The Sand Trap by Dave Marshall Read Free Book Online Page B

from
playing, but she could help Melanie. Despite Melanie’s obvious
talent Rebecca discovered that there were holes in her playing
form. She had no course management sense. She just “went for it”
with every shot. She had never heard of the concept of laying up.
She shot for the pin no matter how dangerously it was placed.
Rebecca also discovered that Melanie had no short game at all. She
was a disaster with any shot within twenty yards of the green. She
was hopeless from the sand. While her ball striking was
inexplicably brilliant, her putting was simply ordinary. She putted
with this crazy two-foot stick with a piece of plastic on the end
that most mini putts would have thrown out long ago. Coach had to
do some research to see if it was in fact legal. It was, and he
continued to let her use it. Rebecca was well aware of the abuse
that Melanie took behind her back for the putter, and in fact the
other entire oddball clubs in her bag. Even early in their
relationship Rebecca was smart enough to know that Melanie had some
special attributes. While others started to call her freak, and
Coach continued to simply shake his head and ignore her, Rebecca
knew something unusual was going on.
    Rebecca once asked Melanie what she does to
hit the ball so well and Melanie simply replied that, “I see the
club head as it meets the ball.” Rebecca had no idea what she meant
since the club head is probably moving in excess of a hundred miles
and hour as it meets the ball. By the end of the first week of try
outs, while newcomers still gawked at Melanie’s swing and
precision, most of the other players were leaving her alone and had
moved on to working on their own games. There had not been any
tournaments yet, so most still viewed her and her golf in a
freakish way, like they would watch a sword swallower at the
circus, or someone who does trick shots on the basketball court.
Few viewed her as a serious threat to their own golf position. Most
of the college players, men and woman alike, had all come from
country club backgrounds, schooled in the science of the golf swing
from an early age. How could anyone with a swing like that, not to
mention the clothes, ever be a serious golfer? But they did play
some matches that week. Her scores were impressive and no one ever
beat her at either match or medal play. At the end of the try outs
the coaches announced the team. Melanie was named to the women’s
squad. At the same time, Rebecca announced that she was quitting
the team. She did not need the scholarship and she had discovered a
new interest in life.
    Rebecca and Melanie spent most waking hours
with each other during those two months, far more than Rebecca’s
buddy assignment called for. People were already starting to call
them the odd couple. The truth was they simply liked each other. At
the start Rebecca was simply fascinated with this strange young
girl. She started to like spending time with someone so confident
and apparently stable and who did not care much for social
niceties. Though she seemed to have a thing for Chad, she did not
drool over every boy that walked by. She cared nothing for the
sorority group and in fact severely ticked them off by not
accepting a single invitation to pledge. But Rebecca's interest in
her returned to an intense fascination as she started to realize
that Melanie was athletically unique.
    The instances where she saw this would not
be obvious to observers who were not looking for them. The first
was just a pick up, mixed gender, soccer game in the residence
quad. Melanie informed them that she had never played the game
before. Apparently in 1977 it was not a big sport on the Canadian
prairies. With various resigned grunts they let her go in goal. For
the first twenty minutes she stopped every shot that came her way.
Impossible shots. Great curving penalty shots. Shots by the most
skillful of the men, including a penalty shot by a new student from
Brazil, recruited to the school specifically for