The words stung almost as much as the lash of his father’s belt, but Seth stared straight ahead, trying to pretend he hadn’t heard them. Besides, it could have been worse, at least for him — he could have gotten matched up against Chad Jackson or Jared Woods, who made fun of him even more than Zack Fletcher did. They and their fathers had managed to get paired together, which Seth figured had a lot to do with the fact that Chad’s father was the chairman of the tournament committee, and Jared’s father was Chad’s father’s best friend. Not that it was supposed to matter who was paired with whom, since the father-son “tournament” wasn’t supposed to be a real tournament at all.
It was just supposed to be fun.
It wasn’t supposed to matter who won, and it wasn’t supposed to matter how good anyone was. Besides, it wasn’t even like a real tournament where everyone had to play their own ball. It was just a best-ball foursome of match play, where Seth and his father would take turns playing the same spot while Zack and Ed Fletcher took turns hitting from theirs, and in the end whoever won the most holes won the match. The total number of strokes wouldn’t even matter, and twenty minutes later no one would care who won. They’d all go have a barbecue, and everyone would have a good time, and that would be the end of it.
Except that wouldn’t be the end of it for him, because no matter how hard he tried, he wouldn’t be able to play well enough for his father, and even though his father didn’t want to win — at least not against his biggest client — he didn’t want to be embarrassed by his son either.
What his father wanted, Seth knew, was to lose, but only by a hole or maybe two at the most.
But not by the whole eighteen. If they lost every single hole, which Seth was pretty sure they would, he wasn’t the only one who would be teased about it. It would be his father too. And then, when they got home—
Seth felt the lash of his father’s belt rise out of his memory, and half an hour later when he shanked his first swing on the first tee and sent the ball flying off to the right, where it had rolled into the shrubbery around the tee box, he’d felt the lash yet again.
And heard Zack Fletcher snickering.
Then, to make it worse, Zack had stepped up to the tee, set up a ball, and driven it almost 250 yards straight down the fairway.
Seth felt like crying as he thought about what was to come, and as the afternoon wore on, it only got worse. The more Zack snickered at him, the worse he played. And the worse he played, the angrier his father grew. Hole after hole, the torture went on. It seemed that every ball he hit went either nowhere or in the wrong direction, and every time his father hit a good shot, Seth managed to spoil it with his own following shot. Zack and his father won hole after hole, usually by two or three strokes.
And Seth could feel his father’s rage building.
When they came to the eighth tee, Seth gazed dolefully at the green.
“Gee, too bad it isn’t Seth’s turn to drive,” Zack Fletcher said. “Didn’t he hit one almost that far, back on Five?” Then, as if just remembering, he slapped his forehead. “Oh, yeah! I forgot — it went in the water, didn’t it!”
Seth’s face burned with embarrassment.
And his father’s burned with fury.
Ed Fletcher teed up, took a couple of practice swings with his seven iron, and stepped up to the ball. He drew the club back, paused for a moment at the top of the backswing, then swept the iron downward.
Seth watched as the ball arced through the air and dropped onto the green about twenty feet from the pin. Turning, he bowed to his son with mock grandeur. “Just get it close, and we have another par.”
Then Blake Baker stepped onto the tee box, set up his ball, and after taking almost a dozen practice swings, finally took his shot.
The ball rose off the tee and rose toward the sky, heading directly toward the pin.
“Looks good,” Ed Fletcher said.
The ball struck the ground about ten feet in front of the green and bounced straight forward.
“Member’s bounce,” Ed said. “Looking even better!”
The ball rolled straight toward the hole, and suddenly both the Fletchers and the Bakers were standing still and silent, watching.
When the ball finally stopped rolling, it was only a foot from the cup.
“Another foot,” Blake Baker groaned as the four of them started from the tee box toward the green. “One lousy foot and I would have had an ace.”
“And if Seth weren’t putting, you’d have a sure birdie,” Zack said.
Seth felt a knot form in his stomach as his father laughed at the joke but said nothing. When they got to the green, he marked the ball his father had driven, then watched as Zack carefully circled around the green, studying the twenty-some-foot putt from every angle. There was a rise between the ball and the cup, and once the putt crested the rise, it would start to speed up. If Zack didn’t hit the ball hard enough, it wouldn’t make it over the rise, but if he hit it too hard and missed the hole, it might very well end up going ten feet past it. Finally Zack crouched down, cupped his hands over the bill of his cap, and peered at the line from the ball to the hole one more time. At last he stood up, squared the putter behind the ball, and swung.
The ball started up the slope of the rise, moving more and more slowly, until at last it came to the top, where it almost stopped.
But it didn’t stop.
Instead it made one more slow revolution, then began rolling down the gentle slope, curving slowly to the right.
It picked up speed, and the curve straightened out, sending the ball directly toward the hole. It was still gaining speed, and even Seth could see that if it missed the hole, it wouldn’t go just ten feet beyond the cup, it would go at least fifteen, or maybe even more.
But it didn’t miss the cup.
Instead, it rolled directly into the center of the hole, struck the opposite side, then dropped out of sight.
Now it was Zack who turned to his father with an exaggerated bow. “Looks like our hole,” he said. “Unless Seth can figure out how to make his putt.”
The knot in his stomach tightening, Seth carefully replaced the ball on the spot he’d marked, then stepped back to look at the putt.
One foot, straight at the hole.
No slopes, at least not that he could see.
The knot in his stomach throbbed.
He felt his father’s eyes fixed on him and knew exactly what would happen if he missed the putt.
His arms trembling, he swung the putter back a few inches and gently tapped the ball.
It started slightly left, and for one horrified moment Seth was certain it had happened. He’d missed a twelve-inch putt — a putt that anyone but Zack Fletcher would have given him. Then, just as the ball was about to roll past the cup, it veered slightly right, hovered on the edge for a moment, and fell in.
“Not your hole,” Blake Baker said. “We split.”
Zack rolled his eyes scornfully. “Ooh, I’m so scared! Now we’re going to lose.”
“I’ve gotta go to the bathroom,” Seth mumbled fifteen minutes later, after he and his father had lost the ninth hole by two strokes. Without waiting for his father, he rushed to the men’s locker room, ran directly to the toilets, slipped into one of the stalls, and threw up. For almost ten minutes he crouched by the toilet, puking his brains out until there wasn’t anything left to vomit up. But no matter how much he threw up, the terrible knot in his stomach never loosened. The retching finally eased up and he was sitting on the toilet catching his breath when he heard the door open.