, I don't mind one 67 — but then the 69, 73 and [another] 67? Call this guy up here. There isn't any way he's a 3 handicap."
Steve, a large man, lumbered into the room. He put up a spirited defense, faulting the World Am's cupcake, course-shortening tournament tees. "We played the [de facto] ladies tees," he said. "Every course was 6,100 yards. I'm used to [a longer setup]. And I didn't even make any putts. A guy said the first day, 'If you could putt you'd have shot 60!' And I would have!"
Kentucky Steve wasn't exactly helping himself. It was like telling a highway patrolman, "Hey, if you think 90 is fast, I could have gotten this baby up to 110!" But Steve, who maintains that his handicap was legitimate, had a point about the courses being too short. Lang said the same thing.
But Mays had the final word, so the committee delivered the bad news. They had no hard evidence, save that his scores were closer to an aspiring Champions Tour pro, not a 3 handicap. They told Kentucky Steve he was free to try again next year, but that didn't seem likely. He was angry at being penalized for good play.
"Come back? No!" he said. "Why would I?"
His elite senior flight was led not by Kentucky Steve but by Henry Jackson, 52, and Bobby Talley, 59. Both were surprised to find their names atop their flight Thursday night and had mixed feelings the next day at the Dunes.
"It was entirely possible for [Kentucky Steve] to shoot 67 on that course," Jackson says. "I played with him on the fourth day, and you can tell he's a legit 4 or 5. I mean, God, that's what you live for, a day like that!"
In the end, the big star at the Dunes was neither Jackson nor Talley but June Wang, 45, of Huntersville, N.C. She shot a gross 93, net 63 with her World Am handicap of 30, good enough to win. And what was her secret? Posting only her bad scores leading up to the event? Keeping two handicaps? Forging Bobby Jones' signature on her handicap sheet?
"Before I got here," Wang says, "I practiced four hours a day, 7 to 11 am, for four weeks. I said to my husband, 'I signed up, I paid my $500, and I will do my best.'"
Wang, who had dominated her flight by 11 shots, had only kept a handicap since July. She'd almost ended up in Room 204 herself, but in the end she was simply new to golf and on a steep learning curve. Her handicap would soon fall, since tournament scores receive extra weight. It seemed like a validation of the handicap committee's work that after all the number-crunching, the phone calls, and the palm-dampening moments in The Room, the way to win the World Am was the same way you'd get to Carnegie Hall.
Practice.
