The Willie Way

(On the Road Again with Willie Nelson)

by

Turk Pipkin

At age 65, Willie Nelson has discovered the secret of eternal happiness, a way to journey down both fairways and roughs in a perpetual state of enlightenment and nirvana. No, I'm not talking about his favorite herb; I'm referring to his philosophy of golf.

We're on the first tee at Pedernales (purd-n-alice) Golf Club, the course Willie owns in Austin, Texas, and he’s just yanked his opening drive about fifty yards left. Now the rule at Willie's course has always been that on the number one tee, you hit till you’re happy. I toss him another pellet.

“Thanks,” he says, tossing the ball back, “but I’ve hit so many bad shots, I don’t care anymore.”

I’m half-way to the green before his little pearl of wisdom hits home. None of us play well all the time, no one hits it perfect, not even Tiger. Yet we curse ourselves, the game, and the gods that surround it. Not Willie. Willie moves down the fairway the same way he walks through life. Undeterred by bad breaks or questionable decisions, he's happy to be there; enjoying the moment but eager to take that next swing, to keep moving, to be — as he puts it in one of his most famous songs — On the Road Again.

The night before our game at Pedernales, I stroll out of DFW airport, climb in a cab and tell the driver to take me to Billy Bob’s, the world’s largest and perhaps wildest honky-tonk.

“Why you go to Billy Bob’s?” the cab driver asks me in an indeterminate far-eastern accent.

“To see Willie Nelson,” I tell him.

His eyes light up the rear view mirror. “Oh my goodness” he gushes. “Willie Nelson is the king!”

“I thought Hank Williams was still the king,” I tell him. “Or Elvis.”

“No,” the cabbie insists. “Not even close."

The seven thousand fans pushing to get inside the club at the Ft. Worth stockyards would probably agree that Willie reigns supreme. He’s recorded a staggering two hundred albums of the finest country, jazz and blues ever heard. He's sold seventy-five million records, raised untold millions of dollars for countless charities, lost everthing he owned to the IRS, then worked double and triple time to pay them back every dime they said he owed (his final vindication coming when the accounting firm Price-Waterhouse made a substantial out of court settlement with Willie for getting him into his tax mess).

Somehow along the way he managed to inspire an motley army of new golfers young and old, teaching everyone from actor Dennis Hopper to Bon Jovi drummer Tico Torres not only to play the game, but to love golf the Willie way, fast and fun.

I could have played a quick nine myself by the time I make my way through several layers of Billy Bob's security and find Willie on his famed bus, the Honeysuckle Rose. The seventh in his long tradition of custom buses, this is the one they drove on stage at last year’s Kennedy Center Honors when they paid homage to Willie.

Now seated in his own place of honor, a western-style wood and upholstery booth in the mid-section of the bus, Willie is rolling a fat one, drinking coffee, and telling stories with a constant parade of old Fort Worth pals. He’s known many of these folks since his childhood in nearby Abbott, or since his early days as a late-night disk jockey in Fort Worth, and Willie remembers them all — their faces, their families, their troubles and their triumphs. Grandiose schemes are pitched, old lies are exaggerated even further. Willie tells a few jokes, just dirty enough that you could probably repeat them to your wife, but not to anyone else’s. He's also pretty quick with the pithy sayings.

When I ask him if it's almost show-time, he says, "The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.”

And then he heads for the stage.

Billy Bob's is so big that it has its own bull-riding arena and more than a dozen bars where the beer is flowing as fast as they can haul it in. It’s been over a year since Willie played the club, and the place is jammed.

Kicking off with "On the Road Again," Willie sails through twenty hits in a little over an hour. Then, at the point that most performers would be calling it a night, he switches from "Trigger" — his well-worn Martin acoustic guitar — to a black Fender Stratocaster. The crows goes wild as he starts smoking through a bluesey "Nightlife" and the sublime "Angel Flying to Close to the Ground." One type of music slides into another, the A-plus catalog of American musical styles with hints of swing, jazz, big band, and Rhythm and Blues. In his unique singing style, Willie's voice is constantly phrasing after the beat as he trades licks with his band of thirty years. No one has an exact tally as to the number of shows this band has played together, but a quick estimate estimate puts at it well over five thousand gigs.

