Authors: Turk Pipkin
Fast Greens
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Contents
Preface
JUST PLAYING THROUGH
A decade after the publication of my debut novel, it occurs to me that there are now two key stories to
Fast Greens
. The first is the tale of young caddy Billy Hemphill and his search for the secret of golf and life, and perhaps for a father to help him with both. You'll find all of that and a good deal more about old-school Texas golf in this new edition of
Fast Greens,
and I don't think Billy, Beast, Jewel, March, and Roscoe need any more help from me with their tale.
The second story of
Fast Greens,
on the contrary, has never been told. That is the saga of a much bigger kidâsix feet, seven inches tall and forty years old to be preciseâwho laid all his cash on the line in the wild hopes that his modest novel would reach out and touch the hearts of golfers and nongolfers alike.
My wife and I were told over and over that we were crazy to self-publish any novelâmuch less a coming-of-age story about golfâbut I believed in
Fast Greens
and decided to roll the dice. For an underemployed writer with a three-year-old daughter, this was quite a leap of faith, but with a little help from family and friends, the book eventually made its way to a printer who started to crank out a ridiculously large order for twenty thousand books.
The first bound copy was soon shipped for my approval, and I promptly sent copy number one to David Earl, the editor of the USGA's monthly magazine
Golf Journal.
I'd never met David, but was a fan of his magazine, plus he'd read an early version of the manuscript and had encouraged me to press on.
Not long after receiving the book, David called me from a pay phone just before boarding a plane to France for the World Amateur Team Championship. He was calling to tell me to look for his review of
Fast Greens
in the new issue of
Golf Journal.
I thanked him profusely, and we promised to talk again as soon as he returned to the States.
The review was all I could have hoped for and more. In addition to saying I'd done a great job with plot, characters, and pace, David called
Fast Greens
“a compelling, emotional story of a golf match among some motley characters, so rich thatâpardon the clichéâwe couldn't put it down.”
These complimentary words were accompanied by the cover in full color, plus an address for ordering the book, which was not yet available in stores. Curious to see if we had any orders, I promptly drove to the post office and found nearly a hundred envelopes, each with a check for one or more copies of the book, with many of the checks wrapped in David Earl's review. (A high percentage of these first readers would later reorder copies as gifts, including one gentleman who had me sign nearly a hundred copies, one for each of his golf buddies.)
David Earl's review was just one of many good notices that would follow in
Golf
magazine,
Golf Digest,
and
The New York Times,
but David's was first, and I knew that the love we shared for the game of golf had changed my life in ways that I could so far only imagine.
A decade later, as I prepared to write this preface, while looking through my files, I found my copy of a letter of thanks I'd mailed to Davidâa letter that he never had the opportunity to read. Walking through the airport in France, David Earl had a sudden and massive heart attack. Dead at the age of forty-eight, he left behind a wife and a young son.
There are many things I could say about the evolution and further developments of
Fast Greens
âthat the name of the hit man Fromholz was stolen from Texas songwriter Steve Fromholz; that a large percentage of readers make the assumption that young Billy's story is actually my own; or that the novel began as a movie for Willie Nelson (a movie that may ultimately be made by someone reading this preface).
But the trivia of
Fast Greens
pales in comparison to the story of how one person can so dramatically change the life of another, even if they've never met. That ability is truly an awesome power, one each of us should strive to remember. In part because of David Earl,
Fast Greens
was soon hailed as one of the great success stories of self-publishing, and was later reprinted in numerous editions by publishers around the world. Because of David Earl, I've been able to spend a good part of the past decade writing all over the world about a game that I love. Not bad for a skinny caddy from West Texas.
Two years ago, my life was again changed by another person's words, this time by my father, Pip (and how great to go through life with a name from Dickens). In what would turn out to be our last conversation, Pip told me that he wished we'd played a round of golf together at Pebble Beach, from where I'd just rushed back to see him.
After Pip's funeralâfilled with regret at not having spent more time with himâI dedicated a year of my life to playing golf in his memory (a year chronicled in my book
The Old Man and the Tee
). Amazing things happened to me in that year; not only did I become a better golfer, but I believe I became a better person and a better father as well. More important, I learned that I had not lost my father at all, that Pip would always be with me, in my heart and in my mind.
As
Fast Greens
circles back into the world, I cannot help but reflect in awe at how, from beyond the grave, two amazing men were able to reach out and work miracles in my life. For that reason, I'd like to dedicate this reissue of
Fast Greens
to David Earl and to my father, Raymond Pipkin, the ever-smiling Pip.
