Half a Twosome - Eight Scorecards

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Eight Scorecards
fifty-eight years of Saturdays, 1940–1998

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Jerome kept every scorecard we ever filled in, in a succession of cigar boxes on the shelf in his garage, rubber-banded by year. After the funeral Donna gave me the boxes. There are well over a thousand cards. I have been through every one of them this summer, a year at a time, and it has been the best and the worst thing I have done since October.

Here are eight. They are not our best scores, except one. They are the rounds I remember.

CARD No. 1	Saturday, June 1, 1940 The first round
PLAYER	Laurence	Jerome
TOTAL	127	131
We were thirteen. Our uncle Walter had given us his old clubs, a driver, a mashie, a niblick and a putter in a canvas bag, and we carried the one bag between us and passed the clubs back and forth. We paid the green fees with money from mowing lawns. I beat him by four strokes. I should like it noted that it was the last time I beat him for some years, and that he has disputed the arithmetic ever since.

CARD No. 2	Saturday, May 1, 1948 Home from the Army
PLAYER	Laurence	Jerome
TOTAL	97	96
Our first round in nearly three years. Neither of us could hit the ball straight, and neither of us cared. We stood on the first tee for a good while before we hit, just looking at the fairway. It was a cold, gray morning and it was the finest course in the world.

CARD No. 3	Saturday, June 21, 1952 My wedding day
PLAYER	Laurence	Jerome
TOTAL	101	88
We teed off at six in the morning. The wedding was at two. Jerome, as best man, carried the ring in his golf bag for nine holes, which I did not learn until the reception. My mind was elsewhere and my score shows it. Miriam has forgiven us both for the round. She has not entirely forgiven him for the ring.

CARD No. 4	Saturday, November 23, 1963 The day after Dallas
PLAYER	Laurence	Jerome
TOTAL	--	--
The President had been shot the day before. We nearly didn't go. We went because we didn't know what else to do with ourselves. There were perhaps a dozen people on the whole course and nobody spoke above a murmur. We didn't keep score. It is the only blank card in the box.

CARD No. 5	Saturday, July 19, 1969 Jerome's ace
PLAYER	Laurence	Jerome
TOTAL	90	84
The seventh hole, a little over 150 yards, a seven iron. It landed short, rolled, and dropped. The only hole in one either of us ever made, in fifty-eight years. The astronauts were circling the moon that afternoon, and they landed the next day. Jerome said it was the second most remarkable thing to happen that weekend, and he never did say which was first.

CARD No. 6	Saturday, May 21, 1977 Fifty, and seventy-nine
PLAYER	Laurence	Jerome
TOTAL	79	85
We had turned fifty in March. On this day I shot 79, the only time in my life I have broken 80. Jerome was so pleased for me that he paid for lunch, which in twenty-two years of partnership had not happened before and did not happen again.

CARD No. 7	Saturday, June 29, 1985 The day after we closed the business
PLAYER	Laurence	Jerome
TOTAL	92	92
Thirty years of Griswold Brothers, Land Surveyors, ended on the Friday with a handshake and the keys to the office. On the Saturday we played and tied at 92, which I have always thought was the right score for the occasion. Afterward we had a beer in the clubhouse and drank to thirty years and not a single lawsuit.

CARD No. 8	Saturday, October 10, 1998 The last round
PLAYER	Laurence	Jerome
TOTAL	94	91
A cold, bright morning, the maples on the back nine all orange and red. Nothing remarkable. He talked to a dog that had got loose on the fourth fairway. He three-putted the twelfth and blamed the green. On the eighteenth he sank a long putt to beat me by three, and he said he'd see me next Saturday. He died on the Wednesday. I have the card in his handwriting. I don't believe I will ever be able to throw it away, and I don't intend to try.

Over fifty-eight years, by my count from the boxes, he won a few more than I did. He would want you to know that. I would want you to know it was not many more.

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Last updated Thursday, September 23, 1999