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"Lucky Eddie"


Chapter 1
Lucky Eddie Prolog & Chapter 1

By Jim Wile

Prolog
 
The match was now all square going into the 18th hole. The scorecard read 183 yards, but today it would be playing considerably longer, so I reached for my 4-iron. The pin was perched on a shelf in the very back of this long, essentially 3-level green, and there was a steep drop-off into dense rough and trees behind the green. You did not want to miss long, as it would be impossible to put the next one close, if you could even find your ball.

Having won the previous hole, I had the honors. A few of the members had wandered out to watch the conclusion of the match and lined the left side of the green. I stepped up to the tee, and after a practice swing and two deep breaths, I unleashed a beauty—a high, arcing fade that landed softly and rolled up six feet just short of and slightly to the right of the flagstick. I couldn’t have asked for a better shot, and Abby saw me hit it! I caught her eye as I made room for Eddie, and she gave me a dazzling smile as she quietly applauded.

Now it was Eddie’s turn. With his 2-iron, he took a mammoth swipe at the ball and uncorked a low bullet. It hit the front of the long, narrow green and ran up toward the flagstick. But it was going too fast and would surely pass the flag and shoot over the back and down the hill to the trees below… except that it collided with my ball… and ricocheted left… and into the hole!

And just like that, it was over. Eddie had won. He let out a whoop and started strutting around the tee, bellowing, “Oh yeah, oh yeah!” As he passed by me, I gave him a high-5; what else could I do? Much to my surprise, he grabbed me by the neck, jumped up and put his legs around my waist, and wouldn’t let go while he pumped his fist in the air and continued bellowing. What a character! You had to love him. I ended up carrying him off the tee and set him down on the cart beside Abby, who he suddenly grabbed and gave a big smooch on the mouth. “Did you see that, Red?”

“I saw it, Eddie,” she said as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I wouldn’t have believed it if you’d told me about it, but I saw it.” She looked over at me, ruefully. “C’mon, boys, I’ll give you both a ride back to the clubhouse. I’ve got to wait tables now, and Eddie, I believe you owe everyone a round of drinks?”

“That is certainly true, thanks to my good buddy, Kenny here. Come on in, folks. Drinks on me!” he shouted to the members who witnessed his miracle shot as we headed up the path to the clubhouse to celebrate the 1975 club champion.

My name is Kenyon Payne or just Kenny. You may remember this scene from a book called Some Call It Luck. That was Abby and E.J.’s story, and Eddie and I were relatively small players in it. That darn Jim Wile actually wrote Lucky Eddie first, but for some reason decided to strip parts of it out and put them into Some Call It Luck and present that to you FanStorians first. I feel a little cheated by that, but who knows why authors do what they do? At any rate, I won’t repeat the parts that he pulled out of this one except for that first scene I just related.

I’m in my early 60s now but this story begins when I was 22 years old. I had just started my first job after college as a mechanical engineer, after having moved here from the Midwest about three months earlier. I had played college golf at Michigan State University and sported a 1-handicap. I was eager to make some golfing buddies, so I joined Brentwood Country Club in the town of DuBois, Pennsylvania shortly after moving here.

Brentwood was a beautiful old country club that dated back to 1926. The clubhouse, pro shop, maintenance barn and other buildings were all designed in the Tudor style of architecture, and clipped boxwood hedges, flower boxes, and flower beds surrounded everything.

Shortly after joining, it was time for the club championship, and I decided to play in it. It was a match play tournament and I made it to the finals where my opponent was Eddie Phillips who I had never met before. I won’t go into all the details of that match because you already know how it ended; the son-of-a-bitch beat me.

This story is primarily about Eddie. He was the loudest, most flamboyant, often obnoxious person—the kind you either loved or hated—who I had ever met. He also became my best friend, and I loved him.

Oh yeah, and he was the best damn putter I ever saw.

It was Eddie who introduced me to the love of my life during that final round of the club championship when we stopped for a break between nines. Her name was Abby St. Claire, and she tended the snack bar and waitressed in the clubhouse for a summer job during her college years.

Abby was smart and beautiful, with long red hair and lovely green eyes. She and I started dating immediately, and within a year, we were married. You can read all about that in Some Call It Luck.
 
If you look at that picture at the top, that's me on the left, Eddie in the middle, and Abby on the right. Isn't she gorgeous?
 
So, let’s pick up the story a few weeks after that opening scene.
 
 
The Hustle
 
Eddie and I started playing a lot of golf together on weekends. Abby had to work Saturday and Sunday afternoons, so that’s when we scheduled our games. It was usually just the two of us. Eddie said he was pretty particular about who he played with, but I had the feeling he had trouble getting games together. He was not very well-liked around here. Most of the members were on the older side, and he simply struck a wrong chord with them. They couldn’t tolerate his brashness and his loud manner. He appealed more to the younger members, of which there were only a few. I got a big kick out of him, though.

I found out that he was the youngest of five siblings who all seemed to love to argue. It did a lot to explain his loud, attention-getting manner; as the baby, he had to make himself heard over the racket.

We usually played for small stakes—at my request, no more than a $5 Nassau. Eddie would have preferred to go much higher. He probably won more than he lost, for he had a tendency to rattle me with his uncanny putting. He wasn’t a naturally-gifted athlete, but he had found an area of the game in which he could excel. He never seemed to miss a makeable putt.

Eddie made his living as an inventor, mostly of golf-related items. He was quite successful, having invented a widely-used cup-cutter, a shag bag and a well-balanced pull cart. He was currently working on putter designs—his true passion, he said.

“Let me see that putter of yours—the one that looks like the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek,” I asked him while sitting in the bar one Sunday afternoon after we had finished a round. He went into the bag room, which was nearby, pulled it from his bag and brought it out to me. He had brought my Bull’s Eye putter with him as well. Not only did his putter have those big protrusions on the heel and toe, but the shaft was bent at the bottom.

“Look at this,” he said as he laid the shaft across his outstretched index finger so that the putter was perfectly balanced on his finger. “Look at the face; how it stays horizontal.” Indeed, it did. “Now look at what your putter does. He then balanced my putter on his finger. “Look at how the toe hangs down.”

“So what’s the advantage of yours?”

“I don’t know yet, but I sure seem to putt a lot better with it than your type.”

“You know, Eddie, there’s a lot of physics involved here. Did you ever study physics in college?”

“Not really, Sport. I only attended one year of college. It wasn’t exactly my thing, if you know what I mean. I kinda got, let’s say, a little distracted by all the cuties around that place, and I partied pretty hard. A 1.1 grade average just didn’t cut it.”

“Well, college isn’t for everyone, I guess. Did you ever think about going back?”

“Nah. I’d always invented stuff as a kid—some of it was pretty clever, if I do say so myself. Then after getting kicked out of college, I struck it big with a couple of inventions that actually sold. It was all downhill from there. Or is it uphill? I can never remember which is which.”

“Well, if things got better for you, I’d say it’s uphill.”

“Yeah, but if you’re on a bike, it’s much easier pedaling downhill. I guess it’s all in your point of view. What I meant to say was that things were good from then on. I figured I didn’t need any more college.”

“You know,” I said, looking at his ‘Enterprise’ putter again. “I could help you figure out why it works so well for you. I know the physics of force vectors and moments of inertia and such things. I think I could help you out. If nothing else, it might cut down on all the trial and error you undoubtedly must do.”

“Well, you’re right about that. It would be good to understand what’s really happening. I love it, my man! When do we start?”

“How about right now?” I said, as I grabbed a napkin and started scribbling diagrams on it with a pencil. We spent the next two hours deep in discussion. The time flew by and before I knew it, it was quarter to six.

“Jeez, look at the time! I’ve got to meet Abby at six o’clock. I better get going.”

“You and she are getting pretty serious, aren’t you? I couldn’t be happier for you, Sport. She’s quite a catch.”

“She thinks you’re pretty swell, yourself, you know. She may act all peevish with you, but it’s just an act; she really likes you!”

“I guess I know that. You guys have fun tonight, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Alright, Eddie. I’ll call you. Let’s try to get together again soon on some of this putter stuff. It’s pretty exciting!”
 
(This chapter will be continued next week.)
 

Author Notes I will use this area for character descriptions starting with the next chapter.


Chapter 2
Lucky Eddie - Chapter 2

By Jim Wile

Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of language.

(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 Payne and begins when he is 22 years old. With a phenomenally lucky shot on the 18th hole, Eddie Phillips beats Kenny, whom he had just met that day, in the 1975 club championship at Brentwood Country Club in western Pennsylvania. Kenny and Eddie become best friends and begin golfing together regularly. Eddie is an inventor working on putter designs, and Kenny, who is a mechanical engineer, begins helping Eddie figure out why his current putter works so well.
 
(A continuation of the chapter: The Hustle)
 
The following Saturday afternoon, Tony, the caddie master, approached Eddie and me and said there were a couple of guys who were thinking about becoming members at Brentwood and were here this weekend to check it out. They were looking for a game on Sunday, and Tony was wondering if Eddie and I would be interested in playing with them. We both agreed, and Tony told us they were sitting in the bar and to go introduce ourselves.

Their names were Jimmy Fairbanks and Bucky Welborn. They were older than us—perhaps mid-forties—but looked like they knew their way around a country club. Jimmy was tall and rather handsome, while Bucky was kind of chunky and had a crew cut. They seemed like nice enough guys, and we made arrangements to play in the morning around 10:00 o’clock. They said that they both had a 10-handicap and wondered if we’d like to put a little money on the match. Without hesitation, Eddie told them sure and that we could work out the details in the morning.

We left then, and as we walked out I told Eddie I had a funny feeling about this. He said not to worry and not to stay out too late with Abby. “Sleep well, Sport. We’ll knock ‘em dead tomorrow.”
 
 

The next morning, I woke up around 8:00 and made myself a breakfast of eggs and toast. I didn’t feel quite right—kind of a heavy feeling and bloated. Abby and I had been eating out a lot—mostly burgers and fries, but not many fruits and vegetables—and I was beginning to pay for it. I spent some time in the bathroom before heading to the club, but to no avail.

When I got there, I met Eddie coming out of the clubhouse, and together we started walking to the pro shop. “How ya doing this fine morning, Sport?”

“Not so good, Eddie. I’ve been kind of blocked up lately, and it’s a bit painful down here,” I said, pointing below my navel.

“Well, that’s more than I need to know. Did you try a laxative or something?”

“No, not yet. Don’t worry, I’ll be okay.”

“Alright, Sport. Let’s go see if those two jokers are here yet.”

We went into the pro shop, and Tony Colosi told us that Fairbanks and Welborn were in the dining room having breakfast. We thanked Tony and headed over to the dining room, where we found them seated at a table in the corner.

“So, fellas, what do you think of Brentwood so far?” I asked them, trying to sound friendly, though my intestines were clearly asserting their displeasure by now.

