28

Tee For Three.

By three PM they were on the first tee. Bob looked resplendent in his new yellow and green plaid slacks, and the other two were equally well turned out - David looking great in a pair of plus-fours. However, there was something about Bill’s outfit that troubled Bob. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but there was something amiss. He tried to put it out of his mind, and succeeded for the first three holes, as he matched his outstanding approach play with some masterful putting. Bob took the first three holes and was just gearing up to take the fourth, when his nagging concern overwhelmed him as he watched Bill teeing off. It was Bill’s shoes. There was something wrong with them... They weren’t golf shoes! This in itself was a shock, but there was more. There was something about them... Yes, they were out of character... They were crazy shoes... Sort of rainbow boots... And as he looked closer and closer, Bob could see that there was writing on them... Couldn't make it out at first, but then it all fell into place... On one foot the word Dead, on the other foot the word Head... Funny... Why would he want to have boots with that written on it? Dead... Head... Odd... Dead... Head - no connection. Bill finished his shot, picked up his tee and then stood to the side, with his feet together. Deadhead...That’s what the boots said...Deadhead...Now what the heckfire was that? Bob scratched his head in puzzlement. Deadhead... Deadhead... Rolled off the tongue easily... Deadhead - must mean something... Deadhead... Deadhead... Deadhead... DEADHEAD!?!
The lightning bolt of truth struck Bob through the fog of deceit and he let out a cry like no other noise any human has made. It was saturated with more madness than Ahab’s when he met his fate, it was more primal than Tarzan’s, and not even Edvard Munch’s ‘Scream’ could match it for sheer, tortured existential realisation.

“AAAAAUUUUUUUEEEEAAAAUUURRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!”

He   cried.
“Shit! What? Holy shit! What’m’I? Who’re you...?” Sage (dressed as Bill Williams) stammered.
“Sage! It’s me, Dredly!” Dredly shouted. The 'Bob' persona had shattered and now he realized that they were all in danger and that he had to act quickly. He started slapping Sage about the face. Dredly wanted to help him break free, just as he had done. Seeing the Deadhead boots made him realize that he wasn’t Bob Dempster, a middle aged middle manager on a middling wage from Billings Montana, but Salokin Dredly, a bon viveur from London in merry old England.
“Dredly, stop slapping me!” Sage said suddenly.
“Oh thank Christmas! You’re back!” And Dredly hugged him.
“But I haven’t been anywhere, have I? Oh, but you have - what on earth are you wearing... What the arse is Greta wearing?” Sage looked in horror at the outlandish golfing outfit she was wearing, but that didn’t concern Dredly as much as the glazed expression on her face. His scream had clearly jolted Sage from the full control of the drugs and now all it needed was for Sage and Dredly to push Greta over the final edge. They started to slap her, but it had no effect.
“She’s out on her feet.” Dredly said.
“What do we do?" Sage asked.
Dredly looked around. They were on the golf course out the back of the headquarters of the Federal Bureau for ruining your life, or rather the citadel of The Fabulous Fernando. They were in the open and Dredly had the feeling that pretty soon someone would spot the fact that they were no longer behaving like a bunch of middle managers.
“Let’s, put Greta in the golf buggy and drive her out of here.” He said.
“We’ll never make it! They’ve got to have a hundred guards around this place if they’ve got three.”
“We’ll just have to take our chances. Which would you rather - a life spent waxing your car, or a ten minute manic chase, ending in a gun battle.”
“The gun battle!” Sage replied, grabbing Greta’s legs.
They loaded her into the buggy and Sage got behind the wheel.
“Look!” He said, pointing to the building complex. In the distance Dredly could see three jeeps mobilising.
“Okay, go! Go! Go!” He cried, and Sage slammed the pedal to the metal. There was a whirr and the buggy lumbered into life. “How fast can this baby go?”
“Er...” Sage tapped the glass on the speedo’ as he steered them down the fairway, “Eight miles an hour.”
“Damn!”
“You’ll have to drive!” Sage cried, over the sound of the straining engine.
“This is no time to start swapping positions!” Dredly retorted.
“No, I mean get up at the back of the buggy and start teeing off. The golf balls are our only means of defence.”
“Brilliant!” In a moment Dredly was setting himself up on the back of the buggy. They were in luck, because they had a bucket of golf balls in the back. “I’ve got fifty rounds.” He said.
“Don’t shoot ‘til you see the whites of their eyes.”
“But they’re bad guys, they’re all wearing mirrored shades.”
“Best fire at will, then.”
The agents were gaining on them at a frightening pace. They were already at the third tee, and Sage hadn’t even managed to clear the fourth fairway.
“Which club shall I use?” Dredly asked.
Sage glanced over his shoulder. “Tricky one. I’d go with a two wood from here. Send a couple of shots across their bows.”
“But you know I can’t hit straight with a wood!”
“Just aim for the middle jeep. If you hook it you’ll catch the left one, if you slice, you’ll get the right.”
“Nice one!” Dredly lined up his shot. They had about six hundred and fifty yards on them, but he calculated that by the time his ball landed from a well hit drive, they’d have got within range. He swung. Disaster! Dredly topped the ball horribly and watched the precious round bobble ten yards.
“Darn it! And in a bunker, too!”
“You tried to do too much.” Sage shouted over his shoulder. “Remember, flow with the stroke. You don’t have to try to hit it to the moon. Let the ball do the work. What’s your stance like? No, no! You want to have your left heel in line with the ball when you’re driving!”
“Okay! God, you know I hardly ever use a wood. Couldn’t I just go with a three iron?” Dredly begged.
“No! This is the perfect time to practice. The life and death situation will concentrate your mind. Now give it another try - and remember to keep that head still, or I’ll chop it off!”

