Last Christmas, we published Open Links by Dom Holland – a hilarious comic novel about golf, family, and one miraculous day at the British Open Championship.
To celebrate the start of the Open 2015, and to help raise more lifesaving funds, we’re reducing the price of the novel to just £1.99 on Amazon.co.uk for the duration of the British Open tournament.
We’re also giving you a preview from one of the novel’s early chapters, to whet your appetite. Enjoy!
Open Links by Dominic Holland - an extract
Golf is a game of confidence. All tour professionals are capable of hitting perfect golf shots.
They can all shape the ball either way, or make birdie on any single hole, but what separates the household names from the chasing pack is their self-belief and their ability to call upon those shots precisely when needed. Such capability is a mental skill, not a physical one, and that skill is rooted in confidence. And if confidence comes in balloons, then Marshall's tut was like a sharp pin - and this was only Ricky Randal’s second shot of the day.
His second shot of - hopefully - only seventy-one blows in total and already he wanted to kill his new caddie. Who, sadly, still hadn't finished.
'If you’re gonna hit five iron, then you'd better really middle it...'
Ricky squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out Marshall and everything else bearing down on him.
'Otherwise you'll be short and left. And you'll need three to get down.'
And now Ricky backed off from his ball and looked up at his new colleague.
'Marshall, what the hell? You're supposed to be helping me.'
'I am helping you.'
'No, really, you're not. You're not helping. If you want to help, then you need to stop talking. OK?'
And finally, Marshall seemed to get it. He held his hands aloft. OK, I'm done.
Ricky re-addressed his ball and tried to steady himself, but Marshall's tuts and doubts were still reverberating through his head, making mince out of any positive thoughts he could otherwise have mustered.
He swung his club hard and made a decent connection, but straight away he knew he was going to be short. The ball's first bounce was particularly absorbing - an upslope, perhaps – and it slowed rapidly before coming up short and left.
Ricky handed his club back to Marshall without looking at him. He didn't trust himself and what he might do if he caught another of his caddie’s broad and smug grins.
His playing partner's ball landed safely on the putting surface. Good shot, mate - although Ricky didn't say anything of the sort as he got on his way again with Marshall hurrying alongside him.
'So, what's your story, then?' Marshall asked.
Ricky turned to give the man an incredulous look. Like he had time for a general get-to-know-each-other? Marshall, though, was undeterred.
'Was it your dad who played, and you followed him? That seems to be the usual route. Westwood, Woods, Rose…'
Ricky shrugged. 'Yeah, and now Randal.'
Marshall looked a little lost.
'That's me. I'm Richard Randal.'
'Oh, yes. Sorry.'
Ricky shook his head. His caddie didn't even know his name.
'And is he here today? Your dad?'
No, thank God, Ricky thought. 'Not unless he's looking down.'
'I bet he'd have loved to see you play here, eh? In the Open?'
Ricky felt a little pang - because Marshall was right, of course. His dad would have absolutely loved it.
But now wasn’t the time to reminisce and reflect. He had other, more pressing things to deal with. Like forty yards to the pin with a tuft of long grass to overcome and far too little green to work with. Marshall had been correct. He would need three shots to get down, at least.
Ricky gripped his wedge gently and whispered to himself, soft hands. He brushed the wet grass a couple of times, visualising the perfect shot. On a normal competition day, he’d have already hit at least fifty practice chips on the range. Today, though, Ricky had hit none - so no real surprise that he thinned it horribly. His ball screamed across the green; he closed his eyes and hung his head.
When he looked up, his ball was still moving, rolling on further from the target. Finally, it settled; some sixty feet from the pin and barely still on the green. A horror shot.
Marshall didn't react. He seemed calm and unmoved.
Ricky scuffed at the grass with his foot as he handed over his offending wedge and grabbed his putter, staring down at the monster putt that faced him. It was more guesswork than calculation, with at least two obvious breaks to negotiate, plus a swale that could go either way. All that was missing was a mini-windmill in his path.