“This is a terrific place,” said Welborn. “Care to join us for a cup of coffee before we play?” Eddie and I both declined.

“Alright then, let’s discuss the terms of our match,” said Welborn.

“What sort of game and wager did you have in mind, boys?” asked Eddie.

“Well, we asked Tony what your handicaps were, and he told us one and four,” replied Welborn. “Since Jimmy and I are both a ten, how about best-ball match play, and we’ll all take strokes based on the handicap rankings for each hole. For stakes, what would you say to two large?”

“Is that two hundred?” I asked.

“It’s two thousand,” said Eddie. Welborn nodded.

“Fellas, did you happen to bring some proof of your handicaps?” inquired Eddie. With that, Fairbanks pulled out a copy of the handicap sheet from his previous club, anticipating that we might ask. It was dated two weeks ago, and sure enough, both Welborn and Fairbanks were listed as having a 10-handicap.

“Uh, Eddie, can I talk to you outside for a moment?”

Out we went, and I guided him over to the bag rack where our four bags were sitting side by side. “Eddie, I’ve got a real bad feeling about this. I think they’re only here to try to find a couple of patsies to hustle. Look at this,” I said, pointing to the wear pattern on Fairbanks’s 7-iron. It was perfectly round and the size of a nickel. “No 10-handicapper has a wear pattern like that. I’m guessing this guy’s at least a 2, maybe scratch. That handicap sheet he showed us has got to be a fake!”

“I know that, Sport. I’m not some rube from the country, you know. I knew these guys were here to hustle us when we met ‘em yesterday. Just trust me on this, will ya, and follow my lead here? We’re going to hustle them.”

“WHAT? How?”

“You’ll know when the time comes. Don’t worry!”

“Eddie, I’m not feeling so good. I’ve got to head into the bathroom.”

“Alright, Sport. I’ll go back in and tell them we accept their bet. You just go in there, and give it the old college try.”

Before I left for the locker room, I noticed Eddie pull his 2-iron from his bag and head into the pro shop. I wondered briefly what that was about but gave it no more thought as I made my way into the locker room and headed over to the stalls.

I sat there, miserably for about five minutes without any success. I was stewing about what Eddie might have planned and what this could potentially cost me, when all of a sudden, KABOOOOOOOOOM!!! It sounded like the whole room exploded. The bathroom was tiled throughout, and the explosion really reverberated. It literally scared the shit right out of me.

A few seconds later I heard Eddie’s voice. “Hey, Sport, what the hell just happened?”

“I think you know, Eddie,” I said—my heart still in my throat. “So what was that, a firecracker or a cherry bomb?”

“Cherry bomb. Did it work?”

“You bet! Feeling good now if I can ever get my heart to slow down!”

“That’s the ticket, Sport. Now let’s go beat those guys!”
 
 

We headed out to the first tee where Fairbanks and Welborn were already there waiting for us. We got our clubs from our caddie, a high school kid named Gary Latz, and strode onto the tee. I noticed that E.J. Budrowski, a notoriously bad caddie, was holding Fairbanks’s and Welborn’s bags. I figured Eddie had probably arranged that with Tony, and that it was part of his scheme.

We flipped a coin, and we had the honors. I hit a nice, low, piercing shot down the middle, and Eddie hit a surprisingly good drive down the left side of the fairway. Like me, Fairbanks also hit an iron. His swing was long and languid, and he hit a good shot down the right-center, but his follow-through was very awkward-looking with a funny, twisting motion and a sudden lift of the club at the very end. It seemed incongruous with the rest of his swing—as if he were trying to make his swing look bad. You can’t fake a backswing and downswing and expect to hit a good shot, but you can purposefully mess up your follow-through if you’re coordinated, which Fairbanks appeared to be.

“Well struck, Jimmy!” Eddie exclaimed and pounded Fairbanks on the back as he came and stood next to us.

“That was pretty lucky,” came back Fairbanks as he handed his club back to E.J.

“Yeah, right,” I thought. Now it was Welborn’s turn. He took a mighty swing with his driver and pushed it way right. It headed straight for the split rail fence that marked the out-of-bounds on the right side.

“Shit, shit! Stop!” hollered Welborn as he watched it helplessly scoot under the fence and O.B.

This guy had no class; you wouldn’t shout a profanity like that within earshot of members of a club you were thinking about joining. It further confirmed to me that these guys had no intention of joining, but were simply here to win some money.

Welborn teed up another ball, now shooting three, and hit a fairly respectable shot down the right side that ended up in the right rough. He was first to hit his approach shot and proceeded to dump it in the bunker on the right side of the green. Eddie was next, and he drilled a low one that came up just short. My 8-iron was a shade long and ended up in the back fringe. Fairbanks then lofted a beautiful 9-iron to the center of the green, twelve feet from the hole, finishing his swing with that affected, twisting motion of his.

“Another beauty!” shouted Eddie, beaming at him. “I think maybe we’re being hustled here, Kenny. What do you think?” he said conspiratorially, with a grin on his face.

I didn’t say anything, and Fairbanks just smiled as he strode toward the green. Welborn picked up his ball from the bunker because he was out of the hole. Eddie hit a mediocre chip to eight feet. My downhill 30-footer slid by on the right and finished four feet below the hole. Not a bad effort, but it left me with a knee-knocker. Fairbanks just missed his curling 12-footer on the pro side and left his ball a foot from the hole. We conceded him his par. Now Eddie and I had to sink one of ours to halve the hole which was not a handicap stroke hole. Eddie was first, and I noticed he was not using his ‘Enterprise’ putter, but just a normal-looking putter something like mine. He didn’t take much time lining up and stroked it rather jerkily—not his usual smooth, buttery stroke. As a result, he missed it on the right and picked up. “It’s all yours, Sport,” he said, which didn’t make it any easier for me. I hit that uphill four-footer a little too softly, and it just fell into the front of the hole on the last roll. Not a very confident stroke, but I got away with it for the halve.

“Way to go, Sport!” Eddie said, clapping me on the back. Fairbanks just shook his head as we walked off the green and headed to the second tee.

By the end of the third hole, the match was still even. Fairbanks continued to shake his head and marvel about his ‘lucky’ shots, and it was all I could do not to deck the guy. Eddie seemed unperturbed and kept complimenting Fairbanks’s (and Welborn’s) good shots.
 
To be continued.
 

Author Notes 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.)
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.
O.B.: Out-of-bounds
Halve a hole: Tie a hole
Chip shot: A short shot from near the green
Fringe: The closely mown area immediately adjacent to the green
The pro side: To miss the cup on the pro side means to miss it on the high side on a breaking putt, rather than the low side. Pros tend to miss more putts on the high side while amateurs miss them on the low side.
--------------------------------------------------------------

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--the kind you either loved or hated--that 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.


Chapter 3
Lucky Eddie - Chapter 3

By Jim Wile

Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of language.

(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 Payne and begins when he is 22 years old. With a phenomenally lucky shot on the 18th hole, Eddie Phillips beats Kenny, whom he had just met that day, in the 1975 club championship at Brentwood Country Club in western Pennsylvania. Kenny and Eddie become best friends and begin golfing together regularly. Eddie is an inventor working on putter designs, and Kenny, who is a mechanical engineer, begins helping Eddie figure out why his current putter works so well.
 
The next day they arrange to play a match against two prospective members of the club. Kenny is reluctant because he senses they are hustlers, but Eddie accepts a money match with them, knowing they are hustlers, but with 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.
 
A continuation of the chapter The Match
 
By the end of the ninth hole, I was seriously worried; we were now 3-down! As we all walked over to the snack bar for a drink and a quick bite, I pulled Eddie aside and said in a fierce whisper, “Eddie, what the hell’s going on? Where’s your so-called hustle? Don’t you think it’s getting a little late here? If we keep losing holes, we could be out of this very quickly on the back 9!”

“Relax, Sport, we’re just settin’ it up here. Don’t you worry now; we got this! Go say hi to your sweetie over there and tell her Eddie’s got it all figured out.”

That did little to assuage my fears, but I guess I had no choice but to trust him at this point. Still, what could he have planned?

“Hey, Red! How’s business today?” he said to Abby as we made our way to the snack bar. Welborn and Fairbanks were already there, flirting with her behind the counter.

I just looked at Abby and said nothing. She frowned a little, and I could tell she sensed my anxiety. We ordered our drinks and snacks and sat down for a few minutes to relax. Welborn told a few off-color jokes, and Eddie laughed uproariously at them, but I couldn’t bring myself to even smile. These guys were real turds as far as I was concerned, but Eddie acted as though we were all best friends out for a casual round of golf.

Abby saw all of us get up to go, and she called Eddie and me over to the snack bar. “Alright, Eddie,” she said accusingly. “How's the match going?”

“C’mon, Red, you’re as bad as your boyfriend here!”

“And how much is the bet, Eddie?”

“Don’t you worry, Doll. We’re not losin’ anything here today. We got this completely under control.”

“How much, Kenny?” she said, turning to me.

“Two grand, and we’re down by three holes.”

“Eddie! What have you gotten yourselves into here?” she asked incredulously.

“Relax, both of you!” he said. “It’s coming soon, just trust me! By the way, Doll, would you give me two bottles of Coke for the caddies?” He placed a five on the counter.

She glared at him but retrieved the Cokes from the cooler and slapped them down in front of him. “Kenny, stay here a second, would you? Eddie, beat it!”

Eddie left us then without another word, and Abby said to me, “What did he mean, ‘It’s coming soon?’ ”

“I don’t know. He said he knew they were hustling us, but that we were going to hustle them. I just don’t see any evidence of it yet.”

Abby relaxed a little at that. “Okay, I guess he’s not as dumb as he looks. Gimme a kiss and do what he says. I think he’s probably pretty good at this kind of game. Just play your best; I’m sure that’s all he wants from you.”

I gave her a quick kiss and then headed off down the path to catch up with Eddie. He had stopped about halfway to the tenth tee, waiting for me. “Here, hold this,” he said to me as he handed me one of the Coke bottles from which he had removed the cap. It was only about a third full, and I could see a puddle beside him where he had poured the remainder out on the ground. He then pulled a hip flask from his back pocket, opened it up, and poured enough of the contents to fill up the Coke bottle again. Then he screwed the cap back on.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It’s dark Jamaican rum. And make sure E.J. gets this one, will ya?”

I smiled. “Is this the fix—to get E.J. drunk and start messing up?”

“It’s part of it. Just play along with the rest when it comes.”

“Alright, Eddie.”

We proceeded down the path and joined Fairbanks and Welborn on the tee. I handed the Cokes to the caddies, making sure E.J. got the spiked one. He took a big swig and let out a “Whoop! Whoop!” as the rum and Coke hit the pit of his stomach. Fairbanks looked over at him quizzically, but soon forgot about it as Welborn stepped up to the tee and ripped a low bullet down the middle.

