Caddy for Life Read Free

I had to be inside the pressroom writing at that hour. I hadn’t yet had a chance to see Bruce, and I knew he would be leaving soon since Watson had missed the cut.
    I walked around to the front of the clubhouse, where the caddies usually hang out, figuring he would go there to see his friends before leaving. I found him standing on the porch outside the locker room with Marsha. Bruce was fighting tears again. It had been just under twenty-two years since we had first met, but I wasn’t sure if this was a moment when I should leave him alone or go over to say hello. Bruce, as always, made it easy.
    “John,” he said, waving me over when he saw me. “I want you to meet Marsha.”
    He had the old smile on his face, even though his words were slurred and the tears were still on his cheeks. He hugged me, then introduced his wife to me. We joked about his speech for a moment—“You don’t sound a lot different than you sounded after about nine o’clock in the old days,” I said when he tried to apologize for the way he sounded. Then I turned serious for a minute.
    “You okay?” I asked.
    “Yeah,” he said. “Tired. We should have made the cut. Four-putted the sixth. That killed us.” He paused. “Next year we’ll win.”
    That started him crying again. I couldn’t think of anything clever or funny to say. Finally he looked at me and said, “You know, a number of people have suggested to me that I do a book about my life on the tour and with Tom.”
    I felt myself cringe inwardly. First, I was appalled that anyone would approach him about such a thing under the current circumstances. Second, I knew what was coming next. “I’d like to do it,” he continued. “But only if you write it.”
    Oh God, this was awkward. For about sixty seconds or so, I was in full, 100 percent selfish mode. I had just finished one book, which was about to be published, and I was working on another one. I had promised Mary, my wife, that I would take the summer off to spend some serious time with her and our two children. Plus, doing a book on Bruce would inevitably mean spending time with him as his health deterioriated. I was searching for a way out almost before he finished what he was saying.
    “Bruce, I’m unbelievably flattered,” I said—meaning it. “But, well, this is a tough time. I’ve got two books working and I promised my wife I’d take a break. But if you really want to do it, I can help you find someone who would do a really good job.” I was actually thinking at that moment of Kindred.
    The look on his face told me he knew a blow-off when he heard it. “I understand,” he said. “It’s not a problem.”
    If he had punched me in the stomach, I think I would have felt better than I did at that moment. In that instant, one thought ran through my mind:
You have to do this
. In the next, the entire book suddenly crystallized in my mind. It was a love story in three parts: Bruce and Watson, Bruce and the life on tour, and Bruce and this gutsy young woman standing next to him. “You know what,” I said. “I’ll figure something out. We can do this. Give me a few days to talk to my publisher.”
    Not surprisingly, he was confused by my complete turnaround. “Listen,” he said, “don’t do anything that will mess up your family.”
    It’s okay, I told him. I then explained the way I had just envisioned the book. His eyes lit up. Marsha then asked how old my children were, and we spent the next few minutes comparing notes on kids. “I’ll call you in a few days,” I said.
    “You sure?” he said.
    “I’m sure.”
    If I had any remaining doubts, they went away a few minutes later, when I called Mary. I expected her to remind me that the word
no
existed for a reason, that she understood why I would want to do the book but there were other people who could do it. Once I finished telling her the story, she said simply, “You have to do this.”
    And so I did. To say that there have been difficult