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moment.

     JANUARY 18, 2007     
    We drove to St. Andrews, about an hour away, early this morning. Somewhere before the Tay Bridge, Jack took out my father’s army diary and began reading to me by the light of the glove compartment.
    “Listen to this part,” he said:
    Wednesday November 29, 1944. Was today inducted into the U.S. Army at Philadelphia, 32nd and Lancaster. Left 30th street station Philadelphia at 5 p.m., and arrived New Cumberland Induction Center about 7:30 p.m. Assigned to barracks 315, Area 3, Roster 2958. Went to bed about 9 p.m. following a few instructions about camp and army in general. Raining hard as nails all day.
    He turned through the yellowed pages.
    December 15. Arose at 6 a.m. Formed platoons and started to drill. Were interviewed and told I’m in the infantry and can’t get out. 17 weeks of basic training and then across. A bit sad, but finally got over it. Eye exam. Chow and evening was good. Got twelve letters and two packages. Feel swell!
    “Feel swell, exclamation point,” Jack said.
    “Can you keep reading?” I asked him.
    “Sure,” he said.
    I listened as this picture of my father at Jack’s age formed in my imagination. It was someone I had never known, and with each sentence Jack read to me, I felt something falling away, something that had drawn my father and me apart.
    This morning when we pulled in to the parking lot behind the Rusacks Hotel in St. Andrews, I watched Jack as he climbed out of the car, walked across the lane, and stood looking out at the Old Course. It was brilliant green even in the middle of winter. Its fairways rolling like swells at sea. The flag on the 18th green blowing stiff in the wind.
    Jack stood there a long time with all the history of the place running through his mind, mixing with all his personal dreams for the game. A pilgrim.
    I walked up to him. “What do you think?” I asked.
    “Let’s play,” he said.
    We threw our things into room 220 at the Rusacks, then headed to the starter’s shed. I recognized the young man working at the counter and hoped he would remember me from four years earlier, when I first came here and lived in this hotel that winter writing my novel, but he didn’t.
    The wind was howling, and the rain was coming sideways into our faces, a mirror image of our first round at Carnoustie.
    No one else was playing. We had the Old Course to ourselves.
    “It doesn’t get much better than that,” I said to Jack.
    We put on our neck gaiters and walked to the 1st tee. As Jack stood up to his ball, I looked into the broad windows of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, where the proper gents were gathering for their lunch. I was sure at least a few of them were watching when Jack hit his first drive. It was 313 yards to the Swilcan Burn at the edge of the 1st green, too close for him to use a driver in normal conditions. But with the wind coming straight at us at thirty knots or better, heswung away freely and hit a perfect shot that cut straight through the wind. I pulled my drive left and had to hit a full four-iron to the green, though I was only a hundred yards away. Jack two-putted to make his par, and I took a bogey 5.
    Jack parred the first three holes with ease, and though it was quite a trick to drink my coffee, run the movie camera, piss in the bushes, light my cigarettes in the gale, and play golf, I was having the time of my life watching my son eat up the course.
    I was thrilled when one of the groundskeepers tracked us down on the 4th hole. J.J. had seen my name on the starting sheet, and he remembered me. We shook hands. “Did you finish your book?” he asked me.
    “I did. And I brought a copy for you boys,” I told him.
    “I’m delighted,” he said.
    I took a picture of him shaking Jack’s hand, and then he helped me light my cigarette in the wind after I kept failing. “It takes a knack in this,” he said.
    We laughed as he recalled how I had played the course for a week in bedroom