Fairbanks and I both hit good drives, but Eddie sliced his over into the rough beside some big trees lining the right side of the fairway. He hacked his ball back into play, but as he was passing by one of the big trees, his foot caught on a root. He stumbled and came down hard on his left foot. He immediately rolled onto his back and let out a cry of anguish. I came running over to see if he was alright, and he just lay there cursing and holding his left ankle.

“Oh, shit! I think it’s sprained!” he said as he gingerly started pressing on it. By this time, both Fairbanks and Welborn had hurried over to see what the fuss was about. Eddie pulled up his pant leg and pulled down his sock to take a look at it, and what we all saw was not good. His ankle was red and starting to swell. I helped him up slowly, and he tried gently to put some weight on it. He managed to limp a little, but he was unsteady and apparently in some pain. I caught his eye at that point, and he gave me a little wink.

I suddenly realized that this must be the moment. I surreptitiously winked back, but I wondered how he had faked that ankle; it really looked sprained.

“Gary, would you run back to the pro shop and get me an Ace bandage and a golf cart?” Eddie asked our caddie.

Gary took off running, and I told Eddie to just sit down and quit trying to walk on it until Gary came back with the bandage. I saw Fairbanks and Welborn a few yards away talking to each other, probably wondering how the match was going to proceed at this point.

Gary came back driving the cart within five minutes and handed Eddie the Ace bandage. I helped him wrap his ankle tightly, and he again stood up and walked around on it. “That’s a lot better. Let me see if I can swing a golf club.”

I handed him an iron, and he took a wobbly stance. He kept fidgeting with his feet, trying to get comfortable. Eventually, he took the club back and swung it down, but half fell down as he cried out in obvious pain. What an actor, but I still wasn’t quite sure where he was going with this.

Fairbanks and Welborn came over at this point, and Welborn said, “Okay Eddie, what’s it gonna be? Doesn’t look like you’ll be able to keep playing. You guys just want to forfeit now?”

“Hell, no!” I said. “I can go it alone against you two. It’s a best ball match, so it shouldn’t matter to you whether Eddie plays or not.”

“But Kenny, I want to play,” whined Eddie.

I just looked at him, dumbfounded. “Eddie, you can’t. How do you think you can swing at the ball with a sprained ankle—especially on your forward foot? Just now you almost fell over.”

“But Kenny, it’s not right to put it all on you. I’m the one who accepted their bet. I’ve got to help out somehow.”
 
He thought for a minute. “Alright guys, how about this? How about if Kenny hits all the shots to the green, and I just putt. We’ll combine for the one and only ball. I’m sure I can putt. It’s not like taking a full swing. Also, I hope you don’t mind if I ride in the golf cart.”

Now I could finally see the whole plan. It was brilliant! I was sure now that Eddie had been faking his mediocre putting. I looked in his bag (on the back of the cart now) and noticed his ‘Enterprise’ putter in there, underneath a putter cover—right alongside the one he had been using. And now it dawned on me why he had pulled the 2-iron from his bag before going in to accept the bet from our opponents. Apparently, he was going to put it back in his locker and grab an extra, normal-looking putter. He didn’t want to exceed the 14-club limit rule by having that extra putter in his bag. Plus, I’m sure he wanted to appear like an average putter with an average-looking club. No sense in bringing undue attention to his very strange-looking model before the fix was in. I marveled at the thought he had put into this and just hoped that Welborn and Fairbanks didn’t see through it.

They conferred with each other for a moment, and Fairbanks finally said, “Okay, Eddie, why not?”

Success! though it certainly wasn’t a lock. We had nine holes to make up the three-hole deficit and hopefully pull ahead, but at least we now had a fighting chance.
 
To be continued...
 

Author Notes 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
Fringe: The closely mown area immediately adjacent to the green

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.


Chapter 4
Lucky Eddie - Chapter 4

By Jim Wile

(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 Payne and begins when he is 22 years old. With a phenomenally lucky shot on the 18th hole, Eddie Phillips beats Kenny, whom he had just met that day, in the 1975 club championship at Brentwood Country Club in western Pennsylvania. Kenny and Eddie become best friends and begin golfing together regularly. Eddie is an inventor working on putter designs, and Kenny, who is a mechanical engineer, begins helping Eddie figure out why his current putter works so well.
 
The next day they arrange to play a match against two prospective members of the club. Kenny is reluctant because he senses they are hustlers, but Eddie accepts a money match with them, knowing they are hustlers, but with 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.
 
 
 
We started our comeback right there on the tenth hole. We all hit the green with our approach shots, with my ball the closest at 12 feet from the hole. Fairbanks and Welborn both missed their birdie putts. It was then that Eddie uncovered his ‘Enterprise’ putter and limped onto the green with it to study our 12-footer. Just as he was about to take his stroke, Fairbanks called out, “Wait! What’s that you’re using there?”

“It’s my putter. Whadda ya think it is?” replied Eddie, a little annoyed at the interruption.

“That’s not the one you’ve been using.”

“So? There’s no rule says you can’t use two different putters.”

“Hang on a minute. Have you been playing with 15 clubs in your bag?”

“I’ve got 14, including this one. Go count ‘em if you don’t believe me.”

Welborn was already over at the cart counting the clubs in Eddie’s bag. “He’s got 14, Jimmy, like he says,” called Welborn.

“Is that club legal?” tried Fairbanks. “Looks illegal to me.”

“I happen to have a patent on this putter. I designed it myself. It’s been fully approved by the USGA, and I can show you the paperwork.”

“Never mind. Let’s just get going. Forget I asked,” he said with a shrug.

Eddie resumed lining up his putt. Now, with that silky stroke of his—the true Eddie stroke—he sent the ball right into the middle of the hole for a birdie three.

“Nice putt, Eddie!” I said. “Only two-down now.”

“Yeah, nice putt alright,” conceded Welborn, a moment of doubt crossing his face. Fairbanks just scowled.

On the 11th hole, Eddie sank a 20-foot putt for birdie to halve the hole with Welborn and Fairbanks’s net birdie.
 
After halves on the next two holes as well, with Eddie limping over from the cart and sinking putts of 8 feet and 16 feet, we were still two-down going into the 14th hole. Our opponents were beginning to sense that they had been taken, but they still had a comfortable lead and were not panicking yet.

The 14th hole is a long, tough par-3. I hit a beautiful 2-iron eight feet from the hole. Welborn and Fairbanks both hit the green, but neither one was particularly close to the flag. They both two-putted for par, while Eddie drilled in the eight-footer for birdie.

“You just never seem to miss with that thing, do you?” lamented Welborn. Fairbanks said nothing as Eddie limped back to his cart.

One-down with four to go.
 
 

By this time, E.J. was pretty wobbly on his feet. He had long ago finished his "Coke" and staggered a little as he picked up his two bags to follow his players to the next tee.

“Pssst! E.J. Come here for a minute,” whispered Eddie.

E.J. waddled over to Eddie’s cart.

“How’d you like that Coke Kenny gave you?”

“Liked it jus' fine, Eddie,” said E.J., putting his bags down again. “Ya wouldn’t happen to have any more in that cart of yours, wouldja?”

“No, I don’t, but I’ve got this,” he said as he removed the flask from his back pocket. It still held about eight ounces of 150 proof Jamaican rum. “Here, take it.”

E.J. thanked him profusely.

“Just don’t let ‘em catch you nipping from it, okay?” admonished Eddie. “And if they do catch you, don’t tell ‘em where you got it from. You got that?”

“No sir, Eddie, I surely won’t. And thanks again!”

E.J. took a quick swig then slipped the flask into his back pocket, picked up his bags, and staggered off to catch up with his players.

The 15th hole is a short par-5 down a big hill, with a pond at the bottom of the hill on the right side. It was also a stroke hole for the opponents, meaning we would probably need at least a birdie just to tie the hole. I still had the honors and smacked a long straight drive down the hill but slightly too far left, trying to avoid the pond. It probably just leaked into the rough. While Fairbanks and Welborn were hitting their drives, Eddie called me over for a chat.

“Hey, Sport. When you get down to the vicinity of your ball, start looking for it in the wrong place. We need to stall a bit to give E.J. a chance to finish that flask.”

“What do you have planned now?” I asked with a grin.

“Well, this part isn’t too well-scripted, but I’m hoping E.J. won’t let us down. We just need to buy him a little time to get good and wasted. He’s bound to screw up sooner or later.”

“Got it, Eddie.”

Meanwhile, Welborn hit his drive into the pond, while Fairbanks cranked another one down the middle. This guy really was good. His swing was long and rhythmic, and he was no longer affecting that phony follow-through or marveling at his "lucky" shots. I think he suspected that we might actually be hustling him, so no more need for all the pretense. Now it was a fight to the finish.

While Welborn took his drop and lined up his third shot, I started searching for my ball in the rough about 30 yards behind where it had really landed. Eventually, Eddie, Fairbanks, and Welborn all came over to help me look for it. E.J. saw his opportunity to partake and surreptitiously started swigging from the flask Eddie had given him.

After about three minutes of looking, we finally found my ball right where I knew it would be. It was in a terrible lie in the rough, and it was all I could do just to gouge it out and advance it 40 yards. Fairbanks, on the other hand, had a perfect lie in the fairway at the bottom of the hill. He chose a 5-wood and hit a beautiful, high draw to the very front of the green. On in two.

Welborn had shanked his third shot deep into the trees and quit even looking for it after Fairbanks’s second shot. My third shot landed on the right side of the green 40 feet from the hole.

E.J. was virtually reeling now as he climbed the hill up to the green to hand Fairbanks his putter. He lurched over to the side and lay his bags down, then staggered over to tend the pin.

“E.J., are you feeling okay?” asked Fairbanks.

“Just dandy, Boss,” he said dreamily as he grabbed the flagstick to tend it.

“Well stand still, would ya? You’re swaying all over the place!” Fairbanks called to him from the front of the green, 45-feet away. Fairbanks finished getting his line, crouched over his ball, and with a few looks at the hole, he made a long, steady stroke. The ball looked good from the start and was tracking right for the hole when Fairbanks hollered, “E.J., the pin! Take the goddamn pin out!”

E.J. woke up from his trance, but it was too late; the ball collided gently with the pin still in the hole and dropped in.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, E.J!” bellowed Fairbanks as he came running up, waving his putter. “Why didn’t you pull the goddam pin out, you moron?”

Of course, the reason for his anguish was the penalty, back then, for hitting the flagstick with a ball struck from the green. In match play it meant loss of hole. E.J.’s inattention had turned a pretty sure win for Fairbanks and Welborn into a loss of the hole. Match even!

Our opponents were fit to be tied. Their three-hole lead at the turn had vanished. With but three holes to go, it was now anyone’s match. They continued to berate E.J. and threatened to fire him if he screwed up again. Eddie and I could barely suppress smiles as Eddie’s plans were working flawlessly.
 

