“No man living can make a player keep his eye on the ball, and still this is the underlying secret of successful play. There are times when a golfer can hit a good shot without seeing the ball, but these times are few and far between. It is the very essence of good golf – keeping the eye on the ball.”       -Francis Ouimet

As he’d played the 16th, Morgan had ignored the castle ruins in the distance of the 17th fairway. He didn’t look at it until arriving at the tee box. The 2022 version of the 17th hole was longer by 50 yards and a par 4 rather than a par 5. With his 1922 equipment, it was essentially the same hole with the same strategy. Play close to the corner of the castle, which protruded into the fairway, to take out the curve in the fairway for a short iron and potential birdie three. 

“The mistake,” he said, “is to be afraid of the castle and go too far left and leave a long iron for the second shot into the green. I have to cut that corner.”

“And nah hit the castle,” added Clarence.

“And not hit the castle, for sure.”

As he stood over his ball he was overwhelmed by the feeling that the castle was watching him. He tried to shake it off but it got worse. He looked up and the castle seemed to have grown larger. He looked back down at his ball, took a deep breath, and swung.

It was a carbon copy of his first practice hit with the driver that morning, a long slice that landed in approximately the same spot as his drive on the 17th hole in 2022. He started to laugh, and when he looked at Kay, who seemed to realize that was the spot he found him on the ground the previous day, he laughed harder.

“What’s funny?” asked Clarence.

“Oh, I think I was just surprised, and it made me laugh.”

Hagen seemed to agree, chuckling softly as he teed his ball and then proceeded to hit almost the same slice, his ball landing not 20 yards from Morgan’s.

“He’s not laughing now,” murmured Clarence. 

Lance and Kay both hit safe drives, just under 200 yards left into the elbow of the fairway and everyone started walking. Morgan was surprised when Hagen started a conversation as they walked.

“So, what do you think?” asked Hagen.

“I’m thinking of a one-iron, I mean a cleek, straight through the castle.”

“No, no, it’s a spoon I’d say, if your ball is sitting up, but yes, through the castle, god damn it. All we have is the next shot.”

Morgan’s ball was, indeed, sitting up in the fescue.

“What do you think of a spoon through the castle?” he asked.

“I think your clothes are strange and unreasonable,” said Clarence, “so maybe it will work.”

Morgan took several practice swings because he hadn’t used the spoon, an approximation of a 5-wood, since his practice session. It felt comfortable. 

He was away by a matter of inches, everyone agreed, so he stood over his ball and checked his alignment. There was nothing left to do. He reminded himself that this dream or delusion or whatever it was didn’t really matter and took his swing as if it had already been written, something he’d heard Hagen say to Lance earlier in the day. “When you swing, do it like it has already been written, like your shot has already happened and been recorded as exactly what you intended.”

His ball flew through the castle with purpose and cleared both the south and west openings to find a place on the fairway.

Hagen chuckled softly. “I feel we are indeed kindred spirits, Morgan.” Then he pulled his cleek and Morgan understood the reason for the chuckle. Hagen had intended to mislead him by suggesting the spoon, when he intended to use his cleek the whole time. But Morgan’s ball was sitting up, almost perched in the tall grass, something Hagen had not anticipated when he gave Morgan the unintentional but correct advice.

Hagen stood over his ball in his characteristically wide stance, a hold-over from his baseball days, Morgan remembered, and he swung away.

Morgan followed the ball and had just a moment to exclaim a mix of joy and surprise as Hagen’s ball hit the castle wall and ricocheted back toward their group. Then he had time for just one thought before the ball struck him in the head and the world went black: “Of course.”

Your golfing correspondent is writing on day four of a visit to King Arthur’s Course, The Links at Saint David’s Invitational. On Wednesday Tri Brenin hosted what is normally an amusing if inconsequential exhibition tournament featuring some of the official tournament players and some prominent local enthusiasts. But this year, the competition became unexpectedly heated between Open Champion Walter Hagen and an American player identified as a friend of the club, Morgan Hanks. Both players were at even par on the 17th when an errant shot by Mr. Hagen struck the castle ruins so famously associated with that hole and bounced back to hit Mr. Morgan in the head. Unconscious, Mr. Morgan was transported to hospital and then he was lost. I’m sorry dear readers, but there is no more accurate way to describe what happened. Mr. Morgan is simply lost. Nobody knows where he’s gone. Said his young caddie to your correspondent, “He ain’t lost, he just went home.” 