Two and a half hours into the show, though Willie is showing no sign of running out of songs, the club's manager tells me that for the first time in history, Billy Bob's is running out of beer. It's 2:00 a.m. before Willie finishes his encores, interviews and backstage autograph marathon (this after a show the night before in Louisville and a thousand mile bus ride). Finally seated back in his booth, Willie pours himself a fresh cup of Joe and plops back down into his booth.

“I’m still knocked out by all the people at the show," he tells me as the bus heads south for Austin. “Lots of young people. That’s one reason to keep playing.”

Reaching to the CD player above him, he begins to play various cuts from three new albums he is preparing to release. Conventional wisdom in the music business says to dole out your songs in doses, record one album every couple of years, and don't get overexposed. By contrast Willie’s almost lifelong philosophy has been to record as much and as often as he has songs, and to play as many concerts a year as he can get to.

“If you don’t use your voice, you lose it," he tells me. "Besides, while I’ve still got the time I want to play with as many of the musicians that I love as possible."

The speakers pour out "Black Night," a Jimmy Witherspoon classic from Willie's just-mixed blues album of the same name. Next is the title song of his new instrumental album, "Vous et Mois," a lush & indolent tango written and originally played by French guitar legend Django Rheinhart. Finally there is Honkytonk Heroes, a collection of roadhouse songs by Texas rock-n-roll war horse, Billy Joe Shaver.

"If my feet had fit a railroad track," wails Willie's voice, "I guess I’d been a train."

All three albums are brilliant, the instrumental album one of Willie's all time best. But since none of them fit the narrow definitions of today's radio formats, they probably won't get a lot of air play. Still, people will buy them and play them till they're worn out, then buy another copy, for Willie is his own music business.

The miles roll by — we talk about his sometime annual Farm Aid benefit, scheduled to be held this year in ?? (note: confirmation info to come) , and about Willie's movie career. The screen parts continue to come: a western he shot last year on Sergio Leone's sets in Spain, and a cameo in this summer's "Austin Powers" sequel. But in his eyes you can see that he longs for one more pearl of a role like he had in "Honeysuckle Rose" or "Barbarosa."

At 4:30 a.m., as Willie excuses himself for his bedroom at the back of the bus, I stretch out on the sofa in front with the new instrumental of "Honeysuckle Rose" serenading me to sleep on the bus of the same name.

His pals call it Willie World - the 800-acre complex comprised of golf course, recording studio, sprawling cypress log cabin with a thirty mile view of the Texas Hill Country, and his very own Western movie town called Luck, Texas.

“If you ain’t here,” Willie is fond of saying, “You’re out of Luck.”

Rolling off the bus at ten a.m., we are definitely in Luck, close enough to be watched, as we load our clubs onto a cart by Willie’s dancing bay pony and a donkey named Lucky. On the way to pro shop, Willie seems surprised when I ask if this is the same cart that Kinky Friedman is planning to auction off for charity. The Kinkster, as he's known in these parts, is a sardonic singer-songwriter who gave up his band the Texas Jewboys for the life of a self-absorbed writer. As Willie describes him, "Kinky Friedman is the best mystery writer since Dashiell what's-his-name."

“The only two balls I ever hit on a golf course,” Kinky says about his one round of golf with Willie, "was when I stepped on a rake.”

That a golf-a-phobe like Kinky would even venture onto Willie's course is testament to the good times had on this track. The typical Willie game at Pedernales covers from 27 to 45 holes (occasionally more) with a constantly rotating group of between five and fifteen golfers scattering balls in all directions, making outrageous bets which will never be paid, and often claiming whichever ball they find as their own.

“I’ve noticed,” says Willie who drives a gas golf cart that could get a speeding ticket on the open road, “That the man with the fastest cart usually wins.”

How a guy comes to own his own golf course is quite a story.

"I first saw Pedernales playing in a celebrity tournament in the mid-seventies,” Willie tells me. “A year or two later another guy and I bought the club. Then I let him have it, but later I bought it back. Then I lost it to the IRS, so Darrell Royal and Jim Bob Moffett bought it back for me. But the Feds said my guys didn’t pay enough for it, so the IRS took it back and sold it to an Iranian fellow. We didn’t get along so I convinced a theater owner in Branson, Missouri to buy it for me and I did six months of shows to pay him back. So I guess I’ve paid for this course several times."