Author Notes 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
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.


Chapter 5
Lucky Eddie - Chapter 5

By Jim Wile

Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of language.

(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...

Author Notes 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.


Chapter 6
Lucky Eddie - Chapter 6

By Jim Wile

Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of language.

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

Recap: Eddie arranges a match with Kenny and himself 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. Kenny and Eddie win the 16th when E.J. steps on Fairbanks’s ball causing him a penalty, and Fairbanks fires him on the spot. Fairbanks and Welborn win the 17th, so the match is all even going into the 18th hole.
 
 
 
We arrived at the 183-yard uphill par-3 18th. Gary was carrying not only my bag now, but Welborn’s as well. Fairbanks had put his bag on Eddie’s cart back on the 16th hole after firing E.J. Today, the pin was on the first level of this long, narrow, three-level green. The hole would be playing more like 160 yards.

Welborn was up, and he asked Gary for his 4-iron. He wound up and hit it solidly, but with a slight fade, it just missed the green on the right and bounded down into a deep bunker guarding the right side of the green. “Shit,” he muttered as he slammed his club back into his bag, Gary removing his hand just in time. “Sorry, partner,” he said to Fairbanks. “I haven’t been all that much help today, I’m afraid. Looks like I’m countin’ on you here again.”

“It’s okay, Bucky. You can knock it close from there,” he said, even though we all knew that was unlikely.
 
Fairbanks had selected a 6-iron for his tee shot, which I knew was going to be too much club for him with the pin at the front. The hole was uphill, and you couldn’t see the bottom of the flagstick, so it played deceptively shorter than it looked. He hit a beautiful high shot which landed on the second level and stopped, right in the center of the green.

“Nice shot,” I said as I moved to the tee markers to set up for my shot with a 7-iron. Fairbanks’s shot was long, I knew, and was going to leave him a tough putt to get close to the hole, but he didn’t know that yet.

“Hold on, Sport,” Eddie called out as I started to address the ball. I backed off and looked at him.

“Hey, fellas,” he said, looking at Welborn and Fairbanks. “Whadda ya say we double the bet? Four grand.”

We all just stared at him after this bombshell.

“Eddie, I—”

“Come over here, Kenny,” he said, cutting me off. As I walked over to the side of the tee where he was parked, I saw Fairbanks starting to confer with Welborn. Evidently, they were taking this wild proposal seriously.

“Eddie, I don’t have that kind of money—" I started, but he wouldn’t have it.

“Listen, Sport,” he said in a half-whisper so our opponents couldn’t hear us. “Welborn’ll never get it out of that bunker, and Fairbanks is up on the second level, right? He won’t be able to stop it anywhere near the hole, so he’s lookin’ at a pretty sure bogey. All you gotta do is put it on the front level, and I’ll knock it in. We birdie, they bogey, and we win the match! I’ve seen you make this shot plenty of times.”

“I don’t know, Eddie.”

“C’mon, Sport, you could do it! Don’t worry about the money; I got that covered. You won’t owe anything if we lose. Just get up there and hit a good shot.”

At that moment Welborn came over and asked, “What happens if we tie the hole? What then?”

“Sudden death. We keep playing the hole until someone wins,” said Eddie.

“And we keep gettin’ a handicap stroke?”

“Yep.”

That was enough to seal the deal for them. With Fairbanks already on the green, thinking he was in great shape for at least a par, the worst it would be for them was a tie if we somehow managed to birdie the hole. Then we would have to do it all over again. The advantage certainly looked to be theirs.

“We’re in!” said Welborn.

How could I refuse Eddie? So far, his plans had worked beautifully, and he had previously intimated that he still might have a trick up his sleeve.

I nodded to him and then walked over behind my ball to line up the shot again. I rehearsed the swing a couple of times, stepped up to my ball, took a deep breath, and pulled the trigger.

I knew right away it was a good shot just by the way it felt. I had absolutely pured it, and the ball lofted high into the air heading just a fraction left of the pin. It came down softly and looked like it would be close. We couldn’t exactly tell how close, from where we stood, since we were unable to see the surface of the lower level.

“Great shot, Sport!” shouted Eddie, who came running over to clap me on the back. We all noticed that he was no longer limping. Fairbanks and Welborn scowled but said nothing as they suddenly realized the extent of Eddie’s hustle. They couldn’t very well complain, because they had been trying to hustle us with their phony handicaps.

Eddie got back in the cart, and we all headed up to the green. As Welborn approached his ball in the bunker, he began cursing again. His ball had hit on the bank above and rolled down into the bottom of this very deep bunker with a huge lip. He could not see the surface of the green from where his ball lay. His first shot hit the lip and rolled back right into his footprints. His second attempt didn’t even make it that far. At that point, he was in his pocket and would rely, once again, on Fairbanks to finish the hole.

My ball ended up eight feet behind the cup and a little bit to the left. It would be a difficult putt. Fairbanks’s putt, however, looked next to impossible, and he became visibly shaken as he approached his ball. Sure enough, it was on the middle level about 30 feet directly behind the hole. The problem, though, was that once the ball made it over the front of the level he was on, it would be impossible for it to stop close to the hole down on the bottom tier unless it hit the back of the cup. After a few very short practice strokes, he stood over his ball, took the club back about six inches and just barely tapped it. The ball moved slowly and almost came to a stop at the edge of the shelf, then just trickled over and began picking up speed. Down the hill it went toward the hole. It looked like it was in, but at the last second, it veered a fraction and just missed on the left. Now there was no way for it to stop, and it rolled right off the front of the green and down into a little swale in front—45 feet from the hole. He was further away now than he was for his putt.

Steam was coming out of Fairbanks’s ears. “What kind of fucking green is this anyway?” he bellowed. “That is totally unfair!”

“Shouldn’t have put it up there on the second level,” Eddie said, rubbing salt in the wound.

“You shut the hell up! This is some course you’ve got here. Damn greens, damn caddies. You can bet I won’t be joining!”

“Never figured you were,” said Eddie.

Welborn went over to try to calm him down, again. Seems like that was his role today; he certainly hadn’t contributed much to the score. “Look, Jimmy, you’re not out of it yet. You pitch that ball up there close and make the putt, he’s still gotta make his. If he misses, we’re tied, and we get to do this again. You won’t hit it long a second time.”

“You’re right, you’re right. Let me just take a minute here and catch my breath.” He walked about twenty yards away and just sat down on the fairway, staring back at the tee.

Meanwhile, Eddie was lining up his eight-foot putt. He circled completely around the hole, studying it from all angles. It was a tricky downhill putt, and Eddie would have to play a sizable left-to-right break, as the green appeared very slick down here—slicker than usual.

By this time, Fairbanks had finally composed himself and stepped to the side of his ball. It was a straightforward pitch, but he took a few rehearsal swings, making sure his club just nipped the top of the grass. He then took his stance and, without hesitating, pitched it up onto the green. It was a good-looking shot that came up six inches short of the hole. We conceded him the putt for the bogey.

And now it was all up to Eddie. If he made the putt, it would be a birdie and the match. If he missed, we would tie the hole and have to play it again. He stepped up to his ball and took his aim. But wait, that couldn’t be right—he was aiming a good six feet left of the hole on an eight-foot putt! Surely that was too much borrow. His backswing was only about three inches, and he just barely tapped the ball. It inched forward—straight at first—then gradually caught the slope and started down toward the cup. Ever so slowly it moved, just barely turning over—down, down, down until it stopped on the upper lip, and as we stood there rooted to our spots, the ball made one last turn and fell in.

Eddie threw his putter into the air. I ran up and grabbed him as he jumped up and put his legs around my waist—much as he had done those many weeks ago at the end of the club championship. I carried him off the green, clapping him on the back, and telling him I never doubted him for a minute.

“See Sport, we had it all day long!”

Fairbanks and Welborn looked disgusted. They were not used to being beaten, and it clearly showed. They said little as we made our way to the clubhouse.

“Can we buy you fellas a drink as we settle up?” asked Eddie.

“Nah, can’t really stay. Gotta move on,” said Welborn. “Don’t suppose you’d take a check, wouldja?”

“Not a chance,” said Eddie.

Welborn reached into his bag and pulled out a roll of $100 dollar bills. “There’s forty of ‘em here. You can count ‘em.” Looks like he had been prepared to double the bet as well if it had looked like it was going their way. Eddie counted out twenty of them, handed them to me, and pocketed the rest.

Fairbanks never said a word, but as they were leaving, Welborn turned to Eddie and said, “You know, Eddie, that was masterful. I gotta tip my hat to you. But how did you fake that sprained ankle so well? That looked pretty damn real.”

“I got an old girlfriend who’s into theater, and she helped me with it. It’s just a little padding and makeup is all.”

“I’ll have to remember that,” said Welborn with a wink. “See you boys around, huh?”

“Not if we see you first!” replied Eddie, and we all laughed at that.
 
To be continued...
 

Author Notes 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
Borrow: The amount you have to aim left or right of the hole to make a putt on a sloping green


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.






Chapter 7
Lucky Eddie - Chapter 7

By Jim Wile

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

Recap: 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. Kenny and Eddie win the 16th when E.J. steps on Fairbanks’s ball causing him a penalty, and Fairbanks fires him on the spot. Fairbanks and Welborn win the 17th, so the match is all even going into the 18th hole. Eddie asks the opponents if they’d like to double the bet to $4,000, and the opponents accept. In a dramatic finish, Eddie sinks a very difficult downhill-sidehill putt to win the match, and the boys collect their $4,000.
 
A continuation of the chapter: The Hustle
 
 
Gary was waiting for us by the bag rack outside the pro shop. E.J. was there too, grinning like an idiot. Gary had filled him in on the final three holes of the match.

“Great job today, fellas!” said Eddie as he handed each of them a $100 bill. “Now, the flask, E.J? I never did get that back from you in all the hubbub there on 16.”

E.J. reached into his back pocket, pulled it out, and handed it to Eddie but playfully hung onto it while Eddie tried to take it from him. “Pretty good stuff there, Eddie.”

We thanked them for their efforts again and headed over to the snack bar to find Abby. It was a slow afternoon at the snack bar because most of the play was in the morning, and we found Abby sitting behind the counter reading a book.

“Well?” she said as we walked up. I gave her a thumbs-up and began smiling from ear to ear.

“Never a doubt, Red, never a doubt!” bragged Eddie. She came out from behind the counter then and embraced us in a group hug.

“Alright, you’ve got to tell me all about it, but first things first,” she said as she went back behind the counter and got Eddie and me a couple of beers. She returned with the beers, and we all sat down at a table and began telling her the story of the match.