Marshall joined him now behind his ball and seemed to sense his alarm.
'It's more to the left than you think,’ he offered gently. 'Maybe as much as five feet?'
‘Left?’
Immediately Ricky panicked. Left! You have it as left?
He settled over his ball, his mind still scrambled and his heart still lurching so hard that he began to wonder if he could even get through the round. Plenty of people had died on the golf course; Bing Crosby, most famously.
He set up left, with Marshall's advice in mind - a sure sign that he was desperate - and then he even borrowed a little more, because why the hell not, before striking his ball firmly.
And off it went. Up and over the first faint swale, before heading right as it took on the second mound, slowing until it barely breached the summit; a PhD in physics in just one putt.
Rolling downwards now, the ball picked up some energy and began to track towards the hole. So far, so very good - but now the speed was key. Would it have enough energy to resist the pull from the final borrow? Within ten feet now, and the ball kept nearing the pin that Marshall was patiently tending. Finally it came to rest some four feet short, and crucially, below the hole.
Quickly, Ricky settled over his second putt, took a slow breath and struck it. The ball dropped. A brilliant two putt. Bogey.
A brilliant putt, sure - but Ricky wasn’t feeling very buoyed up. It was still a bogey, and it continued his disastrous run of dropped shots that had begun on the ninth hole of yesterday's third round. He was playing bogey golf, the mark that his dad had set his sights on.
He looked skyward, thought of his old man, and wondered if he might be watching. He hoped not.
*
Marshall had been right. His dad had introduced him to the game. He used to joke that he was a two-rounds-a-day man. His milk round in the morning, followed by his round of golf in the afternoon, and at weekends further rounds in the clubhouse; a typical amateur golfer. Absolutely awful, but he played the game with an unfailing enthusiasm. Fat shots, thin shots, shanks and hooks, all interspersed with the occasional 'perfect' hit sent by the golfing gods to tantalise and keep him playing the world's most difficult game.
As a young boy, Ricky had acted as his dad's chief ball spotter - more accurately, a ball finder. It was a task that Ricky had taken very seriously, charging ahead to whichever offending bush had dared to get in the way.
'Found one, Dad.'
'Good lad.'
'What are you playing?' Ricky would call out.
'Er…'
'Was it a Titleist, Dad?'
'Indeed it was.' That'd do, anyway.
And young Ricky would swell with pride. At first, he’d assumed this was the nature of the game and that his dad was finding bushes on purpose - until he realised that his old man just wasn't a very good golfer. And the more he came to understand that, the more his excitement waned.
He’d been eight years old, on their annual holiday down the coast from Newcastle to Bamburgh in Northumberland, when he made the discovery that would change both of their lives.
Bamburgh Golf Club is not a links course, even though it hugs a coastline with magnificent views of the castle on the beach and the ocean beyond. A challenging course, too, with the inevitable coastal winds to tame and the fairways lined with heather and gorse.
One day, on the sixth hole, seeing his dad's ball disappear into a particularly dense thicket, Ricky grew exasperated and screamed at his father, 'Dad, why don't you hit straight?'
His dad laughed wildly as he teed up another ball, and then handed Ricky his club.
'Well, come on then, hot-shot. You hit it straight.'
And he did. Straight down the middle. A fluke - or beginner’s luck? His dad chuckled and reached for another ball.
Having watched his father play, the young boy knew exactly what not to do, and his second ball followed the first; but this time Ricky stood rock solid, up on his right toe, and he held his pose with his arms wrapped around his shoulders like a scarf. His dad always lost his balance and chased after his ball, but Ricky looked just like the pros he’d watched on the telly playing in the British Open.
His father clapped him on the back.
'So what the hell am I delivering milk for? You're a natural, son. A bloody natural.'
And he was right.
Buy Open Links here on Amazon for just £1.99, and help support our lifesaving work.