Whodunit in Masters Bedroom

The golf mystery writer, Augusta Christie, gathered the suspects into one room.

She was about to reveal who had done it.

Perhaps it would turn out to be:

Mr. Norman, the handsome Aussie.

Or the mysterious Mr. Chen.

Maybe Langer, the stoic German.

Or Ballesteros, the Spaniard with the amnesia.

“I really don’t remember anything from a year ago!” Severiano swore.

There was also the pleasant American, Mr. Crenshaw.

And that other Yank who had had all the trouble here a couple of years ago, Mr. Strange.

There was the local boy--Mize, his name was.

And Roger, the ex-playboy.

All of them with motive.

All with opportunity.

But only one was the one.

It was a warm and windy Saturday in April, and the first thing Christie’s famous detective, Azalea Poirot, did was eliminate several of the suspects from her original list.

This Corey Pavin appeared to be a definite possibility for a couple of days, but much to everyone’s surprise, on Saturday he was found at the bottom of a creek.

The black gentleman with the Fu Manchu mustache, Calvin Peete, also had been under suspicion at first, but upon closer examination of his methods and weapons, he was scratched from the list.

Then there was the American millionaire, the bigshot, the boss, the guy they all wanted to be. Fat Jack, they once called him behind his back. “Golden Bear,” to those in the mob. They all thought they were rid of Jack Nicklaus for good--until that fateful day a year ago, when he pulled iron unexpectedly on everybody in sight and bumped them off.

Nicklaus was talking tough again Saturday. Even making veiled threats. “I was looking around to see how the weather was,” he said. “I was going to find some lightning. You never know, it may come back and strike again.”

But nobody was buying it. Nicklaus might have been guilty last time, but not this time. He was too far away, too far back.

Sure, he was dangerous. Sure, he had a lot of experience at this sort of thing. But his age was still a factor, and his eyesight wasn’t what it used to be.

It just couldn’t be him again.

Could it?

“I tried to promise myself not to get so darn frustrated, not to get so uptight, not to get so hung-up on what I’m doing that I would think I’m a young kid again,” Nicklaus said. “But I always want to act like one.”

No, it couldn’t be him. It had be one of those younger punks, those eight upstarts who want to replace him as the guy who runs this town. Not one of them had been around nearly as long as he had. Crenshaw and Maltbie were only 35, a dozen years his junior. Norman and Strange were 32. Ballesteros just turned 30. The rest of them were still in their 20s. Kids. Just kids.

Still, they were tough. Strong and young and tough. And they had already made some good scores in just a short time. They were up-and-comers.

Any one of them had the skill and nerve to do it.

Nicklaus studied a board on a wall where the prime suspects were listed Saturday.

“Cream comes to the top,” he said. “There’s a lot of cream up there.”

The guests were assembled in the Masters bedroom on the final day of their stay.

“At first,” said the great detective, “I attempted through the use of logic and deductive reasoning to ascertain, one by one, who among those gathered here today was capable of committing this act. I made a thorough inspection of everyone’s past history, of your possible motivation in this matter, and of your opportunity and ability to fulfill the task at hand.

“Mr. Norman. It is common knowledge that you are by far the strongest of anyone here in this room. I believe Mr. Crenshaw described it very nicely when he said that when Greg Norman hits, ‘The ground shakes.’ You are very powerful, very skillful and very sure of yourself, and even Mr. Nicklaus calls you the one we should keep an eye on.

“Mr. Chen, while it is true that you are not very big--no more than 135 pounds, I should imagine--it is quite obvious that in your native Taiwan you picked up many excellent tricks and techniques. Let us examine your background. Tze-Chung Chen, alias T.C. Chen, alias “Two-Chip” Chen--after, I am led to understand, a certain unfortunate incident just outside of Detroit. You may be young and inexperienced, my dear Mr. Chen, but still, all in all, a very dangerous character.

“Now, then. Mr. Langer. Let me see. Bernhard Langer, 29 years old, born and raised in Anhausen, West Germany. Hmmm. You already have had quite a bit of success in these endeavors, have you not, Mr. Langer? Being in this position is nothing new for you, is it? Some of these others are--how did you put it?--ah, yes, ‘Like a child, learning to eat with a spoon now, not with your fingers.’ But you, you seem more than qualified to accomplish here the very thing that you did only two years ago. Yes?

“As for you, Mr. Ballesteros, I do not believe for one moment your insistence that you cannot remember a thing about what happened to you here only last year. How you wilted under pressure and saw everything come apart. You may truly be blocking out the past, Severiano, or you may be merely enjoying a small private joke while preparing to strike again.

“Mr. Crenshaw, you seem to be a very nice man, very gentle, Ben, and a ‘sentimental sort,’ as you describe yourself, but as we all know, you have had some serious ups and downs through the years, and we never quite know what to expect from you. You say that you have never felt better in your life, and we would like to believe you. We shall see.

“They tell me, Mr. Strange, that you once had a reputation as a very nasty young man. They say that everyone here expected Curtis Strange to positively explode two years ago when things did not go his way. Now, if I understand correctly, you are a changed man. More in control. More relaxed. But are you still capable of doing the very sort of thing that, say, someone like a Jack Nicklaus has done? I just don’t know.

“Larry Mize? Roger Maltbie? I am not exactly certain what you gentlemen are doing here. It could turn out to be either one of you, I suppose. Mr. Mize certainly knows this place inside out, having grown up here. Mr. Maltbie is supposed to be a reformed character whose carefree days are behind him, but from what I understand, he has a history of being fast and loose with money, and perhaps needs to acquire more.

“Considering all the evidence before me in this case, weighing time and place and available data at this time, I am convinced that it is . . . You !”

“Who?”

“You with the red hair! Hiding right behind everybody else!”

Good grief.

A surprise ending.

Tom Watson.