Elmo's Rock with Johnny Fairway

By Morton Hodgens

On a morning in May 2002, an old golf pro is having the best round of golf in his life when something terrible happens. His protégé, Johnny Fairway, is mesmerized by what he is seeing. The man changed his life. At the same time, his daughter is driving towards the golf course from work in a terrible thunderstorm and runs into a nig

• Language: English
• Publisher: Morton Hodgens
• Release date: Feb 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781087880433

Morton Hodgens

Morton Hodgens grew up in Albertville, AL He lives in Boaz, AL with his wife, Sharon. He works in Guntersville, AL for Factory Connection, LLC as the VPO. He plays golf at Clear Creek Golf Club in Boaz where his son, Trey, is the General Manager.

Book preview

1

The Front Nine

This is the legend of Elmo Kramer. A legend is usually someone extremely famous or extremely talented at doing something. Elmo Kramer was extremely talented at playing golf. Elmo was the middle child of Marshall and Bess Kramer. He had an older sister, Karla and a younger brother, Karl. There are many stories to tell about Elmo even though he was private and reclusive. He has experienced more in his life than ten other men. This story begins where Elmo spent the last years of his life in the community where his life began, Need-more, Alabama. The last fifteen years of his life were spent playing golf, the game that had consumed him most of his adult life. Elmo had once been a teacher of the game; now he only played. He had given up teaching some 20 years ago. The last time anyone saw Elmo Kramer was May 2, 2008. That day began much the same as many others for Elmo. He awoke at 4:30 am and immediately fixed his morning coffee. He walked outside to the small shop he had built for himself so he could drink his coffee and get prepared for the day. The shop contained memorabilia from his many experiences and this is where he spent most of his time while at home. His wife, Annie, would usually wake at 6:00 am and she would not disturb him unless it was urgent and necessary. Annie was an attractive woman. She was only about 5’ 2" and still had dark hair. Her dark complexion made you think she had some Native American ancestry. She and Elmo were still deeply fond of each other.

Sometimes I would meet Elmo around 5:00 am at his shop to drink coffee. I could spend hours just looking at all the items he had collected over the years. I could only imagine what some would sell for on E-Bay.

My name is Johnny Fairway and I was proud to call Elmo Kramer my friend. I don’t know of any other friends he had. I never saw anyone else there and I never heard him mention another friend, except for my dad.

This particular morning I walked in to find Elmo preparing, as usual, to go play golf.

I’m in a hurry to get to the golf course; you can stay if you want. Annie might fix you some breakfast. I might stay awhile if it’s okay. What follows is what Elmo told me when he returned from the course that day and what I already knew about his habits at the golf course.

Elmo played his golf at the Boaz Golf Club. However, Elmo did not call it that. He called it Ten Pines. Elmo had names for everything and most of the time they were different from everyone else. He started very early because he wasn’t a member and he very rarely would pay a green fee. Elmo always walked when he played golf. He felt that was how the game was meant to be played. His clubs were old and mostly hand me downs that he had collected or his wife had picked up at the flea market. Some of his clubs were quite valuable but Elmo neither knew nor cared. He had a terrible habit of breaking clubs and was known to have a very quick temper. In his defense though, his temper was always directed at his clubs and not others as far as I knew.

Not many people ever saw Elmo playing golf. He was careful not to get caught skipping out on the green fee. Sometimes he didn’t finish his round if the course filled up, or he would finish it very late in the day when everyone had gone home. Today he felt confident he could get his round in.

Elmo drove a red 1965 Ford F100 step side. The truck was old but ran well. It was a 15-minute drive to the golf course through the farmlands of North Alabama. Elmo loved the drive because he wasn’t on any major highway. He enjoyed the scenery because it hadn’t changed much since he was a teenager driving these roads.

When he arrived at the course the dawn was just beginning. He always parked his truck across the highway from the course in an open field that ran parallel to the course for the entire back nine. The dew was heavy on the ground and Elmo’s pull cart tracks showed every move he made. This was a mystery no one had been able to solve. Many mornings the groundskeeper had reported that someone was out there playing before he mowed the greens.

