Caddycide

Looking back at the summer, a highlight – maybe The Highlight – was when I viewed the afterlife.

I went there.
A first.
I benched myself.
Caddycide.
A bit of pain.
Then a chance to watch from the ether.  

What happens when a caddy dies? The soul rises, bag still in tow. His player is someone he loves irretrievably. The round feels not so much eternal as timeless. No fatigue, each miss bringing a recovery with awareness and renewal for more strength.
 
Or. The soul sinks. Trudging through an endless 18 holes. Eternal in feeling, now eternal in reality. There is still bottomless love. And there exists the torture. Because the caddy is inept at halting his player’s tailspin. Grinding. Searching. Scrounging up hope for the next hole that’s eventually and perpetually dashed. Endlessly.

***

The California state tournament. Two rounds of 18 holes.

G had a tough first round. I was the inept pilot, worthless at bringing him out of his funky psychological dive, rifling through the manual for the page labeled A Wing is on Fawking Fire while the plane’s plunge floods blood to my head. It certainly tended towards a round at Hades Country Club. A grind. His game follows his mindset, and this was no different. He and I were both toast by the end. Another day of this was unimaginable, but waiting.

An hour later, my wife and I sit at a table in the hotel cafe/bar. Over the last couple of years, it’s become a ritual gathering of parents at this tournament to bask or lick wounds from the afternoon’s round in the Hilton bar, while the kids treat the hotel’s atrium, elevators, and balconies like a playground maze. (Apologies to Embassy Suites.) 

Sure, the state tournament – there were stakes. Yet, now with a first round of 12 over par, we sit, together, nothing to lose, desperate. Tomorrow, caddying again would dig a hole deeper, almost sadistically ingraining whatever the hell just happened for one more day.

We needed ideas. Can you caddy? I ask Jane. She’d once subbed before in a pinch, but now doesn’t feel comfortable. What about Danny? is Jane’s idea. We blink at each other. Danny caddies for his boy in another age group. However unlikely or logistically impossible, I like the idea. So after others join the table – Danny included – Jane nonchalantly lobs the possibility of someone else caddying to nobody in particular.

As if scripted and rehearsed, Danny says, I’ll do it. We wait to confirm it’s real. I’m there, he reiterates, unwavering. Okay, I say. Let me float this by my player. In a few minutes, G wanders over and I propose, We’re thinking Danny’s going to caddy for you tomorrow. You good with that? He sideways-scans our three faces. A grin comes over his face. He says, Okay, that’s kind of weird. And kind of exciting. In my estimation, simply the perfect response.

Sometimes exhaustion brings its own tranquil clarity. I would’ve expected some sadness out of myself. But none. I was spent, and Danny is energy – steady, a burning yes button, with best intentions and humor at the ready. Combine it all with my why not, and the decision was easy. Besides that, we parents have small windows to work with. It’s best rationed. Mine had gone from a barn door to a keyhole.

***

The next day comes. Round 2. G is thrown off just enough that, even during warm-up, there is a humming excitement. Danny brings a different rhythm, a new beat, and G starts dancing to it.  If I’m upbeat jazz, Danny is Beastie Boys. Right off the first tee, they gig, 2-under after 5 holes. To watch their dance is eerie and thrilling. Then. The par-4 6th hole. 

A tee shot out of nowhere. In what I once called an evil-twin shot, G fades a drive far right into water that hadn’t been a concern, barely in the picture. Before the ball is barely wet, Danny fires off That’s okay, we’ll get it back. They walk. They drop where it entered – one stroke penalty. G punches a low, brilliant 7-iron under a tree to run it up on the green, about 12 feet from the pin. Putting for par, he juices it past the hole and instead 3-putts for double-bogey. Christ. An intense roller coaster in one hole; but, that shit’s hard, and that shit’s golf. A pep talk from Danny, he again keeps him moving, G not able to quit on this new caddy, this unknown that was giving from his heart, all in, 100%. G bogeys the 7th and 8th, then pars the ninth with a 90-yard fairway bunker shot to within 20 feet. That was the shot. The turnaround. So that shot propels them into the back-9. Amazing how this slow moving game can change so quickly.

And there I am. Floating along in a golf cart. Watching. Removed. Neutral. A spirit drifting the cart path Styx. Through the sepia sun of yellow haze of June in LA, I get to see G continue his life in my absence. We had no interaction – a decision I made pre-round to be clean. Remaining passive while caddying ain’t easy, so I didn’t know what to expect. But it was serene. And surprising because of it. Almost certainly nothing like actual death. But eh, still, who’s to say?  

I’ve meditated on death. Spent a couple years on it. I know as much about it as most – that is, nothing. Yet the point is not to know anything. The point (even though meditation doesn’t have a point) is to gain comfort with it, if only slightly. Before that, like everyone, I’d spent no small amount of time contemplating it – early on as a kid at wakes, watching an inert corpse, more still than a stone ever could be, and later by witnessing a couple fatal accidents, my imagination then running with it, effecting me beyond my understanding.

They find even more rhythm on the back-9. With three birdies on 14, 15, and 16, G finishes with a 1-over 73 – 12 strokes better than yesterday. Crazy. However, an unfortunate 4-putt bogey on the par-5 18th leaves him in need of serious consolation. Besides the 6th, it was his only non-1-or-2-putt green all day. Danny draws him off the green, alone, he gives him the best post-game locker room speech I’ve heard:

DO NOT let that last hole define you, he begins, conjuring the passion it takes for a marathoner to finish, crouching to eye level with G, speaking with kindness but force, sweat rolling into his eyes. He continues, You play beautiful golf. One bad hole does NOT define you and what YOU just accomplished. You are a GREAT golfer and you know it. You gutted through some early tough times and got to the end with a successful round. I loved caddying for you today. Do not let this define you. You are a great golfer. 

I listened from a few paces, astounded, cognizant of what I was witnessing. As a parent, these moments may happen, seldom or not. Many, if not most of my childhood experiences and interactions – whether transformative or life-changing or life-threatening – were beyond my own parents’ awareness. This was like catching the Loch Ness Monster or Big Foot floss their teeth , my suspension of belief weightless. To witness it as a ghost was a gift.  Any parent would understand that for me to say I was (and am) grateful of that round and that speech is like saying that oxygen is good for us, or that deep space is roomy.

So a round of golf – this round – displayed the circles: Life then death, from death comes life, in all forms, short and long, momentary or eternal, intertwined, woven in random symmetry.

Danny is on-call for another turn, as I am for his boy. A number of our fellow caddies have remarked that caddy swapping should become routine. The benefits obvious and not, but undisputed. For both player and caddy.