The Amateurs (26 page)

B
Y
2.30,
THE TIME THE FINAL PAIRING
–LINKLATER, C. and IRVINE, G. (A)–was due to tee off, the gates had long been closed to the public and officials were estimating the crowd at over 50,000: a final-day record. Most of the 50,000 seemed to be crammed around the first tee, spilling onto the road behind, into the car park and onto the flower beds in front of the clubhouse. Marshals struggled to keep people behind the ropes and off the walkways designated for players only. Half the county, from school kids to pensioners, seemed to have turned out to watch one of Scotland’s own do battle with the world’s best golfer. Children perched on the shoulders of adults, the cardboard periscopes bristled and bobbed. Many faces were painted with the saltire, or daubed crazily with blue in
Braveheart
fashion.

Preceded by a clutch of R&A officials, two policemen, his personal security guards and, finally, his caddie, Snakes, Calvin Linklater strode out of the clubhouse. The crowd went berserk: screaming, cheering, whistling, hands and children thrust out
in an attempt to make contact. Linklater acknowledged the reception with a smile, a nod and a tweak of his visor but, really, he wasn’t there. The pandemonium was already as distant to him as the waves breaking on the beach a few hundred yards away.

Stevie and Gary–late–were half jogging round the side of the clubhouse when they heard the roar for Linklater. They looked at each other. ‘Fuck,’ Gary said. ‘Easy,’ Stevie said as they turned the corner. As soon as they came into view a roar went up that made Linklater’s greeting sound muted. Individual cries pierced through the din, some more sporting than others.

‘GO ON YERSELF, GARY!’

‘C’MON, BIG MAN!’

‘FUCK IT INTAE THAT YANK BASTARD!’

‘YA FUCKING DANCER YE!’

‘FREEEEEDOM!’

Stevie was helping officials push people back behind the ropes, which were straining, threatening to break.

Up high in the commentary booth, Rowland Daventry said, ‘And here he is. He seems to have recovered from a rather unfortunate incident in the press tent yesterday, which I’m sure many of you read about in today’s papers.’ On screen: a close-up of Gary’s face, his jaw working silently as he muttered to himself. ‘And what,’ Daventry asked, ‘can be going through this young man’s head right now?’

‘Fuck,’ Gary was saying. ‘Bigtittedhooryespunkfuck.’ He came through the crowd and stepped up onto the tee. There, dressed in a powder-blue polo shirt and dark chinos, was Calvin Linklater. He was taller and even more powerfully built than Gary had expected, the cords running down the
inside of his arms seemed to suggest that thick hydraulic cables rather than veins were buried beneath his tanned skin. Calvin Fucking Linklater. He was extending a hand towards Gary.

‘Hi, I’m Calvin.’

‘Aye.’ Gary looked like he had been punched in the face. He was beginning to hyperventilate.

‘Gary,’ Stevie shot in. ‘This is Gary.’

They shook hands and Linklater walked back to the far side of the tee box, a boxer returning to his own side of the ring. ‘Baws,’ Gary said to Stevie. ‘Baws and flaps.’

‘Ye can say that again,’ Stevie said, pulling the three-wood out of the bag.

‘
Sook it
,’ Gary added with some urgency.

‘LADIES AND GENTLEMAN,’ the starter said. Incredibly, the crowd instantly fell silent. ‘Can you please ensure all mobile telephones are switched off and be aware that no photography is permitted during play. The final pairing of the afternoon, on the tee, from Ravenscroft Golf Club, Ardgirvan–’ an enormous cheer–‘Mr Gary Irvine.’

A jubilant explosion of noise went on for nearly thirty seconds. Cathy was jumping up and down, screaming herself hoarse. Lee looked across the tee and made perfect eye contact with Ranta. Ranta did not smile.

The crowd fell completely silent as Gary walked up behind his ball. As soon as his brain engaged the activity of calculating the shot, factoring in wind and pin position, the swearing roar of voices in his head fell away and the tic in his jaw stopped.
Nice and safe
, he thought as, with a low, punchy sweep, he brought the three-wood down. An enormous roar, the ball flying straight down the middle, Gary picking up his tee peg, not even needing to look, and Linklater
was already behind him, looking for where he was going to tee up.

‘And the battle was joined,’ Daventry said to the millions watching around the planet.

Three things became apparent during the first few holes.