Morgan heard his name and decided to ignore it for a moment because he knew precisely what it was and he needed to feel his body return to this time. The voice belonged to Tex. He was back in 2022 and lying  on the ground in the shadow of the castle on the 17th hole on The Links at Saint David’s. 

“Tex,” he said, “did they ever play a tournament here that they called King Arthur’s Call?”

He opened his eyes to see Tex smiling. “They did,” said Tex. “Pretty obscure golf trivia, though.”

“Where’s my ball and how long was I out?”

“The ball is 10 inches from your hard head and if you were out at all it was just a second or two.”

He stood up and looked around until he found the face of the official who was trying to decide if he needed to call the EMT’s and signaled that he was fine.

“What’s the rule?” he asked Tex.

“Unless another player wants to claim you stood in front of the ball on purpose to keep it from going further from the hole, you’re lying three. There’s no penalty for whacking yourself in the head.”

“Okay, let’s try this again.”

“Three iron?” asked Tex.

“No,” said Morgan, “let’s try the five wood. You know, something like a five wood used to be called a spoon.”

“Really?” asked Tex. “We’re going to do the history crap right now?”

Morgan remembered everything about the swing he’d just made in 1922. It didn’t matter if it was a dream or some trick of his mind, he believed the swing was real enough. Looking at the club, he knew it had less loft and a longer shaft, but as he moved through the practice swings of his routine, he felt like he was making instinctual adjustments, doing the math with his heart. It was a feeling he hadn’t had in a long time before his round with Hagen, probably since the Saturday before his Sunday collapse at The Master, when he couldn’t stop shaking on the first tee.  

He was calm now though, maybe because in his mind at least he’d just played this shot so he had a ready-made visualization of how it would go. Maybe it was because he’d just played a round of golf with Walter Hagen and now this round didn’t seem very important. And why, he suddenly wondered, did he keep echoing the golf commentators and referring to that Sunday at The Masters as a collapse? 

He stood over his ball and said, “You know, Tex, what happened that day at The Masters?” He knew Tex wouldn’t say anything. He knew Tex would be clenching his teeth and wondering why they were returning to this well-worn topic right here, right now.

“We just lost,” he said, “that’s all. We just lost.” Then he swung. 

As it had in 1922, his ball flew through the castle. It flew a little lower and a little faster, went a little further, but it was essentially the same shot. It went far enough that he got up and down for a bogey and dropped into 10th place. 

“It’s only Friday,” said Tex.

“It’s only Friday,” said Morgan, “and that was fun regardless.”

“But what’s with that swing?” asked Tex. “It’s almost, I don’t know, it seems a little loose for you and not slow, just…”

“Tranquil?”

“Yeah, that’s it, sort of relaxed, I mean for you.”

When he’d stepped onto the green one of the other golfers said “Nice shot, Badger.” Everybody laughed, including Morgan as he reached into his pocket for his ball marker. It was a red and green marker from the 1914 U.S. Open at Midlothian Country Club, Chicago.

Welcome back to the 2022 Wales Open where truth is stranger than fiction folks. We are just moments away from the awards ceremony where Morgan Hanks will celebrate his seventeenth win as a professional golfer, including three majors. This is his third win on the DP World Tour and ends what has been a bit of a drought for Morgan with no top ten finishes over the last four years and only two finishes in the top 20. That alone makes for a storied week but add to it the fact that on Friday Morgan was knocked down by his own golf ball ricocheting off the castle on 17, then he gets up and becomes the first person in a professional tournament to duplicate Nick Jackson’s famous bullet through the castle at the Wales Open in 1972. What a moment, but it doesn’t end there. Hanks finished Friday tied for 10th, then comes out Saturday and shoots a 62, the course record at its current length, and he’s T-two, goes out Sunday, shoots a 63 to win the Wales Open by four strokes. Congratulations to Morgan Hanks on his return to form and the winner’s circle. 

The End

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