She shook her head, smiling, as I related how Eddie had gotten E.J. drunk with the spiked Coke and then the straight-up rum from the hip flask. We all laughed as we told her how E.J. had screwed up and ended up losing two holes for Fairbanks. Eddie did a great impersonation of Fairbanks cursing E.J. out and firing him on the 16th and E.J. straightening his jacket and staggering back to the clubhouse.

“You know, I feel kind of bad for E.J. for using him like that,” I said. “But it was awfully funny!”

Abby wanted to see Eddie’s “sprained” ankle, so he pulled up his pant leg and lowered his sock and showed it to her. She was impressed with how real it looked. When Eddie got to telling her about the 18th hole, I stopped him with a question of my own.

“Eddie, how did you read that putt so well? It looked like you were aiming way too far left. That read was incredible.”

“I knew that putt ‘cause I had tried it already early this morning. Around 7:00 AM I went and found the greenskeeper and bribed him to cut the cup in front and roll the front of the green to make it extra slick in case the match came down to the 18th. I spent the next half-hour practicing putts from all directions on that lower shelf.”
 
I was amazed at the levels to which he had gone to prepare for this match and told him so. When we got to the part about the payoff, I pulled out my wallet and showed Abby the twenty $100 dollar bills. “Eddie’s got twenty more.”

“You don’t suppose they are counterfeit, do you?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t put it past those guys, but I don’t think so,” said Eddie. “They’re assholes looking for easy marks, but I don’t think they want to risk getting in trouble with the law. I guess we’ll find out when we try to deposit them in the bank.”

Abby had another customer then, so we said goodbye. I told her I would see her later, then Eddie and I made our way to the locker room, where we showered and changed clothes.

As we were leaving, Morton O’Connell, the club president, came walking quickly down the hall behind us. “Mr. Phillips, hold on there for a moment.”

“Uh-oh. Here comes trouble,” Eddie whispered to me. We turned around, and Eddie said, “Hey Morty, how’s it--”

But Morty cut him off. “Mr. Phillips, I have it on good authority that you are responsible for that explosion in the locker room earlier this morning. What do you have to say to that?”

“It was a real beauty! My friend Kenny here needed a little, uh, waking up. I made sure there was nobody else in there at the time.”

“That makes no difference. Pranks like that will not be tolerated at this establishment. Your indifference to the rules of decorum here at Brentwood leaves me with no choice but to revoke your membership. This was the last straw. You will kindly clear out your locker and retrieve your clubs from the bag room!” With that, Morty stormed back the way he had come.

Eddie looked at me and shrugged. “Well, Sport, it was great while it lasted.”

“Ah, Eddie, jeez! It’s not going to be nearly as much fun around here if you’re not here.”

“You’ll manage, Sport. We’ll just have to play together elsewhere.”

We walked back into the locker room then, and the attendant found us a box to put Eddie’s locker contents in. Eddie tipped him a twenty and wished him good luck, and we made our way to the bag room to retrieve his clubs. In the pro shop afterward, Eddie said goodbye to Tony, who shook his hand and wished him well after pocketing his $50 tip. I carried his clubs to his car while he carried the box from the locker room.

We put his stuff in the trunk of his car, and then we just stood there in the parking lot grinning at each other. “Quite a day, huh Sport?”

“You said it, Eddie.”

“So listen, Kenny. I know Abby’s going back to school next week, so suppose you come over to my place some evening after she’s gone, and we get back to work on those putter designs? Whaddaya say?”

“That's great, Eddie. I’ll come over on Thursday, maybe around 7:00?”

We shook hands then and said our goodbyes. As I drove off, I looked at him in my rearview mirror. He was standing in the parking lot facing the clubhouse with his arms raised and the middle finger of each hand pointing to the sky.
 
To be continued...
 

Author Notes 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.

Gary Latz: The caddie for Kenny and Eddie during the match.

Morton O'Connell: The club president at Brentwood Country Club.


Chapter 8
Lucky Eddie - Chapter 8

By Jim Wile

(See the Author Notes for a description of the main characters.)
 
Recap: Kenny and Eddie recount the match they won with their superior hustle to Abby after the round. On departing the clubhouse, they are accosted by Morton O’Connell, the club president, who kicks Eddie out for his morning shenanigans with the cherry bomb in the Men’s Locker Room. Eddie collects his things and leaves gracefully, but Kenny’s last vision of him as he drives away is Eddie with his middle fingers raised to Brentwood in a farewell salute.
 
 
New Beginnings
 
Eddie and I started to meet regularly at his house on Monday and Thursday evenings. I would bring us sandwiches and drinks from the deli, and after finishing them, we would retreat to his basement workshop and tinker with putter designs. We made frequent trips to DuBois Municipal Golf Course where we would try them out on their practice putting green. Because Eddie was persona non grata at the country club, we could not use their putting green, but the green at the muni was actually pretty nice, so we practiced there instead.
 
We had figured out that Eddie’s “Starship Enterprise” putter, the face of which stayed horizontal when the shaft was balanced on his finger (the proper term is “face-balanced”), was better suited to his style of straight-back, straight-through putting than a toe-hang model like the one I used. That kind seemed more appropriate for an arcing-type stroke.

We experimented with a variety of models—some heavy, some light, some with a lot of weight in the middle, some with more weight at the heel and toe, some solid, and others with large hollow areas. Eddie applied for and got patents on some of the more unusual designs, and we began marketing them to a number of equipment companies.
 
Eddie tried to get me to quit my job at Wingate and come to work with him full-time, but I wasn’t quite ready for that major step just yet.
 
 

In the past year, Abby and I got married, but as that is related in another story, I won’t go into it here.
 
I continued my mechanical engineering job designing industrial dryers for the food industry, but as Eddie and I became more and more successful in our putter design business, I began giving some serious thought to joining him full-time. When Eddie announced one day that he had just signed contracts with Hubert Green, Fuzzy Zoeller and Tom Weiskopf to produce custom-made putters for them, I knew we had hit the big time.
 
Abby and I discussed it for all of five minutes. She knew Eddie so well by now that she no longer considered him a reckless gambler destined to lead me down the road to perdition. For all his uncouthness and bluster, he was a solid individual and had proven to be a good businessman.
 
The next day, I gave my two weeks’ notice at Wingate Industries and told Eddie I was coming aboard full-time. We celebrated that night—Abby, me, Eddie, and Eddie’s current girlfriend—at the fanciest restaurant in town. We opened an expensive bottle of wine, but Abby, for some reason, decided just to stick with water. We held up our glasses as Eddie offered a toast: “To Phillips & Payne Putters, Inc. Positively the preeminent putter producers and purveyors presently in practice!” We all laughed, clinked glasses, and celebrated our new status together.
 
Later that night as we lay in bed, Abby turned to me and said, “You know, Kenny, we’ve had a lot of changes in our lives these past couple of years. Are you ready for one more?” She was wearing that little grin I so treasured.
 
I thought back to her refusal to have any wine at dinner, and I said, “Abby, are you--”
 
“Yes, Kenny. I am!”
 
I took her in my arms and kissed her, and we celebrated as lovers the world over celebrate their great joy together.
 
 
 
The following spring we were blessed with little Claire, named after Abby’s maiden name, St. Claire. She was a redhead like her mother, cute as can be, and feisty, which is a polite way of saying colicky. For three months we had little peace in the house, and Abby would hand her to me as soon as I came in the door from work. “Your turn!” she would say. But eventually, Claire settled down and turned into a very pleasant baby and toddler. She was soon followed by baby brother, Greg, who completed our little family.
 
Phillips & Payne Putters continued to prosper, so much so, that we decided to manufacture the putters ourselves rather than contract them out. We created our own fabrication plant and had about twenty employees. Our clientele of PGA touring pros continued to grow. I had begun taking a more active role in the marketing aspect of the business, and we were major participants in equipment shows and advertised heavily in the trade journals.
 
Eddie came over to the house often. He doted on the kids who called him “Uncle Eddie.” He loved horsing around with them in the backyard and playing putting games on the green I had built. We made each of the kids their own custom putters, which we would lengthen over the years as they grew.
 
 
 
The years seemed to pass quickly. Claire became a beautiful young woman like her mother, married her high school sweetheart, Tom, and had a daughter of her own—our granddaughter, Emily. They lived just a few minutes away from us. Greg joined Eddie and me in the business and gradually took on more and more responsibility, enabling Eddie and me to partially retire. Abby and I would sit for Emily twice a week at our house, and Eddie would often come over while she was there. He called her all kinds of funny names and loved to play with her. She adored him.
 
Eddie and I started taking a number of golfing trips together, playing many of the great courses around the country—Pine Valley, Pebble Beach, Cypress Point, and even Augusta National. Our status in the golf equipment industry gave us entry to some of the more exclusive venues.
 
Life couldn’t seem to get any better until one day when Emily was five years old, and everything changed.
 

(5 more chapters to go)
 

Author Notes 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.

Claire Payne Kenny and Abby's daughter.

Greg Payne Kenny and Abby's son.


Chapter 9
Lucky Eddie - Chapter 9

By Jim Wile

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

Recap: Kenny and Eddie recount the match they won with their superior hustle to Abby after the round. On departing the clubhouse, they are accosted by Morton O’Connell, the club president, who kicks Eddie out for his morning shenanigans with the cherry bomb in the Men’s Locker Room. Eddie collects his things and leaves gracefully, but Kenny’s last vision of him as he drives away is Eddie with his middle fingers raised to Brentwood in a farewell salute.
 
Kenny begins helping Eddie with new putter designs. After a year, Kenny marries Abby and they have two kids. Kenny eventually quits his job and joins Eddie as a partner in the putter design business, and they are very successful, landing sales with several PGA tour pros.
 
Kenny and Abby’s kids grow into adults. Their daughter Claire marries and has a baby girl of her own, Emily. Their son Greg joins Kenny and Eddie in the business allowing them eventually to partially retire. They take a number of golfing trips together. Eddie grows very fond of Emily as he sees her often when he visits Kenny and Abby while they are babysitting for Emily. Emily turns five.
 
 
 
The Accident
 
It was a beautiful spring afternoon, and Abby and I were relaxing on the front porch swing, while Emily, whom we were sitting for that day, played in the front yard. She was picking dandelions and singing to herself. One of the neighbors down the street was having an outdoor graduation party for one of their high schoolers, and we could hear the music from the porch. A number of cars were parked up and down the street.

Eddie was coming over for a visit and to start planning our next golfing trip together. We were thinking of driving east to play some of the great courses on Long Island, like Shinnecock Hills, National Golf Links of America, and Bethpage Black.

Eddie pulled up in his Cadillac and parked across the street. One of the graduates was leaving the party down the block and was coming down the street, so Eddie waited by his car before crossing. It was right then that Emily spotted him. She leaped up with a shout, “Hi, Uncle Eddie!” and came running towards him as fast as her little legs could go. She could not see the swiftly approaching car, because it was blocked by another car parked right in front of our yard.

