Free Miracle at Augusta by James Patterson Page A

was doing you a favor,” says Earl. “I was wrong. You lit a fire under my ass. I had four birdies on the back nine! At Shoal Creek! On a Sunday! When was the last time you saw me do that? Never. I don’t go that low at my muni back home. I couldn’t have done that without you.”
    “Or Owl,” I say.
    “Yeah, let’s not forget Owl all of a sudden,” says Stump, hoisting his mug.
    “When you told me to get the fucking ball to the hole on twelve, that was beautiful. Exactly what I needed to hear. And the best part about eighteen is there’s no scar tissue…because I can blame it entirely on you.”
    “Wonderful.”
    “It really is,” says Earl.
    “You know what we need?” says Stump, digging a couple of quarters out of his pocket. “Music.” He walks to the jukebox, and before he gets back, the unmistakable sound of Hendrix’s guitar pours out.
    “I wouldn’t have thought a redneck like you had any use for Jimi,” says Earl.
    “There’s a lot about me you don’t know, son.”
    “I guess so.”
    “For example, you probably didn’t know I can sing. You’re looking at the five-time karaoke champion at the Frog Tavern in Macon, Georgia.”
    And he can. When Hendrix starts to sing, Stump, clenching his Pabst like a mike, is right there with him, shamelessly adding extra syllables to one-vowel words, like sun and shine, in the time-honored rock star tradition.
    IF THE SUHUNNNNN REFUSED TO SHINNNNNNNE
    I DON’T MIND.
    “Stump, you motherfucking bucket of shit,” I say.

32
    “WHAT NOW, TRAVIS?” ASKS Sarah two days later at breakfast. “Any plans?”
    “Sarah, I’ve been out of work eight minutes, less if you consider I worked the weekend.”
    “I know. But we love you and want to keep you out of trouble, so we’re just wondering, like I said, if you had any plans?”
    “As a matter of fact, I was thinking about it on the flight back, that is when I wasn’t seeing Earl’s Bridgestone dive into that pond. No disrespect to Jack, but it’s kind of a cliché to put water in front of the last green, don’t you think?”
    Sarah makes a circular motion with her index finger.
    “I thought I’d spend a week practicing, then fly back down to Florida and play a couple of events on one of the mini-tours not under the auspices of the PGA. The courses are dog tracks and the prize money worse, but the best players are at least as good as the seniors, and if nothing else, it will give me an idea of what I need to work on. When I’m back, I figure I’ll write a long, heartfelt letter to my pal Finchem and try to convince him that I’ve been rehabilitated. I’ll explain that caddying for Earl and slumming on the mini-tours have given me time to take a long, hard look at myself. If he buys it, he may knock a couple of months off my suspension.”
    “Sounds very reasonable, Travis.”
    “You seem surprised.”
    “Not at all.”
    “And how about you, Noah? Does this meet with your approval?”
    “Absolutely,” says the kindergartner as he shovels Cheerios into his mouth.
    “Good. Because those are my plans, at least my medium-range ones. Short-term, I’m taking Louie for a walk.”

33
    OUTSIDE, IT’S STILL SUBURBAN Chicago. Still February. Still cold as hell. Although there hasn’t been another snowfall, the old snow hasn’t gone anywhere, and after lying around for two weeks, it’s not nearly as picturesque.
    Louie, who has a coat like a woolly mammoth, is undaunted by the chill and as relieved to be out of the kitchen as me. Spewing steam from both nostrils, he struts up the block like a cop walking his beat. As he writes tickets in yellow script to potential interlopers, school buses pick up students and commuters stride purposefully to their cars, and even if it has only been eight minutes, their well-dressed haste makes me feel underemployed.
    With nothing beckoning except my frigid stall at Big Oaks, I give Louie the reins and encourage him to take his sweet time. Straying beyond our