The Feathery

BILL FLYNN

 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Copyright © 2007 Bill Flynn All rights reserved. ISBN: 1-4196-7571-0 ISBN-13: 978-1419675713

For:

Babushka

Courtney

Nathan

Hunter

Alex

Lily

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

 Playing the great golf courses of Europe and attending several British Opens with Norm Cullen, the real Malachy Gallagher and Mike Tracy was an experience that aided in the making of this book...as well as golf in the USA with my friends, Joe Ganem and the real Billy McGinnis.
Kudos go to the professionals: Shannon Rothenburger Flynn, Donna Lee Richards and Kate Heckman for taking a hard look at The Feathery...and the responsive BookSurge team with Douglas Thompson, Sarah Southerland and Julian Simmon.They all helped to smooth the path to publication.

PROLOGUE

A DAY SPENT WITH HUGH MCNAIR, FEATHERY BALL MAKER AND CHAMPION GOLFER

By Alistair Beddington, London Times At
St. Andrews, Scotland, July 8th, 1849

A
rain with wind came in the night. It had rushed in from the Firth of Forth to sweep the Linksland. I knocked on the door just as a strong gust from the departing storm lashed at Hugh McNair’s cedar-shingled cottage,
turned gray by sea-salt and sun.

McNair opened the door straight away. I was surprised not to find a larger man. Perhaps his deeds on the golf course set my expectations. Instead, standing before me with an outstretched hand of welcome was a robust chap of around five-foot-seven inches. He was short necked with a black trimmed beard that was thicker on the sides than on the chin. McNair’s pleasant face carried a Hibernian look resembling the Irish I’d seen on my trips to Dublin more than the features of Englishman or Scotsman for that matter. His build was quite compact except for a slight stoop to his shoulders. I found out later that that flaw in posture came from the force required to stuff feathers with an iron rod pushing hard against his shoulders when making feathery balls.

I introduced myself and confirmed my plan, sent earlier by post, to follow him before, during and after his match with Willie Dunn of Musselburgh. After greeting me he offered tea and poured. He placed his own mug on the window sill and bent low to look out at the Links of St. Andrews. I joined his search and saw dark clouds moving quickly across the morning sky.

Hugh raised a hand to his chin and stroked his beard, while saying, "If the wind doesn’t die down by afternoon I’ll need a heavier feathery ball for my match with Dunn." He took a sip of tea as he looked out at a treacherous part of the sixth hole rightly named The Lion’s Mouth. It was a gaping sand-filled bunker with steep banked sides. Hugh said, "a heavier ball would fly straight in a strong wind, but wouldn’t gain enough distance to clear Lion’s Mouth like a lighter feathery."

We left the cottage and started down a wagon path. It led us behind the first teeing place where several caddies were assembled. Some stood up from their lounging to shower Hugh with a chorus of respectful greetings. "Good morning, Sir." "Good morning, Mr. McNair."

Included in the group was Hugh’s caddie. He introduced the lad to me as James McEwan. James was fourteen with tightly curled red hair and a face spotted with freckles. Hugh informed me that his father, Douglas, was a club maker and friend.

"
It’s a fresh morning, Sir, and ye’ll be playing against Mr. Willie Dunn of
Musselburgh," James said.

"
Aye, lad, and ye’ll be carrying me bag at mid-day when I do." Whistles and other exclamations arose from the group. It was obvious they knew of the rivalry between McNair and Dunn…perhaps that rivalry extended to the golf ball-making trade.