“Emmie, stop!” Abby and I both shouted as we sprang out of the porch swing and came running down the yard.
 
But it was Eddie, across the street, who quickly sized up the situation and knew what he had to do. Emily had just crossed over the curb and was starting into the street, arms outstretched in greeting to Eddie, when Eddie flew across the street, dived in front of the on-coming car, and pushed Emmie out of the way. Her little head hit the curb with a thump, but this was drowned out by the screeching of brakes and the loud impact of the car against Eddie’s outstretched body.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God, noooooo!” wailed Abby as we came running up. Emily lay unconscious against the curb, and Abby went quickly to her. Eddie lay prostrate on the road and was moaning. The car had struck him in the pelvis and right leg which appeared to be horribly broken. It was then that I pulled out my phone and dialed 911, giving them my address and cell phone number.

Emmie was still unconscious when the paramedics arrived, and Eddie had passed out as well. They carefully loaded Emmie onto a rigid board and clamped her down so that she could not move her head or spine. Eddie started coming to when they likewise loaded him onto a board. He began murmuring softly, but I couldn’t understand him. I put my ear right up close to him and heard him slur, “Isshe awrigh, Spor?”

“Looks like just a bump on the head, Eddie. She’ll be fine, I’m sure. They’re taking you both to the hospital now. Abby and I will be right behind you.”

The paramedics finished loading him into the ambulance, closed the rear door and set off, siren wailing.

The young teenage girl who had been driving the car was beside herself with grief. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t see her! And that poor man!” She sobbed and sobbed.

Abby took her in her arms. ”It wasn’t your fault, honey. There’s no way you could have seen her coming out from the front of the car like that. Please don’t blame yourself,” she said, while gently stroking the young girl’s back, but she was inconsolable.

Abby continued holding her and talking softly to her. When the girl finally began to settle down, I found out her name and phone number and called her parents to come get her. Abby left for the hospital before the police arrived, but I stayed around to tell them what had happened. I then set off for the hospital and found Abby, Claire, and her husband, Tom, in a waiting room outside the emergency room.

Claire broke down when she saw me, and I hugged her to my chest and kissed the top of her head. “Emmie will be alright, Claire. You’ll see.” I guess it was Abby’s and my job to console people today, although I felt like I could have used some consoling myself.

Pretty soon one of the emergency room doctors came over to talk to us. “My name is Dr. Wells, and I’m the doctor who examined Emily. She has regained consciousness but has no memory of what happened or why she is here. She has a slight concussion and a rather large bump on the back of her head. I’d like to keep her in the hospital overnight for observation, but if her vital signs remain strong and she is alert and coherent tomorrow morning, I see no reason she cannot go home tomorrow. She’s sleeping now.”

We were all immensely relieved by this news, but the news about Eddie was not as good. He had suffered a broken pelvis, and the femur of his right leg was shattered in several places. He was in surgery right now to set the bones. He was out of immediate danger, but his recovery promised to be a long and painful one, and he would probably always walk with a limp. It would be some time before he could play golf again.

“I’ll go to Emily’s room to be there when she wakes up if the rest of you want to stay here for a report on Eddie,” said Tom. “Claire, I know you’ll want to thank Eddie when you get to see him.” She gave him a long hug and thanked him before he left to be with Emmie.

 The rest of us remained in the waiting room until Eddie was out of surgery. They allowed us a brief visit with him in the recovery room.

“Hiya, Sport. Hey, Red, Little Red,” he said, mustering as much good cheer as he could. But then he got serious. “Tell me how Emmie’s doing.”

“She’s going to be fine, Uncle Eddie!” Claire said to him as she took his hand and held it to her cheek. “How can I ever thank you for what you did? You saved her life!”

“Aw, Sweetie, I love that little peanut. I love you, too. I’d do anything for you.”

“I know you would, Uncle Eddie; you are truly the best. I just don’t know what I can do to thank you.”

“Take good care of Emmie; that’s all the thanks I need.”

“Hey, Sport,” he said to me. “You may have to cancel our tee-time for tomorrow. I’m not sure, but they might not let me outta here just yet.”

“Okay, Eddie, I’ll take care of it,” I said with a gentle smile. “You get some good rest now, will you? It’s been a tough day.”

“Hey, Red,” he said, turning to Abby. “Take these two home, will ya, and tell ‘em not to worry. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“I will, Eddie. You behave yourself with the nurses, and we’ll come back to visit you tomorrow.” With that, she bent down and kissed him goodbye. As we turned to go, Eddie’s hand shot out from the bed, and he pinched her on the bottom. She jumped a little, but as she turned back to scold him, his eyes were closed and he appeared to be asleep.
 
 

Emmie was released from the hospital the next morning. She had a big bump on her head, but she was out of danger. She still had no memory of what had happened, but when she found out that Uncle Eddie was in the hospital too, she insisted on coming with us to visit him during visiting hours later that afternoon.

“Hi, Punkin!” he said to Emmie. “Hey, what’s that big lump coming out of your head? Are your brains getting too big to stay inside?”

She laughed at that and came over to give him a big hug. He started tickling her tummy, and she giggled and wiggled to get away.

“Uncle Eddie, do you want to play a game with me?” she asked.

“Sure, Sweetie, what did you have in mind?”

“How about Chinese Checkers?”

“Ah-so. You find board, and I pray with you, Emiry-san,” he said with an Asian accent, not caring that he was mimicking Japanese instead of Chinese. Emily had brought a board with her, and they set it up and began playing.

We stayed with Eddie most of the afternoon, talking and playing games. When it was time to go, Emily asked Eddie when he was coming home.

“Not quite sure, Littlest Red, but you’ll be the first to know when I do. You tell Grandma and Grandpa not to worry about ole Uncle Eddie. He’ll be dancing a jig in no time!”

“What’s a jig?”

“A jig is like a fig. Or is it a wig? No, it’s like a pig!”

“You’re silly, Uncle Eddie.”

“Goodbye, Sweetie!” he said, as he pecked her on the cheek.
 
 
(4 more chapters to go)
 

Author Notes 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.

Claire Payne: Kenny and Abby's daughter

Greg Payne: Kenny and Abby's son

Tom: Claire's husband


Chapter 10
Lucky Eddie - Chapter 10

By Jim Wile

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

Recap of the previous few chapters: Kenny begins helping Eddie with new putter designs. After a year, Kenny marries Abby and they have two kids. Kenny eventually quits his job and joins Eddie as a partner in the putter design business, and they are very successful, landing sales with several PGA tour pros. Kenny and Abby’s kids grow into adults. Their daughter Claire marries and has a baby girl of her own, Emily. Their son Greg joins Kenny and Eddie in the business allowing them eventually to partially retire. They take a number of golfing trips together. Eddie grows very fond of Emily as he sees her often when he visits Kenny and Abby while they are babysitting for Emily. Emily turns five.
 
On a visit to Kenny’s house to plan a new golfing trip, Eddie prevents a tragic accident to Emily who is charging across the street to greet him. He throws his body in front of an advancing car to push Emily out of the way and is struck instead, while Emily bumps her head on the curb. Both are rushed to the hospital. Emily has only suffered a minor concussion while Eddie’s pelvis and leg were severely damaged in the accident. The family visits him in the hospital the next day.
 
 
(A continuation of the chapter The Accident.)
 
Eddie got out of the hospital a week later and moved into a rehab facility, where he stayed for a month. He was cantankerous and complained a lot, and by the end of his stay there, everyone was glad to see him go home. He required weeks of additional physical therapy to learn to walk again, first with a walker, and eventually with a cane.

Abby and I visited him often and brought Emmie with us whenever we could. She brightened his day, and he was always on his best behavior when she was around. He continued to improve, and eventually, he shed the cane.

It was a warm spring day about six months later when Eddie came over to the house. He had gotten the golf bug again after so many months off, and I invited him over so we could start planning our next trip together. He parked across the street and limped to the front door. Claire and Emily were visiting us for the day while Tom was on a business trip, and it was Emily who spotted him through the window, ran to the door, and threw it open before he even had a chance to ring the bell.

“Hi, Uncle Eddie!” she shouted as she started dancing around.

“Hey, pipsqueak,” he said as he bent down to her level.

“What’s a pipsqueak?”

“You are, you little freckle-faced sprite!” he cried as he grabbed her around the waist and started tickling her.

“What’s a sprite?” she squealed as she tried to escape his clutches.

“It’s a pipsqueak!”

“But what’s a pipsqueak?” she giggled and squirmed under his relentless tickling.

“Alright you two,” I said. “C’mon, Eddie. You never could keep your hands off a cute redhead.”

I took him by the arm and led him into the family room. “Emmie, Uncle Eddie and I have got to start planning our next golfing trip, so we’re going to need a little peace and quiet, thank you. Go see if you can find Grandma, please.”

“Okay, Grandpa, but I have just one question. Uncle Eddie, how come your skin looks kinda yellowy?”

“Oh, haven’t you heard? Yellow skin is all the rage these days in Scotland where your Grandpa and I are going.”

Scotland, was it? That was news to me. I looked over at Eddie. I had never noticed it before, but Eddie did look a little yellow. Perhaps he hadn’t been getting out in the sun much during his convalescence, but I had a feeling there was something more to it. I shooed Emily away so we could start planning our trip.

I got us a couple of beers from the frig, and we went out on the porch. I sat across from Eddie and gave him a long, hard look. “Eddie, are you alright? You look a little off.”

He sat there for a minute not answering and with his eyes downcast. He seemed to be debating with himself, but finally he said, “It’s jaundice.”

“Have you seen your doctor about it?”

“Yes, several of them.” After a few moments, he sighed and said, “I’m sick, Kenny. The jaundice is just a symptom.”

I had a sudden sinking feeling and didn’t want to hear his answer, but I knew I had to ask. “Of what exactly?”

It took him a moment to collect himself, but he finally said, “I’ve got pancreatic cancer, Sport. The oncologist gave me six months. Maybe a year if I’m lucky.”

“Oh, Eddie, no! Are they sure?”

“Pretty darn.”

I came over and sat next to him then and put my arm around his shoulder. I didn’t know what to say to him.

After a minute or two he turned to me and said, “You know, Sport, I read a terrific book recently called Final Rounds by the excellent golf writer James Dobson. In the book his father has cancer, and the two of them decide to take a trip to Scotland together before the end. They play all the great courses there, finishing with The Old Course at St. Andrews. That’s where I got the idea about Scotland. I don’t really care about those other courses, but I would like to play St. Andrews while I can still manage it. Whaddaya say?”

“That sounds perfect. Let’s do it. I’ve heard, though, that it’s not that easy to get to play The Old Course.”

“Yeah, but we’ve got connections. We happened to make a putter for the pro there a couple years back. Don’t you remember?”

