The Real Victor Was a Cool Ole Killer

Whhhhaaaack! "The trouble with the tour today (Whhhhaaaack!) is that there's just too many goddamn (Whhhhaaaack!) kids out here who cannot play. They come out of college (Whhhhaaaack!) and because they can shoot 70 on a golf course, they think they can play. (Whhhhaaaack!) Hell, half of 'em can't beat Tom Thumb with a gun. (Whhhhaaaack! Whhhhaaaack!) We got about about a hundred of those." Whhhhaaaack! Whhhhaaaack! Whhhhaaaack!

As I watched Dave Hill stroke seven-irons off the Pleasant Valley Country Club practice tee, his words of two days earlier ran through my mind. Most pro golfers are, in the end, Southern, inarticulate and super-straight. But Hill, a wiry Coloradoan who downs three beers and two packs of cigarettes per tournament round, is something of an exception. Very rarely does he mince words about why he plays ("I need the money--I gotta pay that fuckin' alimony") or what he thinks about the places at which he plays ("They must have had a goddaman artist out there with a lawn mower," he said of Pleasant Valley. "The fairways are eleven or twelve yards narrower than the ones we play in the U.S. Open, and on some holes, the rough is drawn right out into the landing area.")

On Friday afternoon, I had caught Hill and Charlie Sifford, the first black to play on the Professional Golf Association (PGA) tour, for an interview about racism on the tour and the heavy-handedness of the PGA bureaucracy. "All the black players out here owe everything to Charlie--he used to have to eat in the kitchen and change his shoes with the caddies," Hill had said. "But I've gotten to the point where I don't even bother to complain about all the shit out there anymore. Nothing ever gets changed. The PGA just does things the way they want to. The players' association is about as powerful as four mosquitoes on an elephant. The commissioner can overrule anything that's decided upon. I don't even vote anymore, that's what I think about the effectiveness of the players' association."

Five years ago, I had been well on my way to becoming one more of the tour's 70-shooters who "can't beat Tom Thumb with a gun," when the racism and elitism that pervades the (white) gentleman's game of golf--then thrown into stark relief by the politics of the day--had become too much to endure. Caught up in the spirit of the times, I denounced the "isms" of golf, and sold my clubs for two ounces of marijuana. "Coming back" to cover the $200,000 Pleasant Valley Classic, Massachusett's only major PGA event, had been a vindicating (and, to some extent, a vindictive) experience: my assignment had been to write the "Ball, Fore!" of professional golf. Hill's remarks would go a long way toward filling that assignment--and a long way toward expressing my own feelings about the game.

As I continued to muse about the tour, a stubby black caddie with a pot-belly big enough to hold fifty practice balls lumbered over from the putting green. He was wearing one of the insufferably hot powder blue jump suits that are mandatory for caddies at Pleasant Valley, a white Houston Open golf cap, and, beneath his cap, a blue and white polka-dotted scarf that gave him a sort of piratical appearance. He looked at me rather suspiciously for a moment, then introduced himself as "Killer," and told me he remembered caddying for me back in Houston when I was about "this high."

"I never thought you would a growed up to be a press man when you was a little bitty boy," Killer said. There was an understandable amount of disappointment in his voice. Most of the reporters who cover pro golf are fat old schlock-slingers who never venture out of the press tent save for a beer or a trip to the bathroom; their contact with the players is usually limited to the mass interviews held after each round, with the players saying such fascinating things as "Well, I played pretty good. I could a done better, but I played pretty good," and the press men peering over the half-moon glasses on the ends of their noses asking equally intriguing questions like, "How'd the driving go today?" and "Was your putter working?" Killer seemed saddened by the thought that I was now a part of that crowd. I asked him whose bag he was carrying in the tournament.

"Regalado," he replied.

"Who?"

"Victor," Killer said emphatically. "We gonna win, too."

I had to laugh. Tour caddies have a habit of using the royal "we," and a constant presumption that "we" will win every tournament.

"I'm tellin ya, now," Killer insisted, and moved back toward the putting green.

