Shooting His Age

The call from baldwin came late, after 10 p.m., and he was asking if i

wanted to join him for golf early the next morning.

"I'm not much on golf," I said, which is shorthand for: I play rarely, if ever, and when I do I don't really enjoy it. And besides that, I'm pretty awful.

"Yeah, I know," Baldwin said. "But here's the deal."

The deal was that Baldwin had put together a foursome, but one of the group, a man named Horace, had, well, died. That very afternoon. He was 82.

The other part of the deal: It was Baldwin's father's birthday. His name is Charles, but everyone calls him C.B. He used to own a hardware store, and it still shows in him. He knows a little something about everything. Go to him with a problem and he can generally figure out a way to fix it. He is, as they say, good people.

"C.B.'s turning 89 tomorrow," said Baldwin. "And he thinks he's finally going to shoot his age."

"I'll be there," I said.

Tee off was at 7:15 a.m., and they were waiting for me when I arrived, taking practice on the putting green. The other player in our foursome, Baldwin's son, Rick, had played golf in college on a scholarship and toyed briefly with the idea of going pro until a ripped rotator cuff did him in. But he still plays a lot of golf. And he's good.

"You're slumming today, huh?" I said.

"Yeah," Rick grinned. "I just want to witness C.B. do the mighty deed."

"And I damn sure intend to do it," said C.B.

"Last year, on your birthday, you shot a 92," said Baldwin. "You think you're three strokes better this year, Dad?"

"Why don't you stop talking and let's play golf," C.B. said.

Things went about the way I expected, meaning I played my typical game and the Baldwin trio played theirs-and they were fairly gracious about it.

"Horace would give you a run for your money today," said C.B. "And he's dead."

We laughed in the way you can laugh about those things and still respect the recently departed. C.B. and Horace had played just a few weeks earlier, on Horace's 82nd birthday.

"Horace shot an even hundred," C.B. said. "He found that encouraging."

"What, like he'd one day shoot his age?" said Baldwin.

"Yeah, something like that," said C.B. "He wasn't getting any worse. Not his golf game anyway."

We were coming down the back nine then and no one wanted to talk about it for fear of a jinx, but C.B. was sitting on a 45, playing strong and looking like he just might do it. The rest of us, well, it doesn't matter, particularly not my score. Let's just say Horace was showing me up that day.

The 18th was a par 4, and C.B. could bogey it and still make 89. I was watching Baldwin and Rick. They weren't on their knees, their eyes weren't closed and their hands weren't folded, but I knew they were praying. Man, if C.B. could somehow pull this off, wouldn't that be glorious?

It all came down to the last shot-a 12-foot putt.

C.B. lined it up. He stood over the ball. He gave it a tap. And it was the most breathless golf moment of my life, watching that ball roll straight toward the cup, then edging the lip and stopping two feet past it.

Rick hung his head. Baldwin turned away, pretending he hadn't seen it. He said, "When're you gonna shoot, Dad?" The subtext being: Take a Mulligan.

But C.B. was smiling. He knows a little something about everything. He tapped in the ball and took his 90.

"Wait 'til next year," he said.

Bob Morris' Bahamarama was a finalist for the 2005 Edgar Allan Poe Award for best mystery novel.