“Not really, but I’ll take your word for it.”

And so, we began making plans in earnest, right up until dinner time.

Eddie, Claire, and Emmie started a game of Shutes and Ladders while I went in to help Abby make dinner.
 
Without the distraction of planning a new golf trip, I couldn’t keep my mind off Eddie’s revelation, and it showed in my actions in the kitchen. Normally very efficient, I couldn’t seem to focus on my task of preparing the salad.
 
Abby was about to chide me when she looked at my face and could tell that something was wrong. “Kenny, what is it?”

I put down the knife that I’d been using, walked over and put my arms around her and just held her for a minute. “Let’s talk about it later, okay?”

“Okay,” she said gently. She knew my moods well enough not to press any further right then.

Despite my mood, dinner was festive enough; it could hardly be anything else with Eddie and Emily’s constant banter. And during dessert—peach cobbler with ice cream—Eddie kept us all entertained with an outrageous story about a trip to the zoo he had once taken and what happened when he started imitating the chimpanzees he had been watching.

“Oh, gross!” cried Emily as the details of that encounter unfolded.

“Eddie, couldn’t that have waited until we finished eating?” scolded Abby.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” But then he turned to Emily, who he was seated next to, and started scratching his armpit and saying, “Oooh, oooh, oooh.” Emily dissolved in a fit of laughter, and the hilarity of the moment was enough to push any dark thoughts right out of my mind.

Later that night after everyone had gone home, Abby and I sat down on the porch, and I told her about Eddie. We hugged each other, and we both cried. Eddie was such an important part of our lives, and it was just impossible to believe that within a year, he wouldn’t be with us anymore. We vowed to make the best of the time we had left together and to always be there when he needed us.
 
(3 more chapters to go)
 

Author Notes 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.

Claire Payne: Kenny and Abbyâ??s daughter

Greg Payne: Kenny and Abbyâ??s son

Tom: Claireâ??s husband


Chapter 11
Lucky Eddie - Chapter 11

By Jim Wile

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

Recap of the previous few chapters: Kenny and Abby’s kids grow into adults. Their daughter Claire marries and has a baby girl of her own, Emily. Their son Greg joins Kenny and Eddie in the golf equipment business, allowing them eventually to partially retire. They take a number of golfing trips together. Eddie grows very fond of Emily as he sees her often when he visits Kenny and Abby while they are babysitting for Emily. Emily turns five.
 
On a visit to Kenny’s house to plan a new golfing trip, Eddie prevents a tragic accident to Emily who is charging across the street to greet him. He throws his body in front of an advancing car to push Emily out of the way and is struck instead, while Emily bumps her head on the curb. Both are rushed to the hospital. Emily has only suffered a minor concussion while Eddie’s pelvis and leg were severely damaged in the accident. The family visits him in the hospital the next day.
 
After months of rehab, Eddie is recovered and goes over to Kenny’s house to plan another golf trip. He doesn’t look quite right, and it’s revealed that he has pancreatic cancer, and this will be his last trip. They plan to go to Scotland together to play the Old Course at St. Andrews.
 
 
 
The Trip
 
The trip to Scotland took place at the end of summer. Eddie and I flew into Edinburgh, where we rented a car and drove the hour or so up to St. Andrews. We checked in at The Old Course Hotel—the one you had to shoot over with your tee shot on the quirky 17th hole—had a late dinner, and decided to go to bed early. It was only 6:00 PM by our time at home, but we were both tired from the long flight. We would not be playing golf tomorrow to give our bodies time to adjust to the five-hour differential, but we had a tee time at The Old Course the day after tomorrow.

The next morning, we were up early and decided to take a short tour of the town before stopping for breakfast at a local eatery. After breakfast, we walked some more, but Eddie, who tired easily these days, wanted to go back to the hotel for a nap. That afternoon, we planned to play a round of putting at the famous Himalayas Putting Course, and he wanted to rest up for that.

After his nap, we had a small lunch at the hotel, got our putters, and headed over to the Himalayas. This unique course, officially known as the St. Andrews Ladies Putting Club, but more commonly called the Himalayas Putting Course, adjoined the 2nd hole of The Old Course. It was originally founded in 1867 and was located on a piece of land for which the appellation “Himalayas” was entirely appropriate. Nestled among the many peaks and valleys of this absolutely huge putting green were 18 holes that presented an incredible challenge of green-reading. It was not uncommon to have two or three different breaks that must be played on any given hole. The course was open to the public most of the time, and people of all ages could be seen wandering the holes and having fun at this challenging course.

Two young boys of nine or ten were about to begin the first hole, and Eddie asked if we could join them. “We’re new around here, and maybe you old pros can teach us a thing or two about reading this green,” he said to them. They welcomed us and assured us they knew all the breaks around there.

Each cup had a short, metal flagstick with either a red or white flag, and the “tees” were marked with small, white, wooden arrows. We let the boys hit first on every hole to show us the breaks, some of which were absolutely incredible. On the very first hole, which was fairly straightforward, Eddie knocked his ball in for an ace.

“Wow, mister, nice putt!”

“Thanks, fellas, but call me Eddie. This old goat here is Kenny.”

Their names were Sean and Billy, and we got along splendidly. They were pretty good little putters and did a great job of showing us the line on each of the holes. Up until the 18th hole, I had two-putted about half the holes, three-putted six others and had two four-putts. Eddie had two more aces and only two three-putts, so he was one under par going into the 18th. Sean and Billy went first, as usual, and Billy knocked his ball right up just short of and slightly right of the hole.

“Better go mark it or putt out, Billy. I wouldn’t want to carom off your ball and sink it accidentally,” Eddie told him.

“Jeez, Eddie, I wish you had been as magnanimous to me during the club championship you stole from me.”

“Yeah? Would you really have walked all the way up there and marked your ball if I had been?”

“Probably not.”

“Alright, then. Quit your belly-aching.”

While we bantered back and forth, Billy went up to his ball and holed out, leaving the way open for Eddie. He gave it a good rap, and we watched as the ball took one break and then another, curved around and fell in the back of the cup for his fourth ace of the afternoon. Billy and Sean were jumping up and down, cheering for Eddie. They had never seen anyone putt like him.

I finished up with a deuce and added up my card—46. Eddie’s final ace gave him a 34.

“Eddie!” Sean exclaimed. “You broke the course record! It used to be 35. And you also broke the ace record which was three! That was top putting!”

“Couldn’t a done it without you boys showing me the way. Thanks for a swell time!”

We all shook hands then and said goodbye. What a couple of nice kids.
 
 

Eddie was tired again from all the excitement, and we slowly made our way back to the hotel. It was time for afternoon tea at The Old Course Hotel, and we didn’t want to miss it. I loaded up my plate with a couple of fruit scones and their famous lemon pancakes with clotted cream. Eddie’s appetite was very small these days, so he just had a cup of tea and one blueberry scone.

It was 3:30 by the time we finished, and Eddie was ready for another nap. While he slept, I called Abby and filled her in on our exploits so far. She advised me to just take things at Eddie’s pace and not to push him too hard. We talked for a while more, and then I decided to go and catch a few winks, myself, before dinner.
 

(2 more chapters to go)

 

Author Notes 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.


Chapter 12
Lucky Eddie - Chapter 12

By Jim Wile

(See the Author Notes for a description of the main characters.)

Recap of the previous few chapters: On a visit to Kenny’s house to plan a new golfing trip, Eddie prevents a tragic accident to Kenny and Abby’s 5-year-old granddaughter, Emily, who is charging across the street to greet him. He throws his body in front of an advancing car to push Emily out of the way and is struck instead, while Emily bumps her head on the curb. Both are rushed to the hospital. Emily has only suffered a minor concussion while Eddie’s pelvis and leg were severely damaged in the accident. The family visits him in the hospital the next day.
 
After months of rehab, Eddie is recovered and goes over to Kenny’s house to plan another golf trip. He doesn’t look quite right, and it’s revealed that he has pancreatic cancer, and this will be his last trip. They plan to go to Scotland together to play the Old Course at St. Andrews.
 
The first day there, they visit the “Himalayas Putting Course” adjacent to the Old Course where they play a round with two young boys. Eddie breaks the both the course record and the ace record with his superior putting.
 
(A continuation of the chapter The Trip)
 
Our tee time the next day was at 1:00 pm. Though quite rare at The Old Course, Eddie was allowed to take a cart, or “buggy” as they are known in Scotland, because he had faxed a doctor’s note explaining his condition beforehand. The rules were that it had to be driven by a caddie, so I did not accompany him in the cart. I had my own caddie, which was a necessity because the course has so many hidden bunkers and other hazards that you could never hope to negotiate by yourself on your first trip there. We were paired with two local fellows who were happy to give us additional advice on how to play the holes.

As everyone who has ever seen a tournament played at The Old Course knows, the first hole is a short par-4 with a hundred-yard-wide fairway shared with the 18th hole. A nice, wide fairway to ease the first tee jitters and get us off to a good start. We all hit good drives, though Eddie’s was quite short. The accident, as well as his illness, had taken quite a toll on his game. Never particularly long to begin with, he needed all of his dwindling strength to hit his drives about 160 yards now. He needed a hybrid to reach the green and just managed to fly the Swilcan Burn—the narrow creek that fronts the first green. We all managed par on the first hole and headed over to the second tee.

There is no need to describe all the details of that round at The Old Course. I played pretty well, shooting a 38 on the front 9, but that was with the wind. On the back 9, it was directly in our face, which added greatly to the difficulty. Eddie did not have an official score, because he'd picked up his ball several times when the many challenges of the bunkers and the heather got to be a bit too much for him. By the 12th hole, he had pretty much run out of steam, so we decided to combine our efforts, much as we had against those two hustlers years before at Brentwood. I would hit to the greens, and he would putt. Our goal was to break 80 on my card, meaning we needed at most a 41 on the back 9 to go with my front nine 38.

The wind was howling, as it so often does at St. Andrews, and by the time we reached the 17th hole—the Road Hole—Eddie and I were already five over par for the back 9. That meant we needed to play the last two holes even par for 79. I hit a good drive over the corner of The Old Course Hotel (what other golf course in the world requires you to hit your drive over a hotel?) and landed in the fairway of the 17th. The second shot is the tough one, though, because the long, narrow green is guarded on the left by the infamous Road Hole bunker and on the right by a road and a stone wall. It’s one of the most difficult second shots in golf. I hit a beautiful 4-iron approach, but the wind grabbed it at the end, and knocked it down into the Road Hole bunker.

When we got there, our hearts sank. The ball lay very near the front edge of the steep, sod-walled bunker, and it would take a miracle shot to get the ball up and out. I did the best I could by laying the face of my sand wedge wide open, but the ball just clipped the top of the sod wall and kicked back down into the bunker. I had to scramble out of the way so the ball wouldn’t hit me.

