Chapter 35: In Advance of Your Time

It was just past six-thirty Friday morning when Murph, Dad, and I arrived at the clubhouse. I picked up my clubs and shoes from the locker room, surprised that dad had cleaned them before putting them away last night. Then headed for the practice tees. Even though the sun was barely up, the practice tees were brimming with people.

While we walked down the grass behind the practice tees, I nodded to several players I had met this week as well as several of the reporters and vloggers I had interviewed with. When we got to where Tim was warming up, we stopped to say good morning to Tim and Jeremiah.

“Did you see where your buddy WD’ed?” he asked. I knew he was referring to the trust fund baby.

“You’re kidding!” I said in surprise. “He really withdrew? I wonder why?”

“It didn’t say. Usually, if there’s an injury, they’d post that,” Tim supplied.

I just shrugged my shoulders and went about my warm up as usual. After almost two hours, Dad led me to the first hole. Tim, and his caddy, Jeremiah were already there along with a familiar face. Off to the side, sitting in a cart was Sam Peterson.

“Just ignore me today. I’m gonna ride along with your group to help keep an eye on your pace of play, since your partner withdrew unexpectedly,” he told us. I later learned this was not an un-common practice that the tour used to help pace-of-play.

It was a beautiful Kansas morning. The sky was clear and the winds practically non-existent. I found myself dropping into the zone and don’t remember a single shot that Tim took.

Tim must have been in a zone too. When we got to the turn, we both had 4 under 32’s. We still had the bottleneck wait to get on the tee box at Ten, so while we stood in the shade, Dad talked with Jeremiah. Sam had disappeared into the clubhouse.

Right as we were called for Ten, Sam returned with a reporter and cameraman who both climbed on his cart and followed us. Once more, I put them out of my mind and focused on my game. The course was quickly drying out and the winds had picked up which was normal in the summertime in Kansas. By the time we reached the Seventeenth hole, I was finding myself glad that we had played early. I ended up my round with a 35 on the back nine, for a second round total of 67 to go with the 66 from yesterday. That put me at 11 under for the tournament. Tim was just behind me with a 10 under for the tournament.

I waited on him at the scorer’s tent. The scorers would not say if we had made the cut. So, we walked over to the interview area together. I was surprised to find Paige McKenzie from the Golf Channel talking to Sam Peterson.

“So they were both hitting the ball well?” she asked him.

“Masters was hitting his tee shots out of this world and his accuracy was down-right uncanny. And Culpepper was not that far behind him. But I think that Tim’s experience around the green gave him a slight advantage, though,” Sam told her.

“Well, it’s early yet with only about a dozen scores posted so far. But Masters is currently atop the leaderboard with his 11 under, and Culpepper is sitting right behind him at 10 under. Do you think that these two young players can keep up that pace through the final two rounds?” she asked.

“Paige, I have followed Tim for a couple of years now, but I have never seen him hit it that long before. And I’ve played a couple of practice rounds with Alex. I knew he could boom ‘em. But today, it was almost like he was trying to prove he deserves to play on the PGA Tour and he was dragging Tim right along in his wake!”

“So you’re saying that they are ready for the PGA Tour” Paige followed up.

“Paige, you know that I always hesitate to offer my opinion on something like that. There are so many other factors that go into playing on the big tour besides hitting the ball long. There’s the travel, and the pressure, and the competition, and just the overall stress of grinding it out week after week.”

“But you think they have the talent?” Paige persisted. “You think they’re ready?”

“Hell, I haven’t seen either one of them play in the rain. Or in high winds, or even in the fog. I haven’t seen them play the links style course or any of the other types of courses they’ll face on the <PGA> tour. So I guess I’m saying that just like most of the golfers out here today, they just need a little more experience. I mean this is only Alex’s second tournament! And he playing as an amateur!”

Tim was up next with Paige and I was somewhat surprised when she just assumed that we had made the cut. I was even more surprised when Tim said that it was the best he had ever played on the Tour and gave me some of the credit for his better play.

When Paige got to me, the first thing she asked was how I was feeling and if there had been any residual effects from being struck by lightning. I immediately went on the defensive while at the same time admiring how cleverly she had disguised her question.

“I’m doing fine now, health-wise,” I told her. “As to lingering effects, I didn’t feel any out there today. We’ll just have to see how I play when there’s stormy weather!”

“How does it feel to be atop the leaderboard in just your second event?” she asked.

“Well, it’s not the first time. I actually led after the third round in The Bahamas,” I told her. “Still, it’s pretty awesome!”

“Well, I know you impressed a lot of people who didn’t know who you were before. Including Sam Patterson. He wouldn’t tell us you were ready for the big tour, though. Do you think you’re ready?”

“I think I’ve got a ways to go before I’m ready,” I told her. “Why don’t we wait a while to start talking about that.”