Murray the Golfing Gopher and The Power of Tunnel Vision

My smart, funny, and beautiful daughter Stephanie asked me to write a children's story about a gopher who loved golf, so I did:

Murray the Gopher lived in a small rabbit hole behind the Caddyshack at Applegate Country Club, and he loved three things: he loved the sweet, dark earth to dig in, he loved golf, and he loved his One and Only True Lifetime Love, Marie Bunny.

Now it was kind of unusual for a Gopher to fall in love with a bunny, but Murray was an exceptional Gopher who dreamed big ridiculous un-Gopher sized dreams. Most of the other Gophers he had met were grubby creatures who chattered endlessly and meanly about each other and their various annoyances, like the Caddy Master's Gopher traps. Marie was nice to him and spoke softly, and was hardly ever cross, except when her feelings were hurt. He loved her big dewy blue eyes and the little puff of her white tail, and the sweet rabbity curve of her hip, the studious way she wrinkled her nose when she was nibbling tender leaves of lettuce, the tiny black glasses she wore and the way she concentrated when she was reading, sometimes laughing out loud when she came to the good parts of a story. The very thought of her made him sigh. He dreamed of building her a grand rabbit hole under the big oak tree behind the Caddyshack. with a view of The Lake and Farmer Brown's carrot patch, conveniently located on the left side of town.

Murray Gopher's other dream was to become the Master's Champion. He explained to Marie that the Masters was like the Giant Easter Egg Hunt of golf, held each year in the spring when the azaleas began to bloom, and the winner was awarded a trophy and a nifty Coveted Green Jacket, plus one point two million dollars and a fortune in endorsement contracts. "If I win," he told her one night, when they were dancing under the stars, their favorite thing to do, "We'll pay off all our bills, buy Applegate Country Club, and take out all the rabbit and gopher traps." Marie Bunny smiled her sweetest smile. "Oh goody," she said, "I just know you can." Her confidence in him made his heart soar, and he twirled her gracefully to "Stardust," their favorite song to dance to, written by Hoagy Carmichael and sung by Nat King Cole.

It was a Cinderella story, this dream of his, and he would practice every night in the quiet under the moon. Gophers have excellent night vision and he enjoyed practicing without any humans around, most of whom he had found to be bigoted and ignorant toward Gophers, considering them PESTS merely because Gophers like to dig tunnels.

Why didn't humans understand that tunnels were the easiest way to get from place to place, that they were a joy to dig in the sweet moist earth, they were cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter than the generally harsh world above ground, and they were offered the digger privacy and a deep sense of accomplishment? Murray had noticed that humans liked to dig too when they were small, but generally lost interest once they got to be 10 or 12 and became hopelessly engrossed in TV, computers, Nintendo or Playstation, all ridiculous alternatives if you asked him. There was nothing good on television except golf and reruns of old movies, he thought. Adult humans, meanwhile, seemed to have almost no fun at all as far as he could see. They didn't even enjoy it when they played golf, always muttering and swearing around the course. Most of them were just this deadly serious about everything, always going to work and driving about in big cars on noisy streets that sprawled about this way and that, far less efficient than a good system of tunnels. Adult humans never dug tunnels unless they worked for the gas or cable company or wore yellow hard hats that said "engineer," and even then they scarcely enjoyed it at all. Humans were misguided and their lives were far too complicated and serious but Murray didn't HATE them; he just wished they were a little more tolerant of gophers and his two Big Dreams, and didn't try to chase him off the course with the Caddymaster's silly traps.

You may think it a bit unusual for a Gopher to play golf, but Murray was quite good at it. For one thing, no one knows ground and drainage as well as a Gopher, so he was a masterful putter. He would study his putts with his fierce Gopher eyes, holding his putter in front of him in plumb bob fashion like Tiger Woods, determined to make each one, studying the surface of the green until he knew exactly how the ball would roll. "Cinderella story," he would whisper to himself, "The final round of the Masters, Murray the Gopher versus Tiger Woods, the fierce competitor from Applegate Country Club, a relative unknown stunning the golf world, about to become the Master's Champion." He would take back his putter surely, roll the ball true across the length of the green, rolling, rolling, breaking left toward the lake until it made that nice plock-plock-plick-plick-plick rattle in the bottom of the cup. "Wa na na na na na na NAH!" Murray exclaimed, dropping his putter and raising both stubby arms high in the air. Or at least as high as he could reach. He loved that sound, the rattle the ball made when it fell into the plastic cup. No one knew holes better than a golfer, so putting came quite naturally to him.

His golf clubs were a gift from his friend Kourtney, the beautiful brown-eyed girl with curly hair that lived in a white house on a hill above the apple orchard. The clubs were from her first set when she was six and although she had sprouted up like a spring colt and outgrown them they suited Murray perfectly. They had pink handgrips and sleek graphite shafts and Murray found them quite stylish, carrying them in a burlap grass seed bag he found behind the Groundskeeper's Shed. Murray was a dedicated recycler and seldom wasted anything. Fallen apples made a delicious pie, he had found, and he had made a perfectly good drum set from the palms of leather golf clubs stretched over the halves of a discarded Budweiser can. Murray could really wail on the drums, but he was too devoted to golf and Bunny Marie to take his music seriously right now. The main thing was he knew opportunities were everywhere to take good use of what others didn't need anymore, like Kourtney's little-girl golf clubs or an empty grass seed bag.