Sage was a harsh teacher, but fair, given the situation. Dredly teed up again, brought the club back smoothly, swept it through - head still, head still - no thought, feel the ball... It cracked sweetly off the face of the wood, flying high, slicing gently; but even as it sped on its way, the agents in the jeeps opened fire. Distant reports, like damp wood crackling and popping on a fire were swiftly followed by the whizzing of bullets.
“They’re shooting at us!” Sage exclaimed in surprise.
“What did you think they were going to do, subdue us with their conversational skills? Of course they’re shooting at us...” However, Dredly stopped short, as something caught his eye in the distance. The agent who only a moment before had been standing in the right hand jeep shooting at them, had suddenly disappeared. No, wait! He’d fallen...
“Yes!" Dredly shouted, making a fist. “Strike one to the little guys!”
“You got one?” Sage turned for a moment.
“Smack in the head!”
“Oh no! You didn’t shout ‘fore’ - we’ll be barred from this club for sure!” Sage complained, while a grim spectacle unfolded behind them.

The agent, wounded and dazed, fell limply off the back of the jeep. In that moment, the strap of the machine gun that was slung across his shoulders caught on the tow-bar of the jeep and he was dragged along like the fallen Hector behind the chariot of the victorious Achilles. His body bounced this way and that, his arms flailing in vain as the jeep drove onwards. They heard a distant cry, but it was to no avail. His gun strap was suddenly rent in twain and he was sent hurtling into the sand trap at the front of the third green. It was a cruel fate indeed, for Dredly had seen Sage take three shots to get out of it just minutes before. Now, just like Hector, the agent lay motionless in the dust - though rather than being torn to shreds as Hector was upon the rocky ground outside the walls of Troy, he merely suffered some nasty grass burns and would have to put his shirt in to boil wash if he was to get the stains out of it.
Having seen their fellow warrior thus laid low, the other agents re-doubled their efforts and drove, faster and faster. They cared not that their jeep engines were straining, they cared not that Dredly was peppering the fronts of their jeeps with golf balls, they cared not that they’d left skid marks across the third green and had just run over the head green-keeper, for they had only one thought in their minds, and that was the doom of the men in the buggy! Dredly's golf club swished - it was countered by fifty rounds of machine gun fire. It swished again - again the back of the buggy was riddled with bullets. It swished a third time...
“For Christ’s sake, stop taking practice strokes and hit the bloody ball!” Sage screamed.
Dredly hit the ball and it rocketed low, but true, shattering the windscreen of the right hand jeep. The driver lost control and his vehicle tumbled end over end. Again and again it bounced, just like all those jeeps in the A-Team, and just like in the A-Team, the driver somehow managed to get out of the wreckage with nothing more than a headache. Though on this occasion, he’d landed out of bounds, so it was likely he’d bogey the hole. That left them with only two more jeeps and four more agents to contend with. They were gaining on the golf buggy with every passing moment. It was time for quick thinking and straight talking.
“They’re less than a hundred yards away - should I stick with this wood or change to a four iron?” Dredly called to Sage.
“A four iron? What are you crazy! Use the seven iron, drop the balls in from high up - and remember, not too much backspin. You don’t want to hit them and then go rolling back into the lake at the front of the green.” Sage replied quickly.
Dredly pulled his trusty seven iron from the bag. It was a goodly weapon and could deliver him a birdy even from the rough with a bad lie in the rain. Dark was its handle and the Devil was in its shaft. He raised it aloft and struck! The ball flew off, a bird of prey with doom-laden wings, like the eagle sent each day to peck out Prometheus’ liver in Hades. Dredly could but hope that it would consign an agent to a grey eternity on the far shore of the Styx. His hopes soared with the ball, and then sank as it landed well short, bounced twice on the fairway and ended up rolling to a standstill on the narrow road between the thirteenth green and the fourteenth tee. But too soon, too soon did he lose his faith, for the driver of the middle jeep, unaware of the danger, drove straight over the ball where it lay. He caught it with the side of one of his front wheels and the ball, dampened by its sojourn in the grass, spat up and hit the driver of the next jeep in the side of the head. He was knocked backwards in his seat and the jeep suddenly jolted, causing the agent standing in the back to lose his balance. As he sought to catch hold of something, he involuntarily squeezed the trigger of his gun and the indiscriminate spray of bullets tore into the side of the other jeep. There was a pop as one of the rear tires bust and a cry as both the machine gun toting agents were thrown off their jeeps. A moment of perfect clarity followed. Everything in the world made sense. Dredly could see the Yin and Yang in all things and the underlying harmony and balance of the world, as the two jeeps veered away from each other, arcing out and then back on what seemed like a pre-ordained convergent course. There was a loud crash and the jeeps lay tangled and twisted.
“Victory!” Dredly cried, shaking the seven iron to the heavens and the ancient war Gods who had guided his hand.

“Don’t bet on it.” Sage replied. “We’ve still got to get through the perimeter fence, and you can be sure that there’ll be more where that lot came from."

Can Sage and Dredly escape the nightmare of the dogleg 15th? And will they be penalized for not keeping their score properly... and wrecking the golf course?

Find out in the next pringle-clad chapter...