The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield Read Free Book Online Page B

landing area on each driving hole, one to the right of the fairway, one to the left. We were to follow each ball in flight and, should it land in any place where it wasn’t immediately visible, in the heathery rough or beyond among the duneland, plant our flag right beside it—white if the ball was in bounds, red if out. Another pair of boys were stationed around the green to mark any wayward approaches, while the second quartet, to avoid getting gummed up in the galleries, moved on ahead and took up positions at the next hole.
    The result was the most exquisite torture a golf-mad boy could be forced to endure. I could see Hagen, see Jones, see Junah, but only as miniature figures 275 yards distant, indistinguishable one from another until they swung, and most of the time virtually invisible in their white shirts and light-colored plusfours against the background of the gallery in identical attire. You could see a player swing, recognize Hagen by his lurching motion or Jones by his slow, stately tempo; then all your focus had to switch to the ball, which you were obliged to scamper under, tracking it like some relentless outfielder till it hit and rolled safely to rest in the officials’ view. That was all you could see or were allowed to see. You couldn’t see the players’ faces, couldn’t see their swings nor their grips, their footwork, their rhythm. You couldn’t hear the jokes they cracked or watch the emotions play across their faces. As soon as you staked your flag and made certain that the marshals had the balls’ positions clearly in view, you were obliged to scoot away, not even to the green where you might still catch a glimpse of the excitement, but an entire hole ahead.
    To make the ordeal even more painful, it was clear that players and gallery were having great fun. The competitors all hit more than one ball, sometimes two and three off each tee, drawing and fading. We forecaddies could look back from a hole ahead and see Jones dropping a ball in the rough for practice to get the feel of the grass, drop another fifty yards behind his drive to rip a long iron into a green and see how it held, or drop two or three close in for niblick pitches and run-ups. They all hit practice shots from fairway bunkers and around the greens chipped from two or three angles. From the deep distance I could see them putting, three or four balls from various levels on the greens, at all probable pin positions. For one stretch of three holes, the eighth through the tenth, Hagen played on ahead, alone, taking just Spec Hammond his caddie and his gallery. Hehad us running crazy with our flags because he, apparently deliberately, was hitting his drives into trouble, left and right, just to practice playing out. I lost track of Junah and Jones entirely, and when Hagen rejoined the group at the eleventh, Junah was gone.
    What catastrophe had struck now?
    I peered back down the fairways to see if Junah had dropped a hole or two behind to practice alone. Had he pulled a muscle? Cut his hand? Where was he? Had he dropped out completely?
    When we got in, near sunset, I found Garland and learned that Junah had returned to the practice area after the turn, hit a handful of desultory pitches and sand shots, then departed without explanation, with Bagger Vance driving the Chalmers, for home.
    I was getting frantic. I had no idea what private darkness Junah was struggling with, but the image of his face two nights ago in the slave kitchen, that bright desperate smile over his whiskey, and then the blank despair on his features this afternoon made my blood run cold. In some unspoken way, I had identified my own fate with Junah’s. He was my champion as well as Savannah’s. The thought of some desperate debacle, some ghastly mind-driven collapse before the world’s eyes, was so awful I couldn’t bear even to contemplate it. And yet I felt it coming. Sensed it in my bones, even if I had no idea why or from where.
    It was evening now; the