The Sand Trap by Dave Marshall Read Free Book Online

local golf course that
was the “home’ of the Clapshorn Gophers golf team and make sure the
new girls to town did not get lost. As she described it later to a
reporter, when she had randomly been assigned Melanie, “I pissed my
pants laughing and crying. Laughing as this gangly kid dressed like
a young Hale Irwin walked up to the practice range and pulled out a
5-iron that I figured Ben Hogan had made in his garage as a
teenager. There was a new driver in the canvas bag that still had a
Canadian Tire sale sticker on it! The crying part was that I was
feeling pretty sorry for myself that I had to be her golf
buddy."
    In fact the attention of everyone was on
Melanie that day as she stepped up to the practice range that first
time. Most knew least a little about her. Bob Philips had convinced
Coach to give her what was called a provisional athletic
scholarship, a fancy description of a scholarship that was
conditional both upon making the team and upon subsequent
performance. Philips was not worried she would make the team. He
knew her talent first hand. A broken leg or some such dramatic
injury was not likely from golf. Although she was an outstanding
goalie in her hometown, he had made her promise not to play hockey.
But he was worried her ability to socially adapt might be a problem
and that is why he had asked Coach to assign a good mentor or buddy
to help her out.
    Coach had no such confidence in her
potential to make the team. He and Bob had been teammates at
Clapshorn, and he remembered Bob as competent at the game but by
any means not of the pro caliber that Bob envisioned. And Coach was
not used to taking the advice of Physics teachers in Canada when it
came to offering scholarships, but the College President thought it
might be a good idea to get some more Canadian girls coming down to
Clapshorn for athletics. There were no private universities in
Canada that could offer big scholarships and some teams were able
to raid the Canadian high schools with abandon. The Clapshorn
hockey team was mostly Canadians. In addition, the governing board
and the NCAA athletic commission were giving him a little grief
about gender inequality. So Coach relented, offered Melanie a try
out and killed two birds with one stone. He managed to get both the
President and Philips off his back.
    When he saw her walk out onto the practice
range his stomach turned over.
    “What the fuck is that?” he exclaimed to his
assistant coach, as they watched all the girls walk to the tee
boxes.
    “That is Bob Philip’s Canadian prodigy,”
Stan Smith sarcastically pointed out.
    “Yeah, well this is going to be
embarrassing,” Coach suggested as they both moved closer to the
range so that they could watch the spectacle.
    For her part Melanie was oblivious to the
chatter, the twitters and the attention that she had at the range
that day. A shy and taciturn young girl without a golf club
magically transformed into a focused and warmly comfortable
individual with her old canvas bag over her shoulder. She knew she
was dressed just the way good golfers dressed in her magazines and
she knew she was good at the game. No one had beaten her in the
last six years at the Folly. Bob had tried to give her new clubs
and Helen had tried to get her into some new female golf attire,
but Melanie would have none of it. None of the spectators could see
it, but she was grinning inside from ear to ear. Without a warm up
or a waggle she hit her first 5-iron. The swing was the same as the
first time that Bob saw it several years ago and the ball took that
same elegant draw as it climbed and descended to hit the five-foot
square sign that indicated 200 yards.
    Rebecca was standing behind her and was
still a little awestruck by the swing she had just seen. “Too bad –
you hit the sign.”
    Melanie turned and saw Rebecca for the first
time and with not the slightest indication of guile or cynicism
quietly announced, “I was aiming for it.”
    “Can you do it again?”