Willie’s pro at Pedernales is Larry Trader. Since the day they first saw the course, he and Willie have taken on all comers in marathon matches for big-time bragging rights.

"Our finest day was when Willie and I scrambled against Treviño," Trader tells me proudly as the course's pet peacock fans its tail nearby. "Lee shot a six-under 30 on his own ball and we had to shoot 29 to beat him."

"The secret of golf is picking your partner," says Willie, before adding a crucial addendum. "And winning nine and eighteen."

Another of Willie's long time golf partners is former UT football Coach Darrell Royal who, along with Ben Crenshaw and the pony-tailed one, co-hosts the Ben-Darrel-Willie charity golf tournament, raising half a million dollars annually for disadvantaged East Austin youth.

"What you have to understand about Willie," says Royal, "Is that he doesn't care about score; he just wants to play golf. And nothing's going to keep him from it. In the dead of winter, he used to play Pedernales in his Mercedes because it had the best heater."

More likely to keep track of the match than his score , Willie has never bothered to keep a handicap, but proudly relates that his lifetime low round is a 76. And though he doesn’t always hit it that well, he rarely hits it terrible. He just hits it, then hits it again till it goes in the hole. It’s called golf. (Having foregone the opening hole mulligan on number one at Pedernales, Willie miraculously found his ball in the left rough, chipped it down toward the green, then got up and down for a working man's par.)

Though few people seem to know it, Pedernales is open to the public. Green fees with carts are around $25, right in line with Willie's preference for public golf.

"I took the guys from the band out to Shadowcreek," Willie tells me, referring to Steve Wynn's fantasy track in Vegas with green fees of a thousand bucks a person. "Only to be told my friends didn’t have on the proper golf attire. Well, they didn’t want to spend three hundred buck for a golf outfit, so we turned around and drove back to town. I’m not playing there if I can’t bring my friends,” he concluded.

We're nearing the end of a long, sweet day at Pedernales when Willie smacks another tee shot into the left woods.

“That needs a good kick!” said Ray Benson, towering leader of the Texas swing band Asleep at the Wheel and a long-time friend of Willie.

“It’ll get one,” Willie says with a smile, just a nanosecond before the ball takes a rocket ricochet back to the middle of the fairway.

We look to him in awe. The man knows his bounces.

Two holes later, with the sun sinking below the distant horizon and a dozen accumulated skins on the line, Willie eyes a twenty-foot putt to win it all. Putting one-handed (as he often does, perhaps as much to unnerve his opponents as to smooth his stroke), he knocks in the long putt to win all the skins.

"Nine and eighteen," he says with a smile.

“The one-armed bandit got us again!” yowls Benson, knowing full well there’s no one you enjoy losing to quite as much as when Willie cuts you down to size.

Having just finished a month on the road, you'd think Willie would be in Austin for a long rest, but the very next afternoon we’re getting off the plane in his other home, the island of Maui.

"Maui’s great!” he says. “The kids have a neighborhood here, plus we still have Austin. It’s the best of both worlds.”

Traveling light as always, five minutes after touchdown Willie is already in the car on his way to his son’s voice lesson. With just a few days around the family, he’s got to make the most of it.

Just before sunset, I join him out back of the family's ocean-side house in Django’s Orchid Lounge, Willie's louvered glass greenhouse with a poker table and chessboard looking out past a circle of blooming orchids to the ocean beyond. Sitting down face to face, we begin to slide the chess pieces around. He's a tireless devotee of the game, and an hour later, we’re still at it, trying to think three or four or five moves ahead because we both know that’s the only way to stay alive.

When I win the first game, the thought of taking a break never comes up. Instead, he spins the board around so I can play white. Willie seems to think that I got lucky (which I did), but the only way to be certain is to keep at it until we establish once and for all who's the better player. Of course, we both know this could take years to decide, which is small consolation as he wins the second game and I spin the board around.

That evening we drive to Charley’s, his favorite bar and restaurant in the small town of Paia. Willie plays an annual gig in the bar side of Charley's, a room that might hold two hundred sardine-shaped people. For the concert this past December he was backed by Austin band, Titty Bingo, which is comprised mainly of Austin friends and family and seems to exist mainly to sell merchandise featuring the bands rather memorable name. Considering that fellow-Highwayman Kris Kristofferson joined in, and Willie's pal Woody Harrelson was in the audience, it's no surprise that traffic into Paia was so bad that Willlie could barely get there to play.

