Lurking in this sea of adulation were Flapjaw Jones and Downtown Brown. Neither was cheering.

Slim was there too. “It’s great to see you back, Partner. I heard about what happened in Oklahoma and I want to apologize for thinking you ever took the gas.”

Ernie said, “Ah, don’t give it a thought. Come on, let’s go challenge Flapjaw and Downtown Brown to a grudge match. With everybody watching they won’t be able to turn us down.”

A shadow passed across Slim’s face. “You sure, Ernie? I mean, we all know you can sock the ball, but how about your putting? I wouldn’t want to see you go through all that misery again.

“No problem, Slim. I’ve got a plan.”

It took only minutes to shame their foes into accepting the challenge. Surrounded by hundreds intent on witnessing high drama, they teed off. All went according to plan. On the first green Ernie’s ball was ten feet from the hole. So great was his reputation that he simply turned to Flapjaw and shrugged his shoulders. “Do you really want me to putt this gimme?”

“Oh no” replied Flapjaw. “I wouldn’t dream of making you putt a gimme like that. It would be impossible for a golfer of your caliber to miss.”

Ernie winked at Slim and picked up his ball. Meanwhile, Flapjaw and Downtown Brown were playing at the top of their games, and Ernie needed all those conceded putts because he kept flying the greens and having to shoot back at them. But once on the green He just picked up his ball.

Until the last hole!

Ernie had a 40-foot downhill, side-hill snake. If his opponents conceded the putt as usual, he and Slim would win the grudge match.

He waited, tapping his foot impatiently. “Well,” he asked Downtown Brown, “do you give up?”

Downtown Brown said hesitantly, “Sir, since this putt is for the win, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind going through the formality of giving it a rap?”

“Yeah,” said Flapjaw. “Make the rascal putt it.”

The world-famous sage of the long ball felt the old familiar pang of fear in his gut. He hadn’t stroked a pressure putt in months. It all flooded back to him now: the little bug on his ball, the horror when he realized that in trying to scare off the bug he’d knocked the ball off the green.

And especially he remembered the humiliation in Texas and Oklahoma where they flopped in the dirt and laid on him the curse of the Oklahoma Chokebird.

The bug is back!

Knees shaking, he surveyed the putt. Just then he noticed a little red and green creature crawling on the ball. It looked like the same damn bug.

Intending to scare the bug away, he took a one-handed swing at it. Oh no! He’d done it again! The ball streaked uphill across the green, hopped over a twig, broke right, broke left, moved across the slope and then began a long, slow descent. A miss! By two feet!

But no! Just then Ernie heard a familiar squawk that sounded eerily like one he’d often heard coming from the trees at Burning Hills Golf Course in Oklahoma.

Big Bird Strikes!

Twittering and singing, the bird that would later be identified as the Oklahoma Chokebird, probably blown off course in a tornado, swooped down and picked the ladybug off the ball! Its center of gravity altered, the ball swerved and rattled in the cup.

Sometime during the three-day party that followed, Ernie took Slim aside and showed him the copy he’d made of the Scotsman’s ancient book:

Slim studied the first page on which Scotty Cruikshank had written his list of five commandments:

1. Dinna think! Dinna listen to the divil whispering in thy head.

2. Drrraw back the turrrible hickory stick with evil intent.

3. Dinna keep thy head down. Look around and note where the green is located.

4. Dinna move thy left hip smarrrtly at the hole. None “a that!

5. Whack the divil out of the ball!

The second page was entitled:

THE FOINE ART OF PUTTING

But under that heading the page was blank — except for the following:

“Editor”s Note:

“Although Mr. Cruikshank worked on this section for years, he finally abandoned the task when he realized “twas the work of the divil!”

Below the editor”s note, in silent endorsement over the years, some modern day readers of the book had signed their names:

Bobby Jones

Gene Sarazen

Byron Nelson

Sam Snead

Ben Hogan

Arnold Palmer

Lee Trevino

Gary Player

Nick Faldo

Tom Watson

Jack Nicklaus

Tiger Woods ##

The reader will no doubt be glad to hear that the above story is the end of the final, final word on how to strrrike a golf ball. ##