Murray wanted to win the Masters almost more than anything. The Master's in particular, because it was the first major tournament of the year and he loved the azaleas blooming along the fairways. He thought he would look spiffy in The Coveted Green Jacket. He could wear it when he and Marie got married, maybe at the Champions dinner the year after he won. "Just imagine it," Murray said to himself. VJ Singh could be his best man. VJ was his favorite golfer, a bit chunky like himself, and he thought they even looked a little alike, although VJ was not quite as handsome.

Murray knew it was a bit unusual for a small underground rodent to plan an assault on one of golf's most prestigious titles, there was nothing in the rules that said he COULDN'T play: he had found a copy discarded in the weeds near an out of bounds stake on the third hole at the Applegate Country Club, and though the rules prohibited carrying more than 14 clubs or grounding your club in a hazard they said nothing about golf being played by a gopher. There wasn't even a height requirement, and besides, he wasn't THAT much shorter than Gary Player or Annika Sorenstam or Tom Watson or Chi Chi Rodriguez or Lee Trevino, who all had fabulously successful careers despite being Vertically Challenged. He would just have to be determined, that's all, and no one digs tunnels night and day without developing a healthy sense of determination.

But to win the Masters, he knew, he would first have to be invited to play and that was a bit of a tall order for a short unknown Gopher. But if Zach Johnson from Cedar Rapids, Iowa could do it, so could he, and he wouldn't win simply because Tiger Woods had an off day. No, Murray would beat him, fair and square, mano a mano, as nature intended. A Gopher is far more resourceful than a Tiger, Murray reasoned, who are quite lazy in the wild. They don't build anything, definitely not tunnels, and lounge about all day sleeping, barely energetic enough to switch away flies. The Tiger was going down, Murray decided.

His plan was simple. The surest of the routes to the Masters was to finish in the top 15 at the previous year's U.S. Open, which you didn't even have to be a professional to play in, just finish in the top two at a sectional qualifier held a few weeks before. Like all good plans, this was elegant and direct in design and fierce in execution, built one good practice shot and midnight putting session at a time: win a sectional qualifier, place in the top ten at the U.S. Open, and win the Masters on his first try. Hey, it could happen. A black man named Barack Obama was running for President. This was America after all.

Every night Murray would practice in the moonlight after his tunnels were dug and the tasty treats gathered for tomorrow's lunch. He borrowed a few carrots from Farmer Brown's patch for Marie. It was a good trade, he thought. His tunnels aerated the soil and improved drainage, growing twice as many carrots and radishes as would have grown otherwise, although Farmer Brown probably wouldn't see it that way. He was decidedly selfish and not a sustainable thinker.

At the first tee Murray stood up on hind legs with his chunky gopher body steeled with just the right amount of tension and studied his first shot. The first fairway, he knew, bent around a crook of trees to the left and sloped toward the lake, and the best shot should be aimed toward a tall alder tree with juicy roots just beyond the corner of the bend. Murray saw the shot in his mind before he hit it, arcing like a hawk after a mouse, soaring high then swooping swiftly over the fairway and coming to rest in the perfect spot near a fallen upside down alder leaf a few feet from the stout trunk of the tree. He knew exactly how it would fly and exactly how he would hit it. He limbered up behind the ball with a couple of practice swings that felt just right, narrating to himself as he warmed up:

"The first tee here at the final round of the Masters," Murray said in an important-sounding Jim Nance voice. Big dreamers have to have a strong inner voice of narration. "The Cinderella story about to unfold. The surprise wire-to-wire leader here at Augusta on the cusp of an historic achievement, the relative unknown Murray Gopher shocking the golf world, holding the favorite Tiger Woods at bay, thwarting Woods' quest for a fifth green jacket, the Gopher entering the competition today with a tenuous one-shot lead. First hole, par 4, 455 yards, a slight dogleg right that requires a precise second shot to an undulating green. Here at the tee at Augusta. He's got about an eight iron."

Murray imagined all this with his fierce dreamer's imagination and took his solid low-to-the-ground stance over the pink ball perched on a yellow tee. Both gifts from Kourtney, who had a fabulous sense of color, and so did he, quite open-minded in matters of style. He twisted his powerful gopher body into a tight twist, stretching back as far as he could stretch, his thick torso strong and supple from years of tunnel digging, and he swung the club surely through the ball with a satisfying thwack! as the club connected and launched the ball skyward, Murray pivoting forward smoothly to a graceful follow through, as though posing for the cover picture in tomorrow's USA Today.

"The diminutive upstart from Applegate Country Club has BOOMED this drive!" Murray exclaimed, again in his best Jim Nance voice. "That will be in great position, just by the alder tree on the right side of the fairway. He'll have a great shot from there." The announcer voice inside his head played over the jazz music of his dream. "Somewhere, Over the rainbow, Way up high," sung by Natalie Cole, Nat's smart funny and beautiful daughter. Aren't all daughters smart funny and beautiful, Murray thought. Some day he would have daughters of his own. Natalie had the most lovely voice he had ever heard from a human, though not nearly as lovely as Bunny Marie's. "There's a place that I heard of, once in a lullaby."

Murray would practice until two or three every night, carefully studying every putt and visualizing every shot, dragging his clubs behind him in the grass seed sack, making a soft rustling sound over the grass, until he finished the 18th hole and reached his home under the oak tree behind the Caddyshack. He'd whisper his dream one more time. "The Masters Champion," he said. And then he would snuggle up to Marie in their small rabbit hole until he fell asleep, and dream his big dreams.