Amateur Hour
By Matthew Stevenson

LACONNEX, SWITZERLAND--When I moved to Europe in 1991, I worked for a company that for many years sponsored a professional-amateur golf tournament for charitable causes. This grand tour, with me in tow, visited such hallowed ground as Gleneagles in Scotland and Deauville in Normandy. Although many of my drives remind me of a remark that followed one of Garrison Keillor's tee shots, "That'll teach them not to bring their Cadillacs," I have sometimes found myself in a famous foursome. Several years ago I played with Masters and British Open champion Mark O'Meara, who has the same soft touch with strangers that he has around the green. He was more a caddie than a pro to his amateur partners. He lined up our putts, searched the rough for our errant drives, and hit his own shots seemingly as an afterthought. Only back in the clubhouse did any of us realize that he had shot a course-record 64.

I learned golf as a nine-year-old from the grandfather of my friend Nick Seamon. We honed our game at various Long Island public courses where those who filled out the foursome tucked tees and unfiltered cigarettes behind their ears. When asked today where I play most of my golf, I still answer "Christopher Morley," where a bad approach on the first hole rolls toward the Long Island Expressway.

My clubs were a mixed bag, and I'd never bought a proper set by the time I let my golf go fallow after college. At my first few pro-ams, I played with clubs cadged from pliant caddie masters. I showed up at my third pro-am with a set plucked from the rack at Wholesale Depot in Bangor, Maine. Ever the gentleman, O'Meara greeted me on the practice tee. "I see you have new clubs," he said cheerfully, too polite to add, "I thought Rawlings only made baseball gloves." Certain that my problems off the tee, in this age of titanium, related to the weakness of my capital expenditure program, I handed O'Meara my discount-house driver and then watched a half-dozen range balls disappear over the Scottish horizon, a feat of arms that would undoubtedly dampen the spirit of any Callaway salesman.

One consequence of playing with pros is that many feel obligated to correct my swing, much as before Sunday school my mother would fuss with my necktie or paste down my hair. I use the stance of O'Meara, the backswing of Brian Gunson, the putting stroke of Bill Rogers, and the follow-through of Peter Townsend--much as I once put together a Little League swing from scrutinizing those of Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams. Under such influence, I should have a stroke as seamless as the disciples of the Dutch masters. But during most rounds my head swims with advice about the position of my shoulders, hips, and hands. By the back nine I feel like I'm back in dancing class, trying to learn the fox-trot with sweaty palms.

My other favorite professionals include Steve Elkington and Mark Calcavecchia. An Australian, Elkington accomplishes with golf clubs what Crocodile Dundee did with his boomerang--with equal charm, grace, and humor. The only problem in playing with Elkington is that he comes with a gallery. After we were announced on a loudspeaker at the first tee in Normandy, I felt as if I was lining up my drive in front of the Million Man March. That probably explains why my shot barely carried the women's tee.

Calcavecchia, the winner of the 1989 British Open, is like a character from a Henry James novel, bringing American insouciance to a game that often feels as confining as an English drawing room. The first year I played with him in Bordeaux, his luggage had been lost by Air France. Unfazed, he played in sneakers and with borrowed clubs, scoring under par. The next year we were in the same foursome. I had not played at any time in between, so my best "shot" of the day was to observe that while I do not play a lot of golf, when I do, at least it's with Mark Calcavecchia.


Matthew Stevenson's Mentioned in Dispatches: The Travel Essays of an Expatriate American contains much more along this line.