FanStory.com - Saving Mr. Calvin - Chapter 14by Jim Wile

Background
A story about the origin and the future of the game of golf

See Author Notes for the list of characters and unfamiliar terms.

Recap of the story so far: The year is 2032, and young Kevin Parsons, living in Santa Barbara, CA, has invited his two good friends, Paul Putnam and Ernie (Dumbo) Dumbrowski, for breakfast and a round of golf afterwards. Over breakfast, the three engineers lament the sorry state of golf courses in not only California but in the rest of the country, as presumably non-golfing environmentalists are destroying the game, without specifically banning it, by destroying its field of play.

They go to the golf course, which is in terrible shape due to the lack of water and other restrictions, and meet Art Calvin, a retired golf course architect who actually designed the course they are playing. He joins the boys, and they begin their round. When they reach the 7th hole, Kevin hooks his tee shot out-of-bounds. He can see it resting on the other side of an old railroad trestle. The chapter ends as he walks beneath the trestle to go retrieve his ball.

The railroad trestle is a time portal, and all of a sudden, we are in 13th-century Holland. Kilian Pauls, a 14-year-old boy, is running out of the woods and through the fields, being chased by two big boys shouting curses at him. He hears a voice calling to him and makes for it. It is a redheaded young girl who beckons him into the entrance to a cave to hide. It appears as though they have vanished, and the followers cannot find Kilian and give up the hunt. Kilian has just met a cute young girl named Arie Papin, and the two are instantly attracted to each other. She leaves for home soon after, and Kilian starts back to his hill, where he tends sheep.

Kilian has invented a new game in which he hits a ball with a “kolf” which is Dutch for “club.” He plays this game, which he calls “kolf,” with his friends, Lard and Rube—fellow shepherds like him. He teaches Arie the game and together the four of them devise new ways to play it including putting the balls into holes on greens that the sheep have grazed smooth. They create different clubs (kolfs) for different shots, and make wooden balls.

Kilian and Arie take a real fancy to each other, and Arie introduces him to her parents who also like him instantly. As the romance continues to grow, they continue to develop the game, creating names for the different aspects of the game including each of the four kolfs (clubs).

As they improve in the game, and each one develops his or her own special skill, they decide they would like some competition but need to spread the game to achieve it. They decide to demonstrate it at the Amsterdam Fair, and Kilian and Arie ride to her uncle’s farm near Amsterdam to see if they could create some holes on his property for the demonstration. Oom (Uncle) Gerrit welcomes them, and they show him the game, giving him and Arie’s papa a chance to try it themselves. Oom Gerrit is very agreeable to her request to create holes on his land and to provide transportation for the fairgoers.

Chapter 14

The days preceding the fair were days of great industry for the four of us. I should really say the five of us, but I will get to that in a moment. We discussed many ideas about how to introduce this game at the fair and decided that we would need to advertise it, demonstrate it to the fairgoers, and let them try it out. We met for several hours each morning and evening at Arie’s farm, where we each performed our assigned tasks.

Eager to show off his new reading and writing skills, which he had mastered quite well with continued lessons during the summer months, Lard volunteered to make a sign. He used a large sheet of parchment supplied by Mevr Papin as well as a stick of charcoal to make the large letters. It advertised the new game and invited the fairgoers to a demonstration. This is what the sign said:

KOLF

A NEW GAME OF SKILL
AND GREAT FUN!
COME WATCH A DEMONSTRATION
AND TRY IT YOURSELF
AT THE FARM OF GERRIT PAPIN.
RIDES TO THE FARM AND BACK AT

10 O’CLOCK
1 O’CLOCK
4 O’CLOCK

Marveling at the new sign, Arie said, “Lars, that is a wonderful sign! You learned well and must have practiced a great deal to have done such beautiful work.”

“Thank you, Arie. It was Kilian as taught me. I couldn’t have succeeded without his help.”

She smiled at me then with a hint of admiration.

Lotte Papin, who was 12 years old and very pretty like her older sister, was quite adept at drawing. We decided to have her make sketches of the different stages of the kolf swing for the interested fairgoers to take with them after seeing the demonstration. They would serve as good reminders of the proper way to swing a kolf. The aim of all our efforts was to quickly popularize the game in order to create some competition, so we did what we could to help people catch on quickly.

She sketched me in various positions, including the initial setup to the ball, the top of the swing going back, and the moment of striking the ball. Her pictures were amazingly accurate. Once she had drawn the initial set, she copied them again by hand many more times.

Working so closely on his sign next to Lotte, Lard grew quite fond of her, and the two of them talked and laughed continually as they worked.

Arie, Rube, and I, as well as Lars, when he finished the sign, spent our time making balls and kolfs. We planned to give the fairgoers who rode out to Oom Gerrit’s farm a chance to try striking balls themselves. We also figured we would sell both the equipment and the pictures to make some money for our efforts.

The eve of the fair was here before we knew it. It had been a frantic fortnight with all the preparations, but we felt ready to demonstrate our new game to, hopefully, an appreciative audience. All that was left to do was to create the actual holes that we would play, which entailed herding sheep and goats around to the green sites to graze the grass short, dig the holes, and insert flag sticks into them.

It was tiring work herding the sheep and goats, but in the end, it was done, and we sat down that evening to a very enjoyable meal of chicken stew with dumplings, fresh vegetables, loaves of bread, various cheeses, and plenty of mead to drink. Stuffed and happy, we went to bed early, looking forward to a great day tomorrow and the first step in spreading the game to our countrymen.

The day of the Amsterdam Fair dawned clear and bright. We all rose early, had a quick meal of bread and sausages, packed up the cart and wagon we would be taking to the fair, and headed out.

The Amsterdam Fair is a grand event held annually and is well attended by all classes of people. There are many folk who have prepared food and crafts for sale, and there are sporting competitions of all kinds, such as running races, archery contests, and hammer-throw contests. For the children, there are sack races and games of Knucklebones and Hazard.

We set up in an area with a large field behind it, where we would be able to demonstrate how to hit a ball with a kolf. The real demonstration of the game would take place at Oom Papin’s farm. Lard placed his sign in a conspicuous location, and it soon attracted a number of interested onlookers. We decided that Arie and I would be the ones to demonstrate and explain the swing at the start, while Lard and Rube would fetch the balls out in the field and hit them back to us. A surprising number of women and girls attended this demonstration, most likely because a girl was one of the demonstrators.

There was a flat, bare area near where we were set up that was relatively free of grass, and we decided to dig a hole there to demonstrate holing the ball. Following that, Arie and I did our trick with the lifter kolf, in which I stood a mere four paces in front of and facing her, and she would lift a ball right over my head. There were many bawdy cracks from the men present about the wisdom of this, along with encouragement to protect myself, and many flinched in horror when the balls were first struck. Arie never came close to missing one, and they all sailed harmlessly over my head, although one ruffled my hair.

We then had Rube demonstrate his massive swing and how far he could hit a ball, and that really awed the crowd. The spectators could hardly wait for the 10 o’clock ride to the farm, where they could watch the game played in earnest and have a hand at it themselves.