The Greatest Golfer Who Ever Lived
My brother-in-law was the greatest golfer in the history of the sport.
You might be tempted to ask, "Was your brother-in-law Jack Nicklaus?"
No, not even close. But if given the freedom to keep his own score and play outside of direct view of his opponent, or anyone else watching the match, he would have outdueled Nicklaus himself, armed with a pencil and an obsession for winning.
I remember the last time we played. The likelihood of being pencil whipped was always on my mind. And on that day, my expectations were met.
On number six, I hooked my drive left, landing at the far edge of a wide fairway. My brother-in-law, Robert, sliced his shot deep into the woods. I looked across the fairway but saw no sign of him.
"Hey, did you find your ball? Need help?" I called out. The course was nearly empty, no one behind us.
Time was on our side.
A moment later, I heard the unmistakable thwack of a golf ball, followed by a crack as it ricocheted off a tree.
"I'm good!" Robert's booming voice called back.
I grabbed my club and hit my approach, landing just off the green. As I placed my club in the bag, another thwack rang out. Another crack. Then Robert's voice, a sharp, frustrated, "Crap!"
I started walking toward the green. A third thwack, and this time, I saw the ball scurry out of the trees like a frightened rabbit, coming to rest in the rough near the cart path.
Robert emerged from the forest, gripping his club like it had wronged him. Without missing a beat, he took a vicious swing, topped the ball, and sent it skittering into a gully. Back into the woods.
I did a quick mental count. At least four shots, and he was still in the rough. Miraculously, he punched his next shot onto the green.
"Nice recovery," I said, walking over to my ball.
My chip rolled six feet past the hole, leaving me a tricky putt for par.
Robert, wielding his putter, studied the break like he was reading a classified document. He banged his ball straight at the hole, it would have rolled to the next county if the flagstick hadn't gotten in the way. Instead, the ball stopped inches from the cup.
"Nice shot," I chuckled. "You getting that flagstick something for Christmas?"
"It's part of the game," he grinned. "That's a tough putt to tie me."
I looked up, confused.
"Tie you? You're about to tap in for triple bogey."
"One in woods, two out, three on, and this for par," he said, his smile draining the air from my lungs.
I stared at him. "That's impossible. I heard at least three shots in the woods."
Robert shrugged. "I was just looking for balls, clearing some brush. You're not accusing me of cheating, are you?"
A relevant detail: Robert was 6' 6", with muscles and anger to match, a former Army Ranger, and known for two things at the country club: cheating and being the last person you'd ever want to fight.
"No, no, just your math seems creative," I said, focusing on my putt.
Robert clapped a hand on my shoulder, his grip like a vise. "Creative? My math? Al, I like you. But if you accused me of cheating, I'd beat the ever-loving life out of you. I fought in Iraq and Afghanistan while you were doing what?"
Fear had the best of me. I knew what he was capable of doing. I jabbed at my putt. It wobbled past the hole, three feet short.
"That's good," Robert declared. "I'll mark you down for a five. Tough luck."
At the end of the round, he announced I had lost by five strokes. As we left the clubhouse, he gripped my shoulder again, his fingers pressing deep.
"Al, I'm not a cheater," he said. "I'm a winner. And I can prove it."
I never played with Robert again.
Months later, my sister caught him with the underage babysitter and threw him out. He drank more, spiraled, and eventually beat a frail 67-year-old man into a coma during a country club scorekeeping dispute.
The man survived; Robert went to prison.
A year after his release, he got drunk and wrapped his car around a tree. Ironically, it happened along the road bordering the country club, his car hurtling into the same woods where I had last watched him struggle with a golf ball.
After the funeral, a cop friend of mine pulled me aside.
"You know I was first on the scene at the wreck. Strange thing. Robert's glove compartment was stuffed with golf scorecards," he said. "Hundreds of them. It was like he carried them with him always. Weird. They were scattered everywhere in the wreck. Seventeen years on the force and I've never seen anything like it."
I sighed. "I have."
Author's Note:
Who has faced the challenge of a
bully?
We all have.
From dealing with aggressive
drivers to social media trolls, bullying is everywhere. Even here, in a forum for
a fun virtual game, bullies find their way into conversations to attack,
ridicule, and scorn others.
I wrote the fictional story to highlight
what seems like an epidemic of bullying in our culture and how bullies operate—not
just through physical intimidation but through manipulation, gaslighting, and a
warped sense of self-righteousness. Here are a couple of points I wrote about
in the story:
1. The
Absurdity of the Bully’s Reality – The fictional character, Robert, doesn’t cheat;
he rewrites reality to suit his narrative. He makes it so blatant that it
leaves the narrator stunned, struggling to reconcile the obvious truth with
Robert’s forceful version of events. This is classic bullying behavior: bending
the world to their will, often through sheer audacity. Life, like golf, has
unwritten rules that most people respect—but bullies like Robert count on the
fact that many people will let them get away with breaking those rules just to
avoid conflict.
2. The
Fear-based Power of the Bully – Robert’s intimidation is as psychological as
physical. His towering size and military background loom over the narrator,
making any challenge feel like a dangerous gamble, risking life and limb
confronting Robert. The threat is not always explicit, but the narrator clearly
backs down. That’s what makes bullying so insidious in real life. Often, there’s
no direct violence, just the ever-present potential for it, keeping people in
check.
3. The
Inevitable Downfall of the Bully – Do bullies finally face justice? Or do they
avoid the consequences of their actions? I wrote the story to show how Robert,
for all his bluster, self-delusion, and violence, ultimately meets a fitting
end—drunk, reckless, and crashing into the very woods where he once “rewrote”
the rules of golf. It’s poetic justice, but it also highlights a more profound
truth about bullies: their need for control and dominance often leads to
self-destruction. The key word here is “often” … not always.
Bullies
always think they’re winning. Until they realize the only game they’ve ever
played is against themselves. Robert always kept score. But in the end, no one
was counting but him.
In
the story, the golf course is intended as a stand-in for any structured
environment—workplaces, families, social groups, forums on WGT—where people
generally agree to play by the rules. But then, there’s always this one person
(or maybe more) who sees the rules as optional. People let these bullies get away
with it, sometimes out of fear or exhaustion, until eventually, the bully
overplays their hand.
In
closing, golf, like life, has rules. Most people follow them, a few people
stretch them, and then there are those like Robert, who believe rules are just
suggestions and winning is the only thing that matters. But life keeps its own
score, even when no one else is looking.