“Eddie, I don’t think I can get it out if I aim at the flag. I think I’m going to have to hit it down front where the face of the bunker is not so steep. That’s going to leave you with a mammoth putt, though.”

“That’s okay, Sport. That just adds to the excitement.”

I again took my stance, this time aiming well right of the flagstick and lofted a high shot that cleared the lip but caught the slope and rolled down and just off the front of the green. Eddie was now left with a 90-foot putt up a severe slope and with perhaps 10 feet of break. This would tax even his abilities.

Eddie walked the entire length of the putt, inspecting it from all angles. He was treating this as if it were for a major championship. I loved that about him. He finally settled over the putt after taking two practice strokes, then looked up twice at the hole, took his putter back almost to waist height, and really whacked it. Up, up it climbed, over the top of the slope and headed well right of the flagstick. As it began to slow, it took the break and began falling toward the hole. It looked like it would miss on the high side, but just as it ran out of steam, it caught the lip, curled 270 degrees around the hole and dropped! An incredible putt! We all gave him a high-five as he slowly made his way to the hole to remove the ball. Eddie had saved bogey, and we still had a chance for a 79 if we could just birdie the final hole.

Number 18 at The Old Course is a fairly benign finishing hole, much like the first hole whose fairway it shares. It’s a short par-4, drivable by longer hitters when the wind is behind. Its only difficulty is the Valley of Sin—a deep valley at the front left of the green that has a tendency to gobble up balls hit a little short to a left-hand pin, which, unfortunately, was where it was located today.

I hit a decent enough drive that left us with 100 yards to the middle of the green. I lofted my gap wedge into the air, but it was a mistake to play the ball that way, for a strong gust of wind caught the ball and knocked it down into the middle of the slope up to the pin, sending it right down into the Valley of Sin. I was not making this easy for Eddie. He was now faced with the same putt that Jordan Spieth missed for birdie to get into the playoff for the Open Championship of 2015. Could Eddie make the putt that the PGA Tour’s best putter could not? Constantino Rocca had made a similar putt 20 years earlier to get into a playoff with John Daly, so it wasn’t impossible.

This might be the last round of golf Eddie and I would ever play together. Wouldn’t it be great to go out on a high note? In reality, the putt meant nothing, but Eddie treated it as if his life depended on it. Just like he did on 17, he walked the length of the putt and read the break from in front of and behind the hole. He felt the slope with his feet and even gauged the strength of the wind. He settled himself beside the ball, took his two standard practice strokes, stepped into the putt, looked twice at the hole like he always did, then let it go. The ball rolled smartly up the slope, headed right for the hole and, just like Rocca’s putt in 1995, it hit the back of the cup dead-center and dropped. He had done it! We had broken 80 together at The Old Course on a blustery August afternoon on our first (and last) trip to St. Andrews!

Eddie hobbled up the slope to the hole, and I helped him jump into my arms with his legs around my waist as he had so often done in the past. We clapped each other on the back, and I carried him off the green and into his cart. Our playing companions were thrilled for us and shared in the merriment of the moment. They had never seen the likes of those last two putts—each one by itself, maybe, but not two in a row like that.

Later, after paying our caddies and taking care of the post-round tasks, we all walked over to a nearby pub together and celebrated our round with several pints of ale. Our playing companions took great delight in telling all their friends at the pub of Eddie’s final two putts. Eddie was beaming. It was perhaps the last momentous time he would ever have, and he was making the most of it.
 
 
(1 more chapter to go)
 

Author Notes 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.


Chapter 13
Lucky Eddie - Chapter 13

By Jim Wile

Recap of the previous few chapters: On a visit to Kenny’s house to plan a new golfing trip, Eddie prevents a tragic accident to Kenny and Abby’s 5-year-old granddaughter, Emily, who is charging across the street to greet him. He throws his body in front of an advancing car to push Emily out of the way and is struck instead, while Emily bumps her head on the curb. Both are rushed to the hospital. Emily has only suffered a minor concussion while Eddie’s pelvis and leg were severely damaged in the accident. The family visits him in the hospital the next day.
 
After months of rehab, Eddie is recovered and goes over to Kenny’s house to plan another golf trip. He doesn’t look quite right, and it’s revealed that he has pancreatic cancer, and this will be his last trip. They plan to go to Scotland together to play the Old Course at St. Andrews.
 
The first day there, they visit the “Himalayas Putting Course” adjacent to the Old Course where they play a round with two young boys. Eddie breaks the both the course record and the ace record with his superior putting.
 
The following day, Kenny and Eddie play The Old Course. By the 12th hole, Eddie has run out of steam, so Kenny and he decide to combine their talents to finish the round as they did years before against the hustlers. Together, with the help of two miraculous putts by Eddie on the final two holes, they succeed in breaking 80 to end the trip on a high note.
 
A continuation of the chapter The Trip
 
 
Several weeks later, back at home, I visited Eddie one afternoon at his house. He was clearly ailing now and was thin as a rail. Still, he greeted me with his usual “Hiya, Sport!”

“How are you doing today, Eddie?”

“Probably best not to ask.”

I sat down beside him on the sofa. “Well here, take this,” I said as I handed him a chocolate milkshake I had bought him. He thanked me and took a few perfunctory sips, but I could see he really wasn’t in much of a mood for it.

He asked about Abby and Greg and Claire and Tom and Emmie, and we talked for a while about old times together. Eventually, the conversation wore down, and I had a hard time keeping my spirits up for him.

“C’mon, Sport, why the long face?”

“I don’t know, it seems like your luck has changed, Eddie. Starting with the accident... ”

“Look, Kenny. That was the luckiest day of my life. The fact that I was close enough to save that little peanut, well... ” he trailed off.

He seldom called me Kenny, so I knew he was being dead serious. “But then the cancer, Eddie—”

“Never mind that,” he interrupted. He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. He wasn’t the least bit wistful as he said, “I’ve had a good life, and we’ve all gotta go eventually. Maybe my time is a little sooner than I’d hoped, but so what?" He paused again as he shifted in his seat to face me directly.

“Luck is all in your point of view, Kenny. Was I lucky to have beaten you in the club championship all those years ago? Maybe, probably, but in the grand scheme of things, that didn’t amount to a hill of beans. You know what real luck is? Of all the thousands of people you come across in your life, it’s finding those very few, like you and Abby, who you can really connect with and call your friends. More important to me than winning a club championship was that I met my best friend that day. I rub a lot of people the wrong way, you know.”

“That’s because you’re rude, you’re crude... you’re lewd.”

“With that, I certainly am imbued! So, why do you like me, Sport?”

“I don’t like you, Eddie.... I love you, man.” My voice cracked, and I brushed back a tear as I put my arm around his thin shoulders and pulled him closer. We just sat there like that for a while, deep in our own thoughts.
 
 

I visited him almost daily, but the last time I saw Eddie alive was two weeks later. He called me early one evening and said he had something to give me.

When I got there, he was sitting up in the hospital bed that had been brought in for him. He now had hospice nurses taking care of him pretty much full time. He looked very gaunt but did not seem to be in pain as he was being well-medicated.

“Hey, Sport. I want you to take care of this for me and have ‘em carve this on my tombstone.” He handed me a paper on which he had scrawled his epitaph.

I read it over and looked up at him. “Really, Eddie? This is what you want it to say?”

“Yeah, and if Emmie asks you wha’ it means, tell her you’ll ‘splain it to her when she’s older.”

I chuckled at that and told him I’d take care of it.

“Thans, Spor. I gotta sleep now. These meds jus nop me ou. See ya tomorra, huh?”

“See you tomorrow, pal,” I said, and kissed him on the forehead, but he was already asleep.
 
 

A month after Eddie was laid to rest, I got a call from the stone carver. Eddie’s tombstone was ready and would be placed on his grave that afternoon.

Abby and I decided to go to the cemetery to see it that evening after dinner. It was a beautiful fall evening, and the last of the day’s sunlight was shining on the tops of the red and gold trees clustered throughout the cemetery. We parked the car and walked up the little hill where Eddie was buried. As we stood before the new tombstone, I looked at Abby to watch her reaction. At first she gasped, then she let out a “Ha!” And then we both dissolved in laughter, for this is what it said:
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Wait for it…
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                                        xx
                                        xx
                                     xxxxxxxx
                                        xx
                                        xx
                               _________xx__________
                             "                       "
                          "                            "
                        "                                "
                     "                                     "
                   "                                         "
                 "                                            "
                "           EDWARD “Eddie” PHILLIPS           "
                "                                             "
                "                 1952 - 2016                 "
                "                                             "
                "                                             "
                "                                             "
                "     HERE LIES AN OLD GOLFER NAMED EDDIE     "
                "                                             "
                "     WHOSE HANDS ON A PUTTER WERE STEADY     "
                "                                             "
                "          WHEN ACCUSED OF MAD LUCK           "
                "                                             "
                "                HE REPLIED WTF               "
                "                                             "
                "    I AM PROUD TO BE CALLED “LUCKY EDDIE”    "
                "                                             "
                "                                             "
                "                                             "
                "                                             "
                "                                             "
                "                                             "
                "                                             "
                "                                             "
                "                                             "
      ___________________________________________________________________________           
 
 
Note: I've been informed this doesn't show up very well in some browsers. The actual text on the tombstone is:
 
EDWARD "Eddie" PHILLIPS
 
1952 - 2016
 
HERE LIES AN OLD GOLFER NAMED EDDIE
WHOSE HANDS ON A PUTTER WERE STEADY
WHEN ACCUSED OF MAD LUCK
HE REPLIED WTF
I AM PROUD TO BE CALLED "LUCKY EDDIE"
 
 
 
 
                                                                                       The End
 
 
 
 

Author Notes To all who have joined the story somewhere along the line, thank you so much for reading and reviewing it. It was a great pleasure sharing it with you.

This was my very first attempt at writing fiction, and the original draft of it was written in 2016. Several of the characters were based on real people who I met during my caddie days when I was a teen.

I found out that I really enjoyed writing fiction, and I loved these characters, so I wrote three more stories with them. The next one was entitled Lucky 1 which I published as an E-book on Amazon. I then published this one, Lucky Eddie, on Amazon. Then I wrote Lucky Abby which completed the trilogy. I never published that one, because then I had the idea to combine all of them into one full-length novel (as the others are quite a bit shorter), and the result was Some Call It Luck, which I presented a few months ago on FS. I took parts of each of the other three and placed them into SCIL because they all featured the same characters and took place at approximately the same time.

I am currently attempting to find a literary agent for SCIL to try to publish it via the traditional route. So far nothing but passes from the agents. It may never happen, but that's okay. I've found an appreciative audience here on FS for these stories, and I'm very happy to have shared them with you.

In the near future I will be posting a few short stories extracted from two of the other books that never made it into SCIL. Until then, thanks again for reading.

Jim Wile

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