One, and in stark contrast to yesterday’s round with Drew Keel: Team Linklater did not invite conversation. After Stevie had made a couple of innocuous opening gambits–How did they like Scotland? What an honour it was to be playing with the great man–only to be met with one-word answers–‘Great’ and ‘Thanks’–Snakes took him aside. ‘Listen, kid,’ he whispered out of the side of his mouth, ‘ya all seem like nice folks and maybe later we’ll grab a beer. But this is the last round of a major championship. So, no offence, but we don’t do chit-chat.’

Two: in between shots Gary’s Tourette’s had become constant and low-grade, a ceaseless mantra of soft, breakneck swearing peppered here and there with actual conversation relating to what was going on around him. A sample conversation from the third hole went like this:

Stevie: ‘I reckon you’re probably looking at seven-iron. Maybe even a six.’

Gary: ‘Titscuntfuckbawsyahoor. Wind. Pishflaps. Fuck! Sorry! Smokemafuckindobber. Probably make it–cuntcuntfucktitsflapsfannyflaps–with a seven. Hoor.’

Three: Gary was playing like a dream.

A lob wedge from the side of the first green so perfectly struck that when the ball spun towards the hole it was like watching a piece of film being played backwards. A stinging four-iron at the second that appeared to brake in mid-air before dropping softly to within ten feet of the flag. And he was sinking every putt in sight.

Three birdies in the first four holes.

Linklater–perhaps figuring that as long he kept within striking distance then Gary was bound to fall apart under the pressure sooner or later–wasn’t trying anything spectacular and made four safe solid pars. The net result: here they were on the fifth with Gary three strokes ahead of the world number one.

‘And I don’t think anyone was expecting this,’ Daventry said as the TV showed the two players sizing up their shots.

‘No, Rowland,’ Torrent agreed, ‘I think the consensus was that the pressure would be far too much and that this young man’s incredible streak of, well, you don’t want to call it luck–he’s playing some incredible golf–but whatever you want to call it, I think a lot of people thought that today would probably be where it ran out. Not so.’

‘And let’s not forget that there’s still a lot of other players out there,’ Daventry said. ‘You’ve got Rodriguez and Torsten Lathe both on a couple under. Honeydew III there or thereabouts. It’s by no means a two-horse race yet.’

‘Absolutely not,’ Torrent agreed, ‘but I think, as far as the people here are concerned, this is the only match on the course.’

‘The only game in town,’ Daventry said enigmatically.

‘Eh?’

‘Solitaire. You know the old song?’

‘Sing it for us then, Rowland.’

‘I’ll sing it for you later. In the bar. After we’ve had a wee drink. A few wee drams.’ Blood all over Scotland came to the boil as Daventry went into his terrible faux-Glaswegian accent.

Meanwhile, down in the crowd, Gary’s gallery could not believe their good fortune. ‘Aww God, hen,’ Cathy said to
April, ‘ah cannae believe he’s playing so well with all these folk watching, so ah cannae.’

‘I know,’ April said. She was beginning, for the first time, to allow herself to believe that he could win. Although, watching from a distance of nearly a hundred yards, she was worried about him. Apart from when he was actually swinging the club his mouth was now constantly in motion.

Ranta was watching Gary–taking a few lazy practice swings with his pitching wedge now–with the pure current unique to the inveterate gambler crackling through his veins. He was making calculations. If he won the fucking thing? At the odds Ranta had got? He’d be taking Frank and maybe Big Benny with him when he went to collect his winnings, that was for fucking sure. ‘Come tae fuck, son,’ Ranta whispered as Gary assumed his stance.

Pauline was making calculations too. The winner’s cheque, plus the endorsements, plus the appearance fees, plus the book deals, advertising…although she was worried about the constant, demented mantra he seemed to be emitting. How long could she put up with that? Well, she reasoned, it only takes money to make money. A couple of million well invested? You could probably double it in a few years. She could live with some swearing, gibbering lunatic for a few years. Maybe it wouldn’t be too…

She broke out of her reverie as the crowd gasped and craned her neck to try and follow the ball. A moment where it was invisible, white lost against white somewhere high in the air, then–whump! There it was, bouncing slap in the middle of the green again as the crowd went bananas, everyone cheering and jumping up and down, thousands of Scottish voices singing ‘here we go here we go here we go’ as Gary waved shyly, wiping his clubhead against the sole
of his shoe as he continued to mutter whatever he was muttering.