"
Mr. McNair, ye’ll be playing your feathery ball today, won’t ye," James McEwan blurted out, "whilst Mr. Dunn will play that hard lump of rubber gutty?"
Scowls by the other caddies burned in James’ direction, followed by a slap on the head from the tweed cap of the older lad next to him. Hugh walked over and tousled his caddie’s bright red hair. The other caddies grinned only after James’ question seemed to gain the approval of his hero.
"
Aye, I’ll be playing with a feathery today," Hugh answered, "and always, until that gob of gutta-percha can fly better than it does now." Hugh took a club from one of them and swung it as if to make his point. "The Dunns of Musselburgh will play the gutty because they’re set to market it."
Following Hugh’s reply to young McEwan, Charles Dougal, a caddie the same age as Hugh at 43, spoke up. "I’ll be using the gutty, cause the iron clubs rip and cut the leather if not struck well as your shots. I find the feathery too dear in price at two shillings when a gutty can be had for half."
Hugh gave Dougal a stern look. "I’ll be playing the ball I make, Charles. That smooth gutta-percha ball doesn’t fly and work as well in the air for me as a feathery."
Dougal nodded slowly. "True, but older gutties will fly as well as your feathery after they’re marked by miss-hits."
Hugh’s caddie, McEwan, spoke before Hugh could respond to Dougal’s further endorsement of the gutty. "According to my notes," the McEwan lad said, "Mr. McNair will break his own record soon. He scored an eighty-one against Mr. Cowie of Montrose using his feathery ball
."
A mixture of gasps and jeers came from the group for yet another outspoken remark from McEwan.
Hugh chuckled. "Thank you, lad."
It could’ve saved his caddie from another slap on the head from the same tweed cap.

On the way to his shop Hugh told me he’d taken James McEwan on as a caddie despite concern about his comments in front of other players. Hugh told me James was a good caddie, but then added that his eagerness and love for the game surmounted his sometime brazen behavior.

I followed Hugh into his shop nestled in among a row of small hotels and other businesses bordering the links of St. Andrews. He introduced me to Tom McIntyre as his partner in feathery ball making, and at times on the links during their golf matches.

Tom was busy stuffing goose feathers into a small hole in a piece of stitched leather using a crutch-handled steel rod. He held his shoulder up against the tool and moved it inward, guiding the tip with one hand and, with the other, providing feathers from a pocket that ran across his apron. Hugh mentioned that stuffing feathers was the critical step in making a good feathery. It would yield a ball with uniform hardness and shape, if done correctly.

Hugh went around his shop counting and touching the materials and tools used to make feathery balls. I tagged along behind. A bin was filled with goose down, and three large bull hides hung in one corner of the shop waiting to be worked by hand to soften them. He showed me some pieces cut to size and waiting to be sewn together as leather ball covers. One bull hide would supply enough leather for as many as 200 feathery balls…an amount sufficient for two months of production, at four balls per day. Hugh explained that the slow process accounted for the high price of a feathery, and the Dunn’s gutta-percha balls requiring less cost for labor and material could be sold for less.

Two balls had been whetted in a solution of alum and water. They were drying on a shelf above the stove where the damp feathers would expand outward, and the leather cover would contract inward to give remarkable hardness to a ball stuffed with pillow-soft goose down. Next, three coats of paint would be applied.

Hugh weighed some finished feathery balls on a balance scale and inscribed their pennyweight on the painted leather covers. He explained that a pennyweight of 18.23 is equal to one ounce. The weight of each ball was controlled by a slight variation in thickness of the bull hide cover. The pennyweights ranged from twenty-six to thirty-two: a twenty-six pennyweight for calm air and a thirty-two pennyweight for a strong wind. Along side the pennyweight inscription on the cover the name,
Hugh
, was written there only when McNair decided a ball was proper to sell.

Hugh looked out on the links and seemed relieved to see no sign of a wind blowing there. He called McIntyre to his desk and asked him for a good 26 pennyweight feathery.

Tom went to a shelf above the stove and came back with a feathery. He told Hugh it was stuffed well and the stitching fine before handing it to him. Hugh gripped the ball and seemed satisfied with the feel before giving it to me. I felt the hardness, and tossed it up in the air a few times before running my fingers over the seams and returning the ball to Hugh. He picked up a quill and wrote HUGH above the pennyweight of 26 on the leather. When the ink dried he placed the ball in his vest pocket
.

I arrived with Hugh McNair on the first teeing place of St. Andrews at noon. Willie Dunn was already there and dressed as Hugh was in a brown vested wool suit, leather necktie and tweed cap. Hugh’s wicker club carrier was slung over McEwan’s shoulder, and it contained seven clubs: a long-nosed driver, a long spoon, a middle spoon, a niblick, a cleek, a rut niblick and a green putter. Dunn’s caddie held his man’s same seven bunched under his arm.