In 2022, listening to two young Englishmen on BBC Radio 5 Live (an acquired taste), Yes, it’s a taste that takes some acquiring. And these men gave me the impression that that year’s Masters was one of the duller in the event’s long history. But somehow this pushed  me to finally complete a poem begun after a more exciting Masters a few years earlier.

I must stress that the attempt has not been to write history but, rather, sports poetry. Montaigbakhtinian includes a few of my other efforts in this field, which Earnest Lawrence Thayer’s 1888 Casey at the Bat has long, and deservedly, dominated.

I apologize for the lack of non-English versions in today’s post, but hope soon to have another trilingual offering.

The masters

The final day, the back nine,
No surprise, your shots were best.
Solidly planned and executed,
Balls rolling, hopping, stopping right.
A few more holes and they’d be yours:
The kisses, trophy, jacket, check.

But you could feel another man
In the pairing just ahead.
A friend of sorts, as most friends are,
And long favored by the crowds,
Yet aging now and often hurt,
By desires, women – well misled.

Celebrity approaching!
The thrill, the mouths, the plastic horns!
Cameras scurrying, hats and chairs,
The TV gurus all agog:
Now, this day, our warrior gray,
For mortals, we, mortality scorns!

You felt your father’s steady hand
There steady on your shoulder:
“You’ve won before, you’ll win again.”
“Let others enjoy the sun”:
You heard again your mother’s voice:
“Why not let this man so nice, and older?”

One lovely green as ever lay
Above a slope and tongue of water,
And thus this last round’s challenge was:
Avoid, like hell, the water!
Amid the din, did your mind,
With thoughts of this other, falter?

Somehow, anyhow, your ball was in,
And you – all wet – not winning.
Hearing the happiness, you could only smile –
The crowds, the announcers, Sir Him!
Oh dear sponsors, the golfing gods –
What luck! What dollars! Embracing.

He’d risen again, their money machine!
The cheering had a tinkling sound.
Waving to the fans, you sought the path,
Off the fabled eighteenth green.
The hero’s family, the microphones,
Charades in need of clowns.

Yet in his hug a clinging feeling,
A tear in his coal-hard eye.
Before he’d aged he’d’ve laughing raged –
“I won’t be patronized!”
But – what shame? what gain! – to win again –
The great! – the me! – the prize!

So life and feelings made their way,
Through applause, against the sun.
Had accident done what it should?
Future triumphs for you would come.
But this would be this man’s last crown,
And a friendship had run its run.

Imprisoned, we can be, by memories,
No matter how well we compete.
You’d not forget that water-bound ball
Nor he his incredible feat.
Money, fame, friends, what else?
What else but bittersweet?


— Poem(s) and “cover” (homepage) watercolor by William Eaton. The watercolor is after a work by the California artist John McLaughlin, though the version here is hardly as austere as the original.