Chapter Two: The Pro-Am

“Last week I was inside of her,” Jack said. “Now she’s texting me like she’s from HR.”

            Dean sipped a piña colada and shook his head. “You have to stop dwelling on this.”

            “That’s easy for you to say,” Jack said. He drank a warm High Life, the plastic cup dripping with condensation. It wasn’t ten o’clock yet and the sun was oppressive. Dean was under an umbrella while Jack laid uncovered, arms spread like he was photosynthesizing.

            “What’s that supposed to mean?” Dean said.

            “Forget it. I just thought she liked me.”

            “So did I,” Dean said, taking another sip. “Do you think we should play today?”

            “We can. I mean, obviously not here,” Jack said.

            “No shortage of courses in town, right?”

            “I think we could get nine in at least.”

            Across the pool, a girl in a yellow thong bikini and big sunglasses walked to the bar. Jack groaned and turned his head to Dean. “If she didn’t fuck with my head, none of that in LA would’ve happened.”

            “That night wasn’t a good look for anyone,” Dean said. “I’d love to do it again, though.”

            Jack hit the back of his head on the mesh recliner and laughed a little. A server came by and took his empty cup and Dean ordered another round. They faced the pool, and on the other side of the water was a metal fence that divided the concrete deck and the 18th fairway, with a cart path and Bermuda rough in between. A stray ball has been known to find the pool from time to time.

            “I know this trip is business, but there’s so much I want us to do while we’re down here,” Jack said.

            “The show is at the very end,” Dean said. “We have until Sunday to do whatever we want.”

            A group of golfers walked across the fairway to their approach shots, with each of them in lockstep with their caddies. The caddies wore all white, including their hats, except for black sunglasses under their brims.

            “When do they start playing for real? Friday?” Dean said.

            “Thursday. Today is the pro-am.”

            The pool was nearly empty, and Jack glanced back at the girl in yellow. She was putting her hair up as the bartender placed a mimosa in front of her. She took the drink and smiled at Dean for a moment as she walked back to her chair.

            “How much do these guys pay to play with the pros?” Dean said.   

            “Thousands,” Jack said. “It’s the highlight of their year.”

            “Unbelievable. Are we allowed to walk the course?”

            “If we wore attire and our badges, we’d be alright.”

            The server came back and set their drinks down on a wicker table between their seats. He wore a floral Hawaiian shirt with the gold logo of a marlin on his lapel. Beneath it was a nametag that had his home country, Haiti, typed on it.

            “Dante, give it to me straight,” Jack said. “Do you get more pussy working during the tournament, or less?”

            “Christ,” Dean said.

            “Honestly sir, it fluctuates. Last year’s Shootout was very very good for me.”

            “Maybe this year’s could top it.”

            “As long as someone is topping it, sir,” Dante said.

            Jack laughed. “You think the sheik is going to show up this time?”

            “Who, sir?”

            “The Marlin himself.”

            “He hasn’t come the last three years, sir.”

            “You’d think he would,” Dean said. “Isn’t this his course?”

            “He designed it, yeah,” Jack said. “He’s probably busy with his Saudi league.”

            Dante left to go check on the girl in yellow. They had a good view of one of the golfers as he lined up what Jack figured was his 9-iron based on the distance. He couldn’t see the pin from his seat, but he could make out the edge of the green before the corner of the hotel blocked the rest of it.

            Jack knew he was an amateur player, based on the size of his belly, but a decent one. He took a smooth practice swing behind the ball, looking at the green as he gauged the amount of club to give it. He repeated a three-quarter backswing a few times, with the head of his iron skimming blades of grass before stepping up to his shot.

            He kept the ball in the middle of his stance and wiggled his feet before drawing the club back slowly and following through quickly, the grip loose in his hands. Jack heard a shoot and could tell it was good contact. He handed the club to his caddie and didn’t react as they walked towards the green.

            Jack downed the last of his beer and swung his legs off the recliner. “What do you say we get the hell out of here?”

            “Most sensible thing you’ve said all morning,” Dean said.

            Their room was on the first floor of the Ritz, which was built in the same Spanish-colonial style as the massive clubhouse on the other side of a circular pond. There were several alligators, who players and greenskeepers have given many names over the years, basking on the bank.

            They put on polo shirts and their staff badges before stepping back out into the humidity. Jack unlatched a gate in the pool fence and followed a short trail to the roped off cart path. He lifted the rope for Dean and stooped under it after him.

            “The course looks stunning,” Dean said.

            “It could be in better shape,” Jack said. “More brown spots than I’d like. Someone striped up the fairway real nice, though. God damn lasers. I bet it was Javier or Wilfredo.”

            “I’d throat Wilfredo to play this hole right now,” Dean said.

            “Wait until you see the 11th or 12th.”

            Every fifty yards or so, a vertical cooler was placed just off the path and filled with Aquafina, Gatorade and Stella Artois for players only. Electric carts driven by confused elderly volunteers passed them, as well as a Bobcat carrying a thick pile of scaffolding.

            “How is the stage not set up yet?” Dean said.

            “Welcome to tournament golf,” Jack said. “The guy driving that is probably half in the bag already.”

            “Isn’t this a high-end place?” Dean said.

            “It’s one of the nicest in the world. This is all par for the course.”

            “Fuck you,” Dean said.

            Jack smirked, but then stopped walking and looked up. Dean continued a few more steps before turning around and holding his hands up at him.

            “You don’t hear that?” Jack said.

