Lucky Eddie - Chapter 8

by Jim Wile

Background
Two young men meet as opponents during the finals of the golf club championship and soon become lifelong best friends. It is their great friendship that helps them navigate many of life's challenges.

(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)

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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.

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Life moves on through the years.

A chapter in the book Lucky Eddie

Lucky Eddie - Chapter 8

by Jim Wile

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