CROMWELL, Conn. -- My favorite Jim "Bones" Mackay story isn't about the time he tended the flagstick for Phil Mickelson's 70-yard wedge shot on the final hole at Torrey Pines or when he walked off the last green at Muirfield, emotionally spent, his arm draped around the man he'd helped to a long-elusive Open Championship victory.
This story was much more innocuous. It was maybe six or seven years ago, when I ran into Bones at a nearby mall after the Wednesday pro-am at Quail Hollow. We made small talk for a few minutes, and then I asked about the small plastic bag he was holding in his right hand.