Miracle at Augusta by James Patterson Read Free Book Online Page A

standings, and minutiae, and just when I think I’ve extracted every last bit of infotainment from these four pages of newsprint, I stumble on half a dozen paragraph-sized morsels herded under “Briefs.” The headline for the golf item reads: CADDIES INJURED IN CRASH.
    Two regular caddies on the Senior Tour were injured yesterday afternoon on Route 75 ten miles outside of Tampa, Florida, when their van swerved to avoid a deer. GW Cable of Sarasota, Florida, was treated for a concussion and held overnight and Brandon Fielder of Monroe, North Carolina, was treated for a broken arm and released.
    The news that Earl is without a caddy jolts me upright. Suddenly restless, I get up and wash out the saucepan Noah used to make the hot chocolate and place it in the drying rack. Outside the kitchen window a black squirrel clings to the top of the bird feeder. Hanging upside down, he struggles to extract a couple of seeds, an athletic challenge with more at stake than any of those I read about.
    As the bird feeder swings back and forth, I recall the fateful day when Earl and I were paired in the second round of Q-School, and how my immediate comfort with him helped me through the round. Then I think of our even more important meeting four days later, after I squeaked through and he fell just short, when he volunteered to carry my bag for my rookie season.
    If the situation had been reversed, and he had gotten through and I had narrowly missed out, would I have even considered making him the same offer? I know the answer, but why not? Earl is single, with a pension and an impressive stock portfolio, so I would have needed a job more than him. Is it because I’m a snob who considers caddying beneath him? And is part of that snobbism based on race? More likely, it’s because I would have been sulking too much to think objectively.
    What I would or might have done years ago is interesting, at least to me. The more pressing question is what am I going to do now? Before I have a chance to chicken out, I grab the phone and call Earl.

21
    THREE DAYS LATER, WEARING a white bib with FIELDER pinned to the back, I’m standing like a statue behind the first tee of the Longboat Key Club & Resort, site of the Greater Sarasota Intellinet Challenge. Although my only immediate responsibility is to make sure Earl’s bag doesn’t topple over in the middle of his backswing, I’m more nervous than if I were the one teeing it up, and as Earl takes his practice swings, I thumb the corner of the index card in my back pocket like a security blanket.
    Due to the blizzard, I couldn’t get a flight out of Chicago till this morning and didn’t screech into the parking lot till forty minutes ago. That was barely enough time to fill out that index card with the distances Earl hits all his clubs and grab a yardage book, and as Earl settles behind the ball, I tap them both again to make sure they’re still there. Then Earl pipes his drive down the center, and I hoist his bag over my right shoulder and hustle after him.
    The lack of time to prepare certainly contributes to my agitation. A bigger factor is Earl’s reaction when I volunteered my services. Let’s just say he didn’t jump at the offer. After ten seconds of awkward silence, the best he could come up with was “You sure you want to do this? The bag’s pretty heavy.”
    “I know,” I said. “I just carried mine down to the basement.”
    “Imagine what it will feel like after six miles.”
    “You didn’t have any trouble.”
    “Yeah. Well, I’m not you.”
    That night at dinner, Sarah and Noah were just as skeptical about my suitability for hard anonymous labor. An informal poll of best friend and family yielded the unflattering consensus that I was too much of a pussy and too much of a prima donna to happily hump a forty-pound bag with another man’s name on it.
    I don’t say a word as I escort Earl down a tight fairway lined with modest houses and screened-in swimming pools. Pacing