Six Strokes Under

by Roberta Isleib

  Finally, I'd memorized Walter Moore's slick sales approach to the women warming up at the range: what Dei-kon manufacturing and I can do for your financial and golfing future. I noticed he only selected six or seven of the bigger hitters for his pitch. Girls who'd make his clubs look good if they made it onto the Tour using his equipment. Girls who'd make any clubs look good, anywhere.

  "Cassie, how are you?" I stopped my pacing, astonished to see Max Harding in front of me.

  "What the hell are you doing here?"

  "Here at the tournament? Business. Here with you? I've been wanting to talk to you since I ran into you the other night at Chili-Dippers."

  "This is a lousy time to talk. I'm teeing off in forty-five minutes."

  He nodded. "I know. Sorry. Maybe I can catch up with you later. Hey, good luck. I know you're going to be great." I watched him walk all the way back to the clubhouse. He filled out the yellow Cutter and Buck golf shirt just as well as he had the business suit I saw him in last week. I returned to the putting green for one last session.

  "Putter and I are one," I muttered. I jabbed at a practice Titleist ball. It went screaming past the hole I was shooting for.

  "Let's go," said Laura. "Ten minutes to blastoff."

  We met our playing partners waiting on the path leading up to the first tee. I introduced Laura to Julie Atwater. I wasn't sure whether it would help or hinder to share a cart and play with her again today, not that I had any say about it. On the bright side, she'd be familiar, and familiar was good. On the dark side, we'd both played lousy yesterday—just seeing her here brought that springing clearly to mind. I knew we'd stay away from discussions about her possibly confused sexuality or my problems with finding dead bodies. That could only help my focus.

  Our third contestant, Heather Boyle, had brought her fiancé as caddie and her mother as gallery. The mother was elfin-sized, with painted eyebrows and lids, spiked hair, and pixie sparkles on her cheeks. The boyfriend looked more like a banker than a caddie—blond and solid, the kind of solid that would turn on him fast as he edged closer to middle age. All three seemed pleasant, but distant, just focused on Heather. As we waited for the threesome in front of us to hit their first drives of the day, Gary Rupert approached the tee.

  "Hope the day goes well for you, Cassie," he said. He moved close enough to rub my shoulders. Which reminded me for a minute of Odell Washington. And felt damned good, I had to admit.

  "I don't think you've met Laura Snow," I said. "She'll be piecing me together this week. Laura, this is Gary Rupert, Kaitlin's brother." He stopped his massage long enough to shake her hand.

  'Take good care of her," said Gary. "She's got a bright future." He trotted back down the path toward the tenth hole, where I knew Kaitlin would be teeing off in twenty minutes. He passed Julie polishing her balls at the ball washer without a word or a smile.

  "I don't like that guy," Julie said, as she reached our cart and threw her putter in her bag.

  "It's time, ladies," called the starter.

  "Get your butt onto the tee box," said Laura. "You've been waiting here seven hours and you're going to disqualify yourself by standing around like a bonehead outside the ropes?"

  Julie and Heather laughed at her scolding. We compared the brand of balls we were playing and the identifying marks we'd drawn on them—a smiley face for Heather, a big, black ja on Julie's, and two blue slashes under the Slazenger cat logo for me. Receiving a two-stroke penalty for hitting the wrong ball would be a demoralizing mistake. Then Heather leaned over, balanced her ball on the tee, and stood back to squint down the fairway.

  "Say a prayer that it goes straight," whispered Heather's mother. Heather swung, producing a low, straight ball that skimmed the center of the fairway and rolled up the hill and out of sight.

  "Nice ball," said Julie, taking her place on the tee. Her drive leaned right and skidded into the fairway bunker she'd found the day before.

  "Next on the tee, Cassandra Burdette from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina." My legs felt wobbly and my arms like overcooked Ramen noodles. Laura smiled reassurance. The other girls were smiling, too. More, I assumed, from the relief of getting off the tee themselves than for my benefit.

  I waggled my three-wood and stared down the fairway. "You can do it," I whispered. "Let it go." I coiled up and launched an adrenaline-powered drive that landed just short of where Heather's ball had come to rest.

