My theory is that he was once a good player because every time you drive past, he’s got another client, and these clients are always driving very expensive automobiles. He could be a drug dealer, I suppose, but I prefer to believe that he was once a fine player with professional prospects who is now living in reduced circumstances and trying to squeeze a meager living from the game he loved and devoted himself to before the game wrecked him with despair. As a favor to me, Jack agreed to stop here this morning and hit a few balls before we drove to the Houston National for our practice round. I thought this would be the perfect place to speak with him about being grateful, and I told him the script for the pro’s life while he tried to nail the armadillos racing across the field with knocked-down nine-irons. “He chased the dream,” I said. “He could hit fifteen greens in regulation every time out because of his natural ballstriking ability, and so he believed that he should be shooting in the red numbers.
