Amen Corner by Rick Shefchik Read Free Book Online

the short-game practice range to the cabins left of the 10th hole. Sam was curious, but whatever was happening, he figured he’d find out soon enough.
    He was directed to turn right at the clubhouse, and followed the driveway around the west practice range to the unpaved player’s parking lot. As he got out of the car, he was greeted by a valet who took the keys to the Taurus, loaded Sam’s clubs and travel bags onto a golf cart, and handed him another set of car keys.
    â€œThese are for your courtesy car,” the valet said. “It’s the first one in that row.”
    He pointed to a row of identical white Cadillac STS sedans.
    The young man, whose green name badge identified him as Darrell, said he’d drop Sam at the registration desk, take his clubs to the bag room, and have his luggage sent up to the Crow’s Nest.
    â€œWhat’s with all the cops?” Sam asked Darrell as he was putting the clubs on the golf cart.
    â€œAll I know is one of the guys on the grounds crew came running up the 10th fairway this morning just after sunup and went straight into the clubhouse,” Darrell said. “Then we started hearing sirens. Something happened down by Amen Corner, I guess.”
    Darrell drove Sam down the tree-shaded lane to the tournament headquarters building, a green, two-story wooden house that doubled as the club’s administration building. Another squad car drove down Magnolia Lane to the Founders Circle, followed by the kind of vehicle Sam had seen too many times—a hearse from the county medical examiner’s office.
    At the tournament headquarters building Sam handed his player’s badge to one of the attendants, a young woman who welcomed him to the club and located his registration packet. She handed him his player I.D. badge—number 55, the same number that would appear on his caddie’s uniform.
    â€œYour accommodations are ready in the Crow’s Nest,” the young woman.
    Sam walked up the sidewalk to the main clubhouse entrance, shaded by a green-and-white striped awning. The lobby area was surprisingly simple and unpretentious, with creaky floorboards and a front desk and switchboard where members could check into their rooms, pick up the day’s newspapers, or buy a cigar. Sam could feel the layers of history in the 150-year-old building as he looked at the portraits of the founding members that lined the wall of the winding staircase that led to the second floor. Each face seemed to convey the same message: This isn’t just another PGA Tour stop, pal—or, as a former Augusta chairman had famously and derisively said, “We will never be the Pizza Hut Masters.”
    On the second floor, Sam found a guard standing in front of a room labeled Masters Club Room—Private. The door swung open, and Tiger Woods walked out, giving Sam a slight smile as he went by. Sam smiled back and nodded. Just a couple of Masters participants exchanging regards.
    â€œThis is the champions’ locker room,” the guard informed him. Sam nodded as though he’d known that all along.
    â€œI’m looking for the Crow’s Nest.”
    The guard told him to walk through the library next door and follow the narrow hallway to the right. He’d find the stairway up to the Crow’s Nest.
    Sam climbed to the top of the stairs and entered the 30-by-40-foot room, bathed in sunlight that poured through the windows of the 11-foot-square cupola overhead. Cream-colored wood paneling partitioned the room into four sleeping cubicles. The open common area had a card table and four wooden chairs, a leather couch, a garish plaid-patterned armchair, a telephone and lamp on an end table, and a small TV sitting on a stand next to the closets. There was plenty of reading material; the club had placed books on golf history around the room and lined the walls with photos and sketches from the Masters. Off to the side was a full bathroom to be shared