  "Good start," said Laura, as I hopped into the cart and roared by with Julie. When we reached my ball, I chose a seven-iron without hesitation and hit it to the back of the green. A triumph—a birdie try on the first hole. Never mind that the putt was unsinkable by anyone outside of Tiger Woods. I leaned over against the cart to stretch my calf muscles while the others hit their second shots.

  "Do you have something going with that Gary?" Laura asked, breathing hard from her jog up the fairway.

  The blood rushing to my face felt hot. "What do you mean?"

  "You know what I mean," she said. "The little public massage. The 'she's got a bright future' routine. Does that guy have the hots for you?"

  "That's Kaitlin's brother," I said, not addressing her question. "I know him from high school and we've talked some about the tournament and the mess she's in."

  Laura shrugged. "Just checking, pal. It's a little hard to keep up with you and your guys. Remind me later to tell you my theory about you and men."

  "It's not fair to leave me hanging," I said. She laughed, took the putter from my bag, and walked toward the green.

  I putted first, my approach having skidded off the back of the green, sixty feet from the front pin placement.

  "Just get it to the hole," said Laura. "Right edge."

  I sent the putt across the entire length of the green. It passed the cup and dove back off the putting surface onto the far-side collar. "I got it there," I said grimly. Two putts later, I carded a bogey and we headed on to the second hole, a par four lined with a water hazard along the right side.

  "The second shot's blind," I told Laura. "The whole fairway slopes right. It's not an easy hole. And the green's even trickier."

  "Fairway first," she said. "Then we aim for the center of the green. We'll worry about the putt when we get there."

  In spite of a cement truck passing by in the backswing of my drive, and a weed-whacker starting up during my approach, I hit two serviceable shots and produced my second birdie try. This time, I would not underestimate the speed of the green, I assured myself. Three putts later, Heather wrote another bogey on my card.

  "No problem," Laura told me. "You got caught up in worrying about the speed and forgot about the line. You're getting the hang of them. We're doing great."

  We crossed the road to the third hole, a par three with water on the left, condos on the right. The group in front of us had just arrived on the green.

  "Looks like it could be a long day," said Heather.

  "We've got the time," said her fiancé. Easy for him to be cheerful: Heather had shown no flaws in her game so far.

  "What's Max Harding doing down here?" asked Laura as we waited.

  "He said business."

  "He's Coach Rupert's lawyer now?" I nodded. "Why would that bring him here?" I shrugged.

  "These girls are so slow our clothes will be out of style by the time we finish the round," said Heather.

  "Don't sweat the small stuff," said her fiancé. I wondered if they'd spend a lifetime of marriage speaking in clichés.

  By the time the girls ahead finally cleared the green, I felt even tighter than I had on the first tee. I popped my drive up short of the green.

  "At least it's not wet," said Laura. "And chipping's your game."

  Was my game, I thought, after chunking the shot fifteen yards short of the flag. I banged my ball up the hill. Instead of curving gently to the left and dropping into the cup as I'd predicted, the putt held its line and hung out six inches from the hole.

  "Tough break," said Laura. "You made a good ru
n at it."

  I stomped off to the fourth tee. Heather teed off with another screaming drive and Julie followed closely on her heels.

  I could feel the gears churning in my brain. There are two kinds of golfers out there, those who play by understanding mechanics and those who play by feel. The mechanical players, like Nick Faldo, are always tinkering with their swing. They want to know precisely where the toe of the club should point at each position on the backswing. They've spent hours with slow-motion videotapes and full-length mirrors getting their swings just right. I wasn't in this camp.

  I liked to understand the golf swing along with the best of them, but when it came to working around the greens, I was strictly a feel player. I just seemed to have an easy knack for reading the contours and knowing what speed would get the ball to the hole. Maybe it came from having grown up around a golf course. The point was, this was where I thought I'd really make up for other weaknesses. Length off the tee, for one glaring example.

