For nearly as
long as there have been golfers, there have been men walking alongside them,
carrying their clubs, holding the flagstick, offering advice, smelling not so
faintly of old sweat and very new wine. We knew them by their nicknames and
little else; we called them Pinehurst Bill, Shorty, Rags, Preacher, Front Lip,
Big Red, Fog City, Cemetery, Shotgun, Stovepipe. They described their profession
in their own distinctive way: they shipped the trunk; pulled the strap; hauled
the load. They were with us every step of the way -- although, to be honest,
they usually quick-hopped a few paces ahead or lagged a couple behind. But they
were always there when we asked for help. We called them caddies.
Today the Caddie is disappearing from the
emerald ocean that is the golfer's territory. He has been replaced by machines
that carry us and our bags down concrete ribbons or onto the greensward itself,
by radar scopes that give us precise distances to any object, by meters that
gauge wind, and by polarized lenses that filter out the sun and detect the
slightest hump or ridge. But no machine can read a sidehill putt or sense the
fear in a man's eye when he's standing over a short pitch across the water, when
the cold facts mean far less than the confidence expressed by a fellowman who
says, "Smooth it in there, champ; you got that shot."
Caddies are the griots of golf, the
storytellers who carry centuries of lore along with the bags, tees, and
headcovers. Bo Links has listened to their tales, and in Riverbank Tweed and
Roadmap Jenkins he has created two of the most memorable yarn-spinners you'll
ever meet. Riverbank, young Harry Tweed, is a boy searching for his place in the
world and for a place to hide; Roadmap, so named for his uncanny ability to read
a green (and not, as some surmise, for the capillary tracings in his aging
eyes), has found his place on the fringes and in the shadows, where anonymity
and invisibility mean safety and survival. Roadmap takes Riverbank under his
wing and teaches him the particulars of the profession -- but more important,
shows him how golf can be the window into a man's soul. The lessons Riverbank
learns are drawn from his experiences in the game, but have applications far
beyond the out-of-bounds stakes.
The stories that make up Riverbank Tweed and
Roadmap Jenkins take us on a tour of some of the most renowned real estate in
golf, including The Olympic Club, host to four U.S. Opens, and Cypress Point,
the ultra-exclusive masterpiece where beauty, danger, and imagination combine to
create the world's most unforgettable golfing terrain. The matches that take
place on these courses range from an enterprising little game between two
priests bent on glory at all costs to a variation of golf played under one
simple rule -- you may not touch or replace your ball no matter what -- to a
perfect round, played on the perfect golf course, in the most imperfect
conditions imaginable, by a player who cannot hear the sound of the barriers he
is shattering.
By turns comic, thought-provoking, moving,
and entertaining, Riverbank Tweed and Roadmap Jenkins will forever change the
way you look at the game of golf, and at the men who walk with you while you
plumb-bob its mysteries.
