Page 49 of Putting Out
13
“Luke, wait up a second.”
Luke was straightening his tie, ready to walk into the booth he would call home for the next several hours. It was Saturday, the third day of the Pro-Am and the action was heating up between Roy Staddler and Sinjin Rye.
He’d already jotted down a number of salient points regarding their play, and some stories he’d picked up about the two along his golf travels for commentary on the broadcast. Given the competitive nature of the two of them, he figured they were in for a dog fight for the next several hours.
Luke spotted his co-announcer chasing after him. Jim Andrews was the newest lead sportscaster for CBS. He handled football in the fall as the anchor on the CBS morning show and in the winter took over as co-announcer in the booth for most golf tournaments that were broadcasted on the network. He understood the game of golf, and was very good about drawing Luke out to speak at those moments when Luke found himself too absorbed in what was happening on the course.
TV-handsome with the nondescript features of someone who blended well in a person’s living room, Jim made his dark blue suit look almost as good as Luke’s.
“What’s up, Jim?”
“I found out you know Reilly Carr and, in fact, are pretty tight with her.”
“We’re close,” Luke answered.
“That’s great. It’s the story of the season so far and we’re going to have the scoop. I’ll want to wait until later in the afternoon to bring it up. Most folks don’t start tuning in until around four on the weekends. We’ll go with any time after five for maximum effect. Just answer everything I ask you.”
“Hold on a second, Jim. I don’t know that I’m that comfortable talking…”
Jim laughed over his concern. “What are you talking about? You know the drill. I’ll ask about Reilly and you can give your impressions, opinions, whatever. You can say you were there when she made the decision. Look, I’m not asking for some scandalous dirt. You don’t have any scandalous dirt, do you?”
“No!”
“I’m asking for some straight answers about her game and any predictions you have of what might happen. Give it the personal touch. The audience will love it. This girl is about to become a household name. What you say about her now is going to count toward how people think about her.”
If Luke hadn’t believed Jim was being honest about just realizing that Luke knew Reilly more than professionally, he might have thought he’d been played. Giving him a chance to present Reilly to the public in a positive manner did sound like an opportunity. However, Luke had been in the business a bit too long to believe Jim’s motives were altruistic.
As far as the media was concerned, sports were a much closer relative to entertainment than they were to news. Juicy gossip, horrible scandals, drugs both on and off the field. These things brought in ratings. The only time people wanted to feel good about their athletes was during the Olympics, because those athletes were doing it for the love of their sport and not the millions of dollars in salary and endorsements that motivated the rest of the sporting world.
Luke could imagine some of the questions he might come up with. But as long as he was smart about what he answered and how he answered it, he should do all right. Jim was right about this being an opportunity to give people a picture of Reilly, the person as opposed to Reilly, the story.
The tournament went as expected. Rye and Staddler were in the final pairing and it was every bit the battle Luke had expected it to be. Of the two of them, he would have ranked Staddler as the purer golfer. His swing was effortless, his control over his iron shots was unprecedented and his putter rarely failed him. But it seemed any time he went head to head with Rye, Rye managed to find a way into Staddler’s head. Luke had heard rumors Rye was a smack-talker in between the ropes. In a sport where, “Nice Shot,” were typically the only two words exchanged between opponents, Rye had apparently developed a reputation for commenting on his opponent’s poor shots, poor lies, and the worst — missed putts.
That type of jawing certainly wasn’t the norm in golf. Football, basketball even baseball. Not golf. It was a game for gentlemen played by gentlemen. But Rye didn’t come from the privileged golf club class. It was well-known and often spoken about anytime he was in the hunt for a tournament that he’d learned the sport through a summer camp program aimed at the poor. His natural ability had taken him through college on a scholarship and since then he’d been almost unstoppable. He’d won several tournaments, gotten close during a few majors but had yet to crack the elite club of major winner. Staddler already had two majors under his belt, but in neither case did he have to compete directly against Rye to win them. People were hoping this would be the year. It was all that was talked about until recently.
“Nice shot,” Jim commented as he looked on the monitor replaying Rye’s last drive. “In the middle of the fairway with a perfect opportunity to go for this green in two. Currently, he’s got a two-shot lead over Staddler and with the holes left, unless he makes some mistakes, Rye is going to be tough to beat.”
“I agree. Rye really plays a mental game out there and when he’s focused like he is now, it’s rare he makes mistakes,” Luke added.
“Okay, while they take their walk down the fairway let’s talk about the other great story in our sport these days. Reilly Carr. I understand you know Reilly personally, Luke.”
The director in the booth made a hand gesture, which was the cue to indicate the camera was now on them. Luke smiled and turned so he half faced Jim and half faced the television audience as he’d been trained to do.
“I do know Reilly. Very well. I went to college with her brother and caddy, Kenny Carr. Kenny and I played together on the Stanford team. ”
“Tell us about the decision she had to make. Was it hard for her? Or was it simply a given considering where she fell in the new ranking system?”
“No, it was definitely hard for her. She had to consider a lot of different things unlike any man who might have been ranked the same.”
“A girl playing in the American, it is quite a stir. How is she handling the media pressure?”
Luke smiled. “Well, first I wouldn’t necessarily call Reilly a girl. She’s certainly older than that. She’s tough and competitive. She knows how to face down opponents on a fairway. I doubt she’s going to be intimidated by a few extra cameras and people in her face.”
“You speak highly of her,” Jim noted. “But seriously, do you think she has any chance to compete with the top-ranked male golfers in the world?”
Luke knew he had to expect this question, and the truth was he couldn’t imagine Reilly being able to hold her own against the likes of Staddler and Rye. They simply hit the ball too far for her to always be playing catch up. However, it didn’t mean she couldn’t handle a large portion of the field. “I think she’s going to impress a lot of people with her game. And I think she has a legitimate shot, depending on how the course is playing, to make it to the weekend.”