  But today, my so-called feel had evaporated, leaving me alone with shortish tee shots and even shorter on confidence. I knew that pairings in a tournament could have a big effect on a golfer's state of mind. If you got stuck with a girl who was off her game, it was hard not to be poisoned by her choppy rhythm or foul mood. On the other hand, a girl playing in zone, and it looked like Heather was headed that way today, could carry a struggling golfer right along with her. I sure hoped this would happen with me.

  I stood up on the tee box and manufactured a weak slice, which rolled to the right, almost dribbling into the pond that ran along the length of the hole.

  "Forget about it," said Laura. "Everyone's got to lay up on this hole—you'll just have a five-iron in your hand instead of an eight."

  As she'd predicted, all three of us laid up in front of the pond that guarded the green, then hit third shots on. The Plantation had some pretty vistas, but this green was not among the most picturesque it had to offer. It was lined by crackerbox ranch homes crowded with the flotsam of vacation living: above-ground pools, swing sets, buzzing lawn mowers, and, to top it off today, a frantically barking dog on a too-short leash.

  "Say a prayer that it goes in," said Heather's mother as her daughter stood over her putt. God was going to be awfully busy this afternoon, watching over each of Heather's shots. She sank the birdie putt and walked off the green into her fiancé’s embrace.

  I, without the benevolent intervention of either a mother or a higher power, pulled my birdie putt left. "Shit!" I said, not so softly. "We might as well be playing putt-putt golf in a trailer park. There's no way I can concentrate with that racket going on."

  Laura nodded. "Let me know if I can help," she said.

  "You can muzzle that freaking mutt," I said. "Now that would be helpful."

  We made the turn with me four over par, not a good omen even by Laura's ever-optimistic standards.

  "The hell with a training regimen," I said. "I need a big, fat hot dog, maybe two. Mustard, sauerkraut, and onions. And if they sold Budweiser, I'd buy one of those too."

  "What training regimen?" Laura laughed. We ordered hot dogs and chips and stuffed them down while we waited for the tenth tee to clear.

  Chapter 14

  With the pressure relieved for the moment, I had time to notice that the puffy clouds that had filled the sky earlier this morning were turning dark gray. The starter informed us that the weather channel had promised 100 percent humidity. I felt every percentage point.

  "Pray the rain holds off until we finish the round," said Heather's mother. By now, I couldn't have said which was more annoying—her mind-numbing commentary or the relentless squeak, squeak, squeak of her tennis shoes trailing behind us on every shot.

  "New nine," said Laura. "Fairways and greens, then we'll worry about putts."

  Maybe it was the nitrites in the hot dog, maybe I was just too tired to remain as tightly wrapped as I had been on the first nine holes. But my swing felt less foreign, and the ball stayed within the range I'd come to call "straight." After a near-miss putt on thirteen, I'd made two pars, one birdie, and only one bogey. No one liked a bogey on a par five, but at least I'd managed to scrape along without any penalty shots. Overall, holding steady. Then, an enormous crack of thunder clapped overhead, followed by one prolonged horn blast coming from the direction of the distant clubhouse.

  "That's the warning siren! We've got to take shelter," said Heather's fiancé. "They said not to hit another shot after play is suspended." We all piled on the golf carts and rode to the shelter attached to the rest room to wait out the storm. Heather and her entourage began to discuss the merits of her new putting stroke.

  "What's your beef with Gary Rupert?" I asked Julie, preferring to make conversation about anything other than golf.

  "He's arrogant," she said. "He hit on me last month. Since I turned him down, he acts like we've never spoken. I hate that kind of guy—everything, including common decency, revolves around whether you worship their sex appeal."

  I didn't say anything. Truth was, Gary had been nothing but charming as far as I was concerned. I could empathize with the "hit on" experience, but from my perspective, it was rather exciting.

  Two more cartloads of golfers and their caddies streamed into the shelter, drenched from the sudden downpour. A tall woman with a long, narrow face and very dark eyebrows was shrieking at her caddie. "Damn it to hell, I know the goddamn rules. I played on the damn Tour for two years. Do you think I'd risk my damn career doing something that stupid?"

