Taking Care of Business (Short Story‪)‬

Jerry was like a good short story writer who never could write a novel. Except was a golf pro. He could play 18 holes. He could win one-day events. But he couldn't go the distance. He couldn't put up two scores in a row. He could not get the job done. He almost pulled off the Minnesota PGA one of those years in the late 50s when Don Waryan won it three times in a row. Jerry was cruising along in the third and last round when he hit three balls out of bounds on a 5 par and made an 11. He still shot 72 and finished a stroke behind Waryan. The first time I ever saw Jerry he was asleep on a locker room bench. I had gone over to Hudson to play a Sunday Pro-Member. They had been short pros and Steve Ryan had pressured me to play. I was a teaching pro at Mendakota then and I would rather have stayed home and given lessons all afternoon. But Steve was a good guy and he was in his first year as pro at Hudson. I didn't like to play in pro-members because I never knew when I was going to have a bad day and I hated to let the members down. And I never made as much money playing as I could teaching.