A lot of the Big Name players--Palmer, Player, Nicklaus, Casper, Trevino--had bypassed the Pleasant Valley Classic, either because they thought the course's super-narrow fairways were an unfair test or because they wanted to tune their games for the up-coming PGA Championship. Johnny Miller, former U.S. Open and British Open Champion Tony Jacklin, and tour veteran Grier Jones had withdrawn from the tournament for a variety of dissimilar reasons, while such stars as Bert Yancey, Frank Beard and Bob Goalby had failed to make the 36-hole cut of 148 (six over par on the 7305-yard, par 71 Pleasant Valley course). Even so, the chances of Killer's man Victor Whatchamacallit winning the tournament seemed pretty slim on Sunday morning as the players were warming up for the final round.

Dave Hill, who was leading after three rounds at a spectacular eight under par, seemed to be running away with the tournament. Two shots back, tied for second, were two men who epitomize the drab, jockish, predictable touring pro: Tom Weiskopf, the close-cropped, 6 ft. 3 in. Mr. All-American Boy who walks around as if there were a one-iron shoved up his ass; and Jim Weichers, a 6 ft. 2 in., 220 lb. midriff-bulging country bumpkin type, who lets his tongue hang out when he swings a golf club. Hill had to win out over those two clowns, and I had to beat the fat old schlock-slingers who never left the press tent with some real, live first-person coverage of the final round.

Still, as much as I liked Hill. I couldn't gamble all my reportorial shots on following his play alone. Both Weiskopf, who was playing in the group ahead of Hill's and Weichers, who was playing with Hill, were capable of taking over the lead at any time. I had to select one or two key holes that would provide the crucial action. The 15th, 16th, and 17th, were all clubhouse holes, and by the time the last threesome would be coming through, the greens would be mobbed with over 30,000 sweating, screaming, beer-swigging Massachusetts sports fans, seasoned tough by fearful battles for hockey seats in Boston Garden. It would be nearly impossible to move in that crowd.

That left the 17th, a 441-yard par 4. It was a treacherous hole. The tee was set back in a funnel of trees overlooking a narrow creek. About 200 yards out, the hole began a deceptively sharp 75-degree dogleg right toward a 2800-square-foot green. There was deep rough and a line of thick trees on both sides of the fairway, and in front of the green there was a gaping pond that had already served as an unwelcome commode for the balls and dreams of more than a few players in the Pleasant Valley field. The 17th was a perfect test. And an easy gallery hole. There were two high, relatively bare slopes--one near the tee shot landing area, the other in front and to the left of the green--that allowed spectators to view nearly the entire hole. Since the best spots were furthest up the slopes, it would probably be easy to move along the fairways and around the greens.

I stumbled frantically down the sloping rough to the left of the par-3 16th, through teeming mobs of Ban-Lon, Bermuda, cotton, Rayon double-knit and polyester, past the suspicious tournament marshals with the bright red shirts and the white styrofoam pith helmets, and on up to the place from which the players and their caddies had to exit the 17th green. "The man who leaves this green with the lowest score is gonna win the tournament," I said to a red-faced, red-eyed young man with a potbelly and glasses and a Budweiser flop hat who was sitting beneath the ropes.

"No shit," he replied. "That's why we been sittin' here all day."

What seemed like only moments later, a light rain was falling and Weiskopf, one-iron snugly in place, was walking onto the putting surface amidst thunderous applause and a smattering of boos. He had just placed a rather routine iron shot to the right center of the green, about 25 feet short of the pin. Included in his group were Lee Elder, one of the few black hopes on the PGA tour, and none other than Killer and his man, Regalado. Elder had played his second shot from the fairway, and had wound up about 20 feet past the flag. Regalado, meanwhile, had hit his second from a portion of steeply banked rough near the first gallery slope, bouncing his ball over the green into the semi-rough of the apron. Strangely enough, the crowd seemed to be cheering for him as well as for Weiskopf and Elder. It must have been because of his second shot from the rough.

"I never thought you would a growed up to be a press man when you was a little bitty boy," Killer said again as he brought Regalado's bag around to the back of the green.

Meanwhile, Regalado, a husky Mexican in his middle twenties, was grimly surveying his chip shot, moving in quick, graceful steps, like a matador inspecting a bullfighting arena. Then he pulled out an 8-iron and chipped his ball about six feet past the pin. He slapped his thigh in anger.

"Tough day, huh?" I whispered to killer.

"What you mean tough?" he said. "If we make that putt we'll still be leadin' the tournament."

