"Hole in None"

"Hole in None" is a John D MacDonald short story that was published in the January 4, 1947 issue of Liberty. It was only the twenty-fourth story published under the author's name and was his first work to appear in a general-interest mass market periodical. And, depending on how broad your definition of science fiction is, it was his first such effort in that particular genre. Appearing as Liberty's "Short Short Story" of the week, it ran a brief 3,100 words and filled a mere two pages, along with illustration.

It's a silly little piece, more fantasy than science fiction and I suppose it could also be categorized as MacDonald's very first comic short story, although I have no way of really knowing that at this time. It's an enjoyable tale with a twist ending that teaches the age-old warning: "Be careful what you wish for."

As the title implies, "Hole in None" is a story about the game of golf. The protagonist is one George Fingerhaver, a "cherubic and bovine" forty-something suburbanite. George is a terrible golfer, despite his working at it for twenty-six years. He typically plays with his business partner Bert, who is every bit the golfer that George is not. Bert continually tells George, with "an air of careless superiority, 'You just haven't got it, George. No muscular co-ordination. You'll never get any better at the game.'" George has tried so hard, yet after all this time he still plays with a thirty-stroke handicap. One late afternoon, after a typically embarrassing thrashing by Bert, George contemplates his problem. He knows he has the muscle, if only he could practice with no one around. It's dusk now and the course at the Elmwood Club is empty, so he heads out to the seventh tee.

His drive is typically off, slicing wide toward a deep ravine. When he goes to retrieve his ball he slips and slides head-over-heels down the slope, hitting his head on birch tree. As he lays there he sees, right in front of his nose, a "gleaming golf ball of gigantic proportions," shining with a pale blue luminescence. Then he hears a remote voice:

"George Fingerhaver, it is my privilege to bestow on you one wish -- by courtesy of the golf immortals who, from the nineteenth hole above, have been watching your dogged efforts to improve your game. Please submit your wish."

George doesn't hesitate and asks to be able to play par golf. Always.

"I regret that we cannot grant a wish so beyond the realm of credibility... It's against union regulations. I can offer you a substitute. The golf you will play from now until dusk tomorrow will be composed of the best shots that you have ever made. You will make those lucky shots again."

With that the world darkened, George hears music and the golf ball was gone.He climbs back up and drops the ball on the fairway, where he once hit it right into the hole for an eagle, way back in 1931. Sure enough, the balls whistles straight to the green and into the hole. Thinking about it, George comes to the conclusion that after playing eighteen holes for twenty-six years, even "a dub" will get a few breaks a few times a year. He goes back to the clubhouse and does some figuring. If he compiled a score using his all-time best shots for each hole at Elmwood, he would hit fifty-eight, eighteen holes under par. He quickly calls Bert and challenges him to a game the following morning, even taking a smaller handicap and wagering a hundred dollars a stroke. Bert agrees and on the following morning the round begins

George plays exactly as the "golf immortals" promised, to Burt's initial surprise and eventual amazement. George's newfound skills increasingly cause Bert to begin to screw up his own game, and by the time they reach the eighteenth tee, George figures his betting proceeds to be in the neighborhood of seventy-seven hundred dollars. Then, as he hits a drive from the fairway, he repeats a shot he had long forgotten about...

"Hole in None" is a whimsical piece that reads like one of the lighter episodes of The Twilight Zone -- "Mr. Bevis," say, or perhaps "Cavender is Coming." It's fairly amusing, surprises nicely at the end and is almost unrecognizable as a JDM work. MacDonald would refine these little pieces over the years and he eventually filled the pages of This Week with stories of this ilk, albeit without the fantasy element. 

Whether or not one would consider this tale to be one of JDM's science fiction stories -- Martin H. Greenberg did not, since it's missing from his listing in the back of Other Times, Other Worlds -- depends on the reader. The story has been anthologized only once, in the ultra-rare 1949 collection titled Best Stories from Liberty, edited by D.E. Wheeler.

"Begin Again"

When John D MacDonald was twelve, he became severely ill. What began as a case of scarlet fever developed into mastoiditis, which was a leading cause of child mortality in the days before antibiotics. He was bedridden for a full year, and it was there that he developed his love for books, at first with his mother reading to him, later reading on his own. It was a life-changing experience, and it turned an average boy into an introverted bookworm. "I entertained myself by exercise of imagination," he recalled later.

That experience is almost certainly the inspiration for "Begin Again," a brief short story he wrote in 1947. It was published in the November issue of Liberty magazine that year and is one of his earliest mainstream pieces to see print. A poignant, bittersweet tale of merely 1,800 words, it draws not only on his childhood illness for inspiration, but also on the cold and distant relationship he had with his father.

Young Robert is confined to his bed for something more serious than mastoiditis: he has contracted polio, an illness that is never specifically spelled out but is obvious nonetheless. He adapts to life in bed rather easily. "It wasn't hard, really... every day was long, but not too long, when you learned how to make little things last." Robert's daily highlight is the moment his father comes home, when dad comes into his room before dinner and asks how he is doing, joking and laughing with him. One day he comes home with "a big board, wax paper, some glass cement, and two boxes of kitchen matches with the heads removed." Robert can now fill his day building a fort, complete with walls, windows and buildings inside. This, his father explains, is something his own father did with him when he was sick in bed. Robert will work on it during the day and when dad comes home, they will work together before dinner. "Then, when you're well," the father explains "we'll take the whole works out into the back yard and be Indians setting fire to the fort. You ought to see one burn!"

Robert is ecstatic and works feverishly on the project.

When it is time for Robert to be fitted with a leg brace, MacDonald writes some beautiful third-person subjective prose:

"He was shy about his leg, it looked so awfully thin, like one of the matches, but they didn't seem to notice how thin it was. They made measurements and came back two days later and fitted the brace to the thin leg, telling his mother something about 'Merely the problem of getting used to it' ... When his father saw the shiny brace of metal and leather and padding, he got a funny tight expression around his nose and mouth, as though he were about to sneeze."


The work on the fort continues, with Robert painting the walls and adding grass, even cutting windowpanes out of wax paper. Then one day his father comes home and joyfully announces, "Kid, it looks like today's the day." It changes everything.

MacDonald's mainstream fiction -- at least in the short form -- has been virtually ignored by every one of his biographers. Both Hugh Merrill and Ed Hirshberg mention it only in passing, and it was rarely discussed even in the pages of the JDM Bibliophile, a journal dedicated to the author's work. It's a shame, because some of that work, not just the stories MacDonald included in End of the Tiger and S*E*V*E*N, are stunning. "Begin Again" is beautifully written and deserves an audience.

At least the editors of Liberty liked it. They included it in a 1966 paperback anthology titled Famous Short Short Stories, and dug it up for the Winter 1973 issue of their "nostalgia version" of the periodical, Liberty Then and Now Magazine. It was also reprinted in the February 1969 issue of Pageant magazine.

Anyone wishing to read the story can do so -- for free -- via Google Books, by clicking here.