Pauline found herself hugging Cathy, April even, all of them laughing and jumping up and down. ‘Go on, son!’ Cathy shouted as they started trying to move off, their little group being sucked along in the slipstream of the great crowd. Suddenly Pauline felt a sharp tugging at her sleeve. She spun round and found herself eyeball to eyeball with Findlay Masterson. His face was scratched, his shirt was ripped and he had sand in his hair. Even though his jaws were clamped so ferociously together that it looked like his teeth might explode in a glassy shower, Pauline could smell the whisky on his breath.

He looked deranged.

‘Fin—’ she began.

H
E’D STORMED OUT OF THE HOUSE–TELLING
L
EANNE
he had to go into the office–and driven straight to the Hospitality Inn, scene of so many pleasantly obscene memories. He started on the pints of heavy, his rage increasing as he leafed through the complimentary Sunday papers spread out on one of the coffee tables.

Gary, Pauline, Gary’s mum, Pauline, Gary.

He upgraded to single malt as the barman turned the TV on and together they watched the coverage from Troon: the enormous crowds, Calvin Linklater and Pauline’s fucking husband. ‘No real, eh?’ the barman said pleasantly. ‘The boy lives just round the corner.’

‘Aye,’ Masterson said, gagging as he knocked back his double and signalled for another.

The whisky was still burning in his throat when he peeled out of the car park and pointed the nose of the Mercedes towards Troon.

By this time the whole town was basically an NCP and the
closest he could get was the seaside hamlet of Barassie, a few miles along the coast. He parked there and–pausing only to pick up a four-pack of vagrant-strength lager from a newsagent’s–walked furiously back into Troon, drinking all the way.

On arrival at the golf course he was told very politely that the course was filled to capacity and no further admissions were possible. Masterson produced his wallet and offered the clown on the gate one hundred pounds in cash. When this was declined he increased it to five hundred. This too was declined. Masterson unbuckled his Rolex and added it to the negotiations. He used the expression ‘come tae fuck, ya cunt’.

Realising that alcohol rather than golf fanaticism was at work here, the clown called over two security guards and a few seconds later Masterson was trudging away from the course back towards Barassie. After paying another visit to the same newsagent’s he found himself stumbling along the beach, uncapping another golden tube of loony soup and finding that they were starting to go down surprisingly well. He discarded his jacket, basking in the hot sun as he slouched through the sand towards the golf course once more. He was certainly feeling no pain when he scrambled up through the high dunes, cutting his face and hands on the sharp-edged, clawing grass. Very little pain as he crawled under the barbed-wire fence separating the course from the beach, ripping his shirt open in the process and finally stumbling hiccuping onto the outer perimeter of the course.

Masterson had now walked nearly ten miles in the summer heat while consuming roughly thirty-two units of alcohol.

Thankfully the press of the crowd was so great that Pauline and Masterson were quickly yards away from everyone else, over by some gorse bushes, off the heaving pathway.

‘Fin—’ Pauline tried again.

‘Shut it, ya fucking hoor,’ Masterson said, cutting her off. ‘So this is yer fucking game, is it? The minute ye think he might be ontae the big time suddenly he’s no such a bad deal and auld muggins here can get himself tae fuck, eh? Eh, ya fucking boot, ye?’ Masterson had only ever put a little money between himself and the animal that grew up on Wilton Terrace. It had just taken a few drinks and the right circumstances for the animal to come snarling back.

‘Please keep your voice down!’ Pauline hissed. Everyone passing by was looking at the dishevelled, drunken madman shouting at the attractive, well-dressed woman. ‘It’s not like that at all.’

‘Oh aye, whit’s it fucking like then?’

‘I just thought…’ Pauline said, thinking, whispering now, ‘if he won, I might, um, get some of it in the divorce. For us.’

‘Oh aye?’

‘Yes.’

Masterson thought for a minute. Or rather, lager-spangled voices shouted at each other in his head for a minute. Finally he spoke.

‘YOU’RE A LYING FUCKING HOOR!’ he screamed, spraying beery flecks of saliva all over her. ‘AFTER WHIT A WIS GAUNY DAE FUR YOU! FOR US! I–’

Pauline slapped him.

It took Masterson a couple of seconds to fully register this outrage, but, when he had, he grabbed her by the lapels and reared back to headbutt Pauline in the face.

Someone grabbed his hair from behind, stopping his forehead from beginning its forward-and-down trajectory, and suddenly a face was very close to his. ‘Findlay,’ a voice said quietly in his ear as the fist gripped the hair at the nape of his neck harder, ‘there’s no need for this now, is there?’