            Dean listened for a moment and heard a faint chopping overhead. He squinted at the sky, but only found the late-morning sun. He frowned and looked at Jack, who was scanning the horizon. The noise grew louder until a white helicopter broke the pine and cypress tree line to the East.

            It had its nose tilted down and was heading straight for them. It was smaller than any police helicopter Jack had seen, and as it banked to the right there wasn’t a news station logo or red cross visible. Instead, he could make out the gold outline of a marlin on the side of the fuselage.

            “Holy shit. He’s actually here,” Jack said.

            “He couldn’t take a car?”

            “Not really his thing,” Jack said. “Let’s get a better look.”

            The helicopter straightened out and hovered over the middle of the 18th fairway. Jack led them back down the cart path towards the pool as it descended. He could see a group waiting on the tee box taking angry practice swings and waving their arms.

            It was too loud to talk now, and the two of them stopped and leaned over the ropes to watch. Like ants scurrying to their queen, six carts from the clubhouse flew across the grass and formed a half circle around the landing area.

            As gently as one could land an aircraft on a fairway, the chopper touched down and the rotors began to slow. Before they stopped spinning, Legs Gorman threw open the cockpit door and hopped out of the pilot’s seat with the agility of a thirty-five-year-old.

            One of the top players on the PGA tour in the 90’s, he permanently moved from Australia to South Florida at the tail-end of his career, where he took on the nickname of his favorite fish in the Gulf of Mexico. Instead of lingering on the senior tour, he began designing high-end golf courses, with Aguja being his crown jewel right on Naples Bay.

            “This guy is in his seventies?” Dean said.

The country club and pro shop guys all queued to shake his hand, which he did with a smile so white that Jack thought he saw a glare coming off it. He shook each one with his arms bulging against a tight golf shirt that perfectly matched his hair and teeth.

            He spoke to the men without breaking his smile, then suddenly turned back towards the fuselage. Yanking the door open like it was nothing, he waited patiently until a dainty, fair-skinned hand extended out of the cabin. He took it, and in a movement that was both gentle and assertive, pulled the hand down towards him. A blonde woman at least half his age leaned out of the aircraft, and he hoisted her over his shoulder.

            Her hair spilled everywhere, and she was laughing. Gorman spun around and walked away from the helicopter, with her golf skirt not providing nearly enough coverage. He gave her a few good pats before lowering her to the ground.

            “Let’s get moving,” Jack said.

            While walking away, the two of them watched the couple climb into a cart and drive off, with the group of guys standing around like they’d expected more conversation. A man wearing a headset who looked like an actual commercial pilot climbed out of his door and walked around to the pilot seat. Once the rotors started spinning, the men got back into their carts. The guy whose cart was commandeered by Gorman squeezed into one that was clearly meant for just two people.

            “Seems like quite a place to work at,” Dean said.

            “It’s a good time. You do get to meet some proper degenerates as well,” Jack said. “That said, you get paid like a Chick-Fil-A fry cook. Probably less.”

            The helicopter whined behind them, and they stepped aside to let the Bobcat from earlier, its forks now empty, pass and head towards the agronomy shop.

            “Gorman’s wife was something,” Dean said.

            Jack shook his head. “I can’t stop thinking about it, man.”

            “Her ass?”

            “No, LA. Why the fuck did I do that? It’ll be months before a blood test will even show anything.”

            “I’m sure you’re fine,” Dean said.

            “There’s no way to know. What really drives me crazy is that I just don’t understand what changed with her in the first place.”

            “I hate to say it, but you kind of got what you paid for,” Dean said.

            “Meaning?”

            “I told you not to bring a girl you just met on tour.”

            “Been waiting for that one, huh?” Jack said.

            Dean shook his head and kept walking. The group that was waiting on the tee box had finally hit and one of their second shots bounced out of the rough, rolling across the cart path in front of them before settling in the pine straw on the other side.

            Jack looked down at it and saw it was a Pro V1 with a red dot Sharpied on it. Next to it was something small and colorful. He stopped and stared at it before leaning over the rope to pick it up.

            “What is that?” Dean said.

            “I think it’s a pill?” Jack said. “But it looks like an American flag. Like there are literally stars on the blue part.”

            Dean looked at it for half a second. “Weird. Can we get a drink?”

            “Sure,” Jack said, stuffing it into his pocket. Just over a bridge past the 18th green was a Miller Lite gazebo with a full bar beneath the canopy. Two retired-looking men were standing at the bar in a cloud of tobacco smoke, one of them shorter and older than the other with a horrible birthmark on his head. They were practically whispering, but Jack heard the older one call the cigar smoker Harry.

            “What are you feeling?” Dean said. “My treat.”

            Jack nodded and spoke to the bartender. “You got High Life?”

            “Just Lite.”

            “That’ll do, pal.”

            “I’ll have the same,” Dean said.

            “Can I see some ID’s?”

            Jack rolled his eyes and jerked his wallet out of his pocket. When he did, the pill came with it and bounced on the bar, rolling towards the old men. As if he’d hit a mute button, the two of them immediately stopped talking and stared at him.

            “Whoops,” Jack said, putting it back in his pocket.

            The bartender set down the beers and Dean pulled out his card, scoffing at the $25 total. “We don’t get a performer discount?”

            “Sorry, pal,” the bartender said, already looking at the thirsty golfers walking up behind them. They took their bottles and turned around, but Jack noticed the two men were still silently staring. 

            “Have a good one, boys,” Jack said.

            They left the gazebo and crossed over another bridge towards the front nine, the eyes and snout of an alligator just breaking the water’s surface beneath their feet as they walked. After giving them a head start, the old men abandoned their drinks and followed them down the cart path.