To both of you, I wish endless fairways and fast greens.
INTRODUCTION
It was the summer I turned thirteen, and it had been a fat year in Texas. The mild winter was followed by a succession of tall booming thunderstorms, black with sweet-tasting rain, and the country, lush and green, smelled like the gardens of paradise.
It was a funny time: Not long after man entered space, a Texan entered the White House, and though my pals stayed up late listening to the Beatles, they still wore their hair in flat-tops and spent envious hours in the company of their fathers.
Having no part in that, my days were spent in toil and grace on playing fields of green, hallowed grounds where one man, seeking his own salvation, would reach out his hand and change my life forever. Almost thirty years later, both the perils and the miracles that befell me on that incredible day shine as brightly in my mind as the Texas sun of my youth.
Tanned to the bone and sporting long, unruly hair, they called me the Wild Indian, but it was really just a joke. I didn't know about the world around me the way an Indian would; about the meaning of the stars, or how to follow forgotten trails and unravel the truth of hidden signs.
In actuality I didn't know much of anything but the game of golf; neither love nor hate, envy or pride, jealousy or revenge. I didn't know, but I was about to learn.
BOOK ONE
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blest.
âAlexander Pope
1
For the third time in five minutes, the big guy called me Skinny.
“Hey Skinny! Your foot's in my line!”
He had ten years and a hundred-pound advantage, plus one thick eyebrow that stretched all the way across his bony forehead. I moved the foot.
Beast drew back his putter smoothly, impossibly straight, like he was pulling a sword from a scabbard without the blade touching the sides. The putter face was square to his line at the back of the stroke and still square as it accelerated the ball toward the hole some eighteen feet away. His head remained perfectly still as the ball rolled a showering arc through the early morning dew, cutting a track that led to the edge of the hole, and disappeared into the bowels of the earth.
The ball plinked solidly in the metal cup. Without looking up, Beast dragged a second ball onto the same spot directly beneath his right eye. A long ash dangled precariously from the cigarette in his mouth as he repeated the putt perfectly, the ball rolling through the same damp track as the one before, and the one before that.
“Toss 'em back, Skinny! Before they get cold.”
The words crawled out of the side of his mouth without disturbing the cigarette ash.
“My name is Billy,” I told him.
Hoping to screw up his concentration, I scooped the three balls out of the hole and rolled them back at angles slashing through the single line in the dew.
Over on the first tee at the Pedernales Golf Club (pronounced Purd-n-Alice, because that's the way LBJ said it), my friend Sandy Bates cleaned his golf ball, paced, then cleaned the ball again. Sandy was a top-notch golfer, likely to play on the professional tour against Arnie and Fat Jack, and oh how I wished I were carrying for him instead of for this ugly putting machine. For once in his life, Sandy really needed my help. When he'd driven me to the course in the predawn darkness, for the first time I'd seen that he was afraid of a game of golf. Now to make matters worse, his partner March was only minutes shy of forfeiting this big match for both of them.
“He welshed, I tell you! Chickened out!” spat Beast's partner, Roscoe Fowler.
Roscoe was a snub-nosed, potbellied, sixty-year-old parody of all things Texan. His khaki pants were worn so far under his gut that you expected them to fall to the ground at any moment. And in the hazy morning light, his pockmarked face reminded me of NASA's lunar landscape photos taken from orbit around the earth.
“I know March; known him since nineteen and twenty-nine,” said Roscoe. “Hell! He's probably halfway to Méjico right this minute.”
Roscoe spit a big glob of brown tobacco juiceâmostly on the green grass and partly on his handmade Charlie Dunn cowboy boots with golf spikes and little side pockets for tees. Unable to look away, Sandy gazed at the dark stain on the grass. With his stomach already tied into sailor's rosettes and other obscure knots, his blond face began sinking to a ghastly green.
Another man, known only as Fromholz, was there to referee this big match. Fromholz was not a man that you would mess with, and though I was afraid to stare, I found it hard to look away. His face was chiseled and tough, with one eye partially but permanently shut. His rattlesnake-skin boots and embroidered Western jacket probably cost a thousand dollars, but the New York Yankees cap on his head and the rolled bandana tied loosely around his neck were faded and worn. Turning his head to give his good eye a fair opinion, he glanced once around the deserted golf course.