  "I think she was trying to be helpful," the caddie offered.

  "Calling in the rules official to chastise us? You call that helpful?" The tall woman poked a finger in her caddie's chest. "I'm warning you," she said. "Keep that bitch away from me or you're likely to find golf cart tire tread marks across her forehead." She stomped out from under the shelter into the driving rain and crossed the cart path to stand under a firecracker bush. Aptly chosen, I thought.

  I glanced again at her caddie. He had a shoulder-length blond ponytail and blond mustache, and he'd dressed all in white, including a white straw cowboy hat. He looked like he belonged in some location more exotic than a Florida golf course. I suspected that's where he wished he was.

  "What happened?" Julie asked him.

  "Kaitlin Rupert turned us in for riding together on the cart," said the caddie.

  "Did you get a penalty?"

  "We had to argue like hell to convince the guy I'd only been standing on the cart while it was stopped at the tee. He let us off with a warning. Next time he catches us, it'll cost us two strokes. Believe me, there are lots of other ways she could add two strokes to her score. We don't need that one." He dipped his head in the tall golfer's direction. "I guess I'd better go try to calm her down. Not sure that's even possible."

  "That's Kaitlin," said Julie, watching the caddie dash through the rain to the firecracker bush. "She's always scanning the horizon to see who might be inching ahead of her. And then wondering how she could knock them back. She's got her nose in everyone else's business like a dog tracking a hot trail."

  "Then how are you two friends?" I asked.

  Julie shrugged. "For whatever reason, she helped me out when I needed it. Still, I wouldn't describe us as friends. I feel sorry for her. She has no clue how she comes off and how she pushes people away."

  "It shouldn't take a brain surgeon to figure that out," said Laura.

  "She needs kindness, too," said Julie, her voice quiet. "Jesus didn't only befriend people who were easy to get along with."

  The hour we spent waiting out the thunderstorm improved no one's game, including mine. Even Heather, with heaven and her mother watching over her, hit her tee shot out of bounds on fourteen and took a double bogey. I had managed a birdie on the par-three fifteenth, but lost that advantage with three-putts for bogeys on the final two holes. A big, fat seventy-seven: five strokes over par for the course and nowhere close to the score of my dreams.

  "Not that I had
that much to work with after the front nine," I said to Laura as we walked off the eighteenth green. "What's a couple more three-putts if you're not going to make the cut anyway."

  "That's a lousy attitude," said Laura. I checked over and countersigned my card, then turned it in to the scorer's tent. Kaitlin and Gary were arriving from the ninth hole as we left. Out of Kaitlin's line of sight, Gary saluted me with a smile and a thumbs-up.

  "I heard you shot the second lowest score today, Miss Rupert," a bystander said. "I'm with Golfnews Online. Could I have a few words with you when you finish here?"

  "Let's hang around a minute," said Laura. "I want to hear this."

  "How was it out there?" the reporter asked when Kaitlin emerged from the tent.

  "I had a fantastic day," she said. "I played great. I hit greens; my putter was hot so I made some birdies. It was more fun than I could have imagined."

  "There had to be a lot of pressure out on the course today. How did you keep your focus?"

  "I just hit every shot as though this was my last day ever playing golf," said Kaitlin. "That way, everything else just dropped away." She patted Gary's forearm. "And my caddie was awesome."

  "Don Sandos from the Herald-Tribune," called out another reporter. Her royal golfing highness flashed a gracious smile in his direction. "We've heard a rumor that the False Memory Consociation is planning to contribute to your father's defense against your lawsuit. Would you care to comment?" Kaitlin's smile faded. Her shoulders tightened and she drew a slow breath.

  "My father can spend as much as he likes. Run up the national debt, for all I care. Throwing money around will not change the facts. Will you excuse me, please? I'm in a tournament here." She huffed off toward the scoreboard. Gary trotted behind her, her enormous green plaid bag banging his calves as he ran.

  "That must be why Max Harding's in town," I whispered to Laura. "Maybe they're upping the pressure on her when she's vulnerable, hoping she'll drop the lawsuit."