Incredibly enough, Killer might have been right. The portable scoreboard read WEISKOPF -3, ELDER - 1, and REGALADO -5! Somewhere along the way, Killer and his man had picked up two shots on par and three shots on Weiskopf. Still Weichers or Hill could easily be even with or ahead of Regalado. And the young Mexican still had a tricky putt for a par. It seemed doubtful he would lead for long, if in fact he was leading now.

Then Weiskopf snaked in his birdie to go four under. The gallery erupted, and Weiskopf gestured "charge" with his left fist clenched. The one-iron seemed to shove itself even farther up his ass.

Elder left his birdie putt short and to the low side of the cup, collapsing and grimacing as if the ball had really had a chance of going in.

Now the pressure was on Regalado. If he missed, he would have to fight Weiskopf--and maybe Weichers and Hill--shot for shot on the 18th. I was so close I could see the ants crawling madly around the dimples of his golf ball and the beads of sweat dripping from Killer's temples as he helped line up the putt. Regalado double-checked the grain of the green for a third and final time, then stroked his ball smoothly into the back of the cup. Once again, the crowd erupted. But this time it was Regalado who was gesturing "charge." Killer scooped up his bag, and headed for the 18th green. "We gonna win," he called back at me. "I'm tellin ya, now."

I wasn't convinced until much later in the press tent with Regalado babbling in pigeon English, "I was laakee. I potted. I was laakee," and the rain pouring down harder and harder, and the pot-bellied old schlock-slingers who had never left the press tent desperately trying to find out just who the hell he was and what the hell he was saying when he lapsed into Spanish, and Killer taking full credit for winning the tournament.

"I told him every club to hit every day, and kept talkin to him all the time--you gotta talk to him or he goes loco," Killer was saying. "The 17th was the crucial one. We went off the tee with a four-wood--it's really a two-iron shot, but Victor can't hit a two-iron--then we went with a little seven iron from 160 yards out on the slope. I knew when we made that six-footer for par we were all right. But we had to go with a driver off the tee at 18 because Weiskopf was only one shot back, and could turn around and birdie the hole on us."

Which is, in fact, what Weiskopf did--but only after Regalado had himself birdied the par five finishing hole to wind up at six under par. Hill, meanwhile had blown four shots to par in the first ten holes, and could only watch glumly from the front edge of the 18th green as Regalado and Weiskopf holed their birdies to cut him out of first and second place.

Of course, I had seen little of all this, having waited hopefully on the 17th green for Hill's threesome to come through. When Hill missed a birdie putt that would have put him five under par, I had raced frantically up the 18th fairway, the rain soaking my notebook and ruining all my carefully recorded first-person observations into one another, trying desperately to get to the green in time to see the winning putt. It was no use. The putting surface was packed tight with belching, bellowing, beer-gutted golf fans who had parked their prodigious derrieres next to the sandtraps and choice sections of the apron for nearly five hours. They were not about to yield to the press.

I fought my way as close as I could, jumping up and down the back of an enormous Sumo wrestler type from Malden so I could at least catch an occasional, deodorized glimpse of the action as seen over the Sumo wrestler's armpits. By now, the situation had become impossible. The rain was falling even harder, and thousands of water-logged golf fans who had neither seen nor heard of Regalado 30 minutes earlier were cheering wildly, as if he had at last consummated Montezuma's revenge. My prediction had been correct: the 17th had been the decisive hole. But Killer had picked the winner--and he had salvaged my own personal victory over the schlock-slingers in the press tent by giving me his exclusive account of the action.

"I carried that bag good this week, I won it all for him," Killer kept saying as the rain poured down still harder, and Victor blithered on in pigeon English, and the fat old schlock-slingers drooled over the very schlock-up-able fact that he was going to give all his prize money (minus a cool $3000 for Killer) to his sixty-year-old grandmother in Chicago. Then two of the schlock-slingers brightened up to who Killer was, and started pumping him with questions. Finally, they got around to asking him his name.

"Killer," he replied.

"What's your real name?" insisted a schlock-slinger with tortoise shell half-moons.

"Sam, Sam Foy, F-O-Y."

"Well, you really killed 'em today, Sam," said the schlock-slinger.

That one was just too much, even for Killer.

"Yeah, yeah, I won it all for him, I told him everything to hit everyday," Killer said with an impatient groan. "But now I got to go."

And he did.