Men in Green by Michael Bamberger Page B

played then, with its balata cover, was soft and scuffed easily. Balata balls actually went out of round. But Mike’s ball was on a hot streak, he was catching it squarely, and he was not hitting it very often. Billy suggested he stay with it, and he did. When Mike came off the final green, he gave his mother a hug and his game ball and invited her to join him in the press building.
    Mike was the first-day story. Everybody wrote him up. In the Friday papers, one story described Mike’s mother, Pearle, who had worked for years as a waitress, taking a cigarette break as Mike climbed the hill to the eighteenth green. Another had a quote from Mike’s father, Bill, a mechanic, from somewhere during the back nine: “Let’s hope he doesn’t wake up.” There was a story with a reference to Mike’s brother, Pete, wearing a yellow hat marked with the words MIKE’S MOB . In USA Today , Steve Hershey described Mike as “a grinder, but one of the most personable guys on Tour.” In his story for Friday’s paper, Hershey led with Mike giving his Titleist to his mother. He quoted Mike with expert precision: “ ‘This was the round of my life,’ Donald, 34, said, his voice catching. ‘I played a lot of rounds when I was a kid pretending I was at Augusta, but I never shot this good.’ ” You have to admire how Hershey faithfully recorded Mike’s grammar and the unobtrusive way he captured Mike’s emotion.
    There was a little box at the bottom of the story, giving basic biographical information about Mike, like you might see on the back of a baseball card. His height, his weight, his tour earnings, other factoids: “Has lived with parents in Hollywood, Fla., since age 3. Got his own apartment three months ago.” Later, when they played together on Sunday, Lee Trevino said to Mike, “Your parents must be so proud.” Thirty-four, with a place of his own.
    Pearle was the source for that homeboy bit. She had enjoyed her own powwow with the writers after the round. That was when she let out that Mike had lived at home through age thirty-four. It wasn’t any sort of secret on tour. Mike was on the road about forty weeks a year, he wasn’t married, and the other twelve weeks he lived at home. It was part of his financial success, a big part. More to the point, it allowed him to lead his arrested-development, golf-bum life. One day he counted sixty-two golf shirts on the floor of his bedroom.
    The personal information in the USA Today sports section would have had no impact except that it also appeared on the front page of the paper, in a big story with a big picture: the lunch-bucket pro, age thirty-four, who was leading the Masters and still living with Mom and Dad. Mike’s life had been defined for the world to see.
    That Page 1 story included telling quotes from Pearle, including “Mike will never get married. He’s married to golf.” There were other nuggets that Mike’s girlfriend, at home in Mississippi, was not keen to read. This was before Golf Channel, before the Internet, at a time when a front-page story in USA Today had a wide, wide reach. That morning Mike went from being a largely anonymous touring pro, winner of one tour event that had concluded on a Monday, to public property.
    His Friday-afternoon tee time was 2:21, the last of the day. He was paired with John Huston, another journeyman. That morning Mike went to a department store in a mall on the outskirts of Augusta and bought a pair of new pants so he would look “half decent” (his phrase) for a round that would surely get on TV. He drove to the golf course with his parents in a tournament-issued Cadillac. Mike was embarrassed by the USA Today front-page story. His girlfriend was, too. How did that story look to her friends?
    Mike and his parents drove down Magnolia Lane, the grand driveway that leads from the commercial sprawl of