The next day starts as most Willie days in Maui begin — at five a.m. with Willie taking a long jog up the beach road, this time accompanied by his new yellow labrador retriever. A morning run, take the kids to school, breakfast with Annie, then Willie hops into his brand new four-runner and heads for the golf course. It's good to be the king.

On an island that boasts two fine Trent Jones, Jr. layouts at Makena, Crenshaw’s fine Plantation Course and many other lavish, resort layouts, Willie is most-often found at the Maui Country Club, a modest nine-hole track on the non-touristed side of the island.

“It’s close, it’s easy, and I love to play it,” says Willie.

“It’s okay if you like playing in the wind," another local golfer tells me sarcastically.

Today Willie is eager to show me the island's newest course, The Dunes at Maui Lani, a spectacular links-style track with fifty foot sand dunes and some dramatic changes in elevation. A $50 daily fee course, the front nine leads almost directly to the entrance to Maui's lush, mist-shrouded Iao Valley.

“The valley is my favorite part of the whole island,” Willie says in a reverie, “Maybe the whole world.”

Since his trip to Hawaii has been cleverly scheduled to coincide with a private show later in the week, we're joined at the pro shop by six members of Willie's band and road crew. Willie and I quickly set up a two-man best ball match against bass player Bee Spears and road manager Poodie Locke (a man who can walk into nearly any bar in America and have three people call his name).

The course is memorable with some spectacular views of the West Maui Mountains. We come to number seven, a downhill par four that requires your tee shot to be aimed directly at the tallest peak.

Willie hits a high solid shot straight down the middle and turns back with a smile.

“Nothing but mountain.” he says.

It's a great round of golf and a spectacular course, but after just three days of Willie's non-stop schedule, my golf game is downright sad. Willie and I press the bet, and press again, but it's all for naught as Bee and Poodie have definitely got our number.

“Tomorrow we’re playing McKenna," Willie says, trying to cheer me up. "Then Pukalani, Kanapali, and maybe Grand Waikapu. We'll get 'em on one of those."

But having imposed on his hospitality long enough, it's time for me to head for home. My last supper is with Willie, family, band and crew. We caravan up to Mama’s Fishhouse, a beach-side paradise where the bandmembers sip cold Rum Floaters (a frozen piña colada with a shot of dark rum on top) while waiting for a table (even Willie has to wait for an oceanside table for twenty-five).

One of the best and most expensive restaurants on Maui, we're all drooling over our seared ahi tuna appetizers when the waiter arrives to tell us the specials. It's a beautiful night on the island, sea breezes blowing, and Willie's youngest boy is sitting on dad's lap, his head on Willie’s shoulder, a serene smile on both their faces.

"Tonight we have wok-fried Alii Moi," the waiter tells us, "In ancient Hawaii, that fish was reserved for kings."

Almost in unison, Willie’s family and friends turn their heads in his direction.

“I’ll have that,” says Willie with a grin.

My cabdriver was right; Willie is the king, at least of his world.

"Adios & Mahalo,” Willie says as I drive off to the airport with my mind drifting back over my whirlwind trip in the company of greatness. I could never forget his flamenco guitar opening and heart-breaking voice on "I Never Lied to You," or his telling me late one night of singing "My Wild Irish Rose" when he was a boy, his eyes wandering sixty years ago back to Abbott, Texas.

It was while we played chess that I'd worked up the nerve to ask if he sets aside time to write new material.

"No time in particular," he told me. "After you’ve written twenty-five hundred songs, it’s hard to think of what to say next."

Twenty-five hundred songs, and yet they do keep coming. One song at a time his enormous body of work continues to grow.

“What you leave is who you are,” he told me.

"So are you ever going to retire?" I asked.

“All I do is play music and golf," he said with a wicked smile. "Which one do you want me to give up?"

I was sitting alone in the airport bar when I again heard his voice. But as I turned to look over my shoulder, I realized it was only his music that had followed me.

"Turn out the lights," Willie sang on radio. "The party’s over, And tomorrow starts the same old thing again."