Elmo always eluded the groundskeeper. He had many hiding places on the course and knew it better than anyone. He had places he would go that he could sit and watch the golfers for hours without their knowledge. He knew their names and their nicknames because he would sometimes be so close to the course without being seen and he would hear all the conversation that took place. He even had special names for the regulars and enjoyed watching them play this crazy game. He could tell you who was hot and who was improving or who should go home.

As Elmo prepared to tee off, the sun was just beginning to give the day a grayish light. He picked a persimmon driver from his tattered bag and selected a spot on the ground that looked suitable. He never used a tee and could hit his driver off the deck from almost any lie. Elmo stood only 5’3" tall, but his arms were unusually long. They fell just below his knees giving him the look of a small orangutan. His hands and fingers were extremely long. Elmo was bigger than his body gave him credit for. His swing was built totally on rhythm and feel. He addressed the ball and hit a line drive that started to the right and drew gently back into the middle of the fairway. Yes, this was going to be a swell day.

He quickly took off down the fairway on the 1st hole and though his legs were short he could move almost effortlessly at a speed that did not seem possible. On the first hole, he headed for the big oak on the right side of the first hole about 225 yards from the tee. That is actually what he called the 1st hole, the Big Oak. He placed his pull cart behind the big oak and took a sand wedge and putter over to his ball. As he approached the ball he quickly felt the yardage and took dead aim. His ball floated in the air and lightly fell to rest next to the pin. A birdie on #1, I’m off to a great start.

As Elmo retrieves his pull cart and walks to #2 he notices that the sun is trying its best to illuminate the day. It is going to be a cloudy day he thought. He popped up his drive on #2 and trudged over to the pine trees on the right where it had come to rest. This is trouble. He gets out an old 2 iron and proceeds to line up his shot. His ball is about 215 yards from the green and resting on some pine straw. He takes a long backswing and catches the ball cleanly. The shot takes off like a rocket and starts fading back toward the green. There is a small hill on the left just before the green and his ball catches the slope and rolls toward the pin. He is so far back that he can’t see where the ball comes to rest. That was a tremendous shot, he thinks, and automatically marks the spot he shot from with a small rock. He has done this many times when he thinks he has hit a career shot. He will come back to the spot later and relive the shot if it turns out to be a truly great shot. As he approaches the green he experiences a quickening of his pulse and anxiety sets in. He cannot see his ball. He thinks to himself, there is no way I overshot this green. He leaves his pull cart at #3 tee box and takes his trusty sand wedge and putter, resigned to the fact that he has indeed gone over. Just like any golfer, though, he walks by the hole and there is his ball resting in the cup. Heck fire! A deuce on a par 4! He can hardly contain himself. But, he knows he must hurry to the next tee because it won’t be long before the groundskeeper starts mowing the greens. He is glad he marked the spot where he hit that last shot. He will revisit that shot later. A deuce on #2!

When he tees off on #3 he is still so excited that he balloons another tee shot off to the right. Dejected, he starts again toward his ball. When he arrives at his ball he realizes there is not an opening for him to go for the green. #3 is a par five so he can try to put himself in position to be on or close to the green with his 3rd shot. Two ditches intersect the fairway on this hole and Elmo elects to put his ball over the first one and short of the next one. Both ditches are full of rocks. He doesn’t have a good lie over here and his punch 7 iron hits a rock in the first ditch and comes right back at him. He looks at his ball and thinks; I have just hit a 2-yard shot. Now he starts thinking that a bogey might not be a bad score here. He attempts to hit the same punch 7 iron and this time he does clear the 1st ditch. Now he is laying 3 with 135 yards to the green. He has forgotten about the incredible eagle he just made on #2. All he cares about is getting this ball on the green so has a chance to par the hole. He chokes up a little on an 8 iron and puts the ball on the green some 25 feet from