4. Chapter 4
“Thought it could improve the mood,” I add lightly as I drive across the fairway to the eighth hole, making sure to avoid the cameras that are being set up for tomorrow's live broadcast.
Still nothing. Just her arms crossed, and a slight curl to her upper lip.
Without any further discussion, I turn up the dial, blasting the country music so loud from the cart, Jess starts bopping to the beat from behind.
“Uh, is this Troy Colder?! I love that man!” she calls and I give her a thumbs up. She's happy.
Unfortunately, the woman next to me isn't. Whit's glaring at me now with anger I've only ever seen when the GM found out we didn't make it to the playoffs last year. First time in 13 years, which isn't a stat I'm proud of, but you live and learn.
We're eight holes in and something I've learned about Whit is, she's not here to have a good time, she's here to win, which is unfortunate since I'm making that very difficult for her.
As Max and Jess overtake our golfcart, she leans out of the cart with sunglasses on her head and points at Whit.
“You good over there, Bestie?”
“Fine.” Yeah, that doesn't sound fine.
Jess looks at me before shaking her head and disappearing back into their cart as Max accelerates past us.
I watch them go and feel Whit doing the math, running the numbers, calculating exactly how much damage the bogey on six did to our position, and the silence between us is palpable.
She is trying very hard not to tell me everything that's wrong with my swing.
I turn the music down.
“Just say it.”
“Say what?”
“What you've wanted to say since the fourth hole.”
She turns to look at me and I can feel the list coming.
I can actually feel it, the same way I can feel a pitcher winding up before the ball leaves his hand.
Eight holes in and I know her tells. The jaw.
The arms. The way her eyes do a quick sweep of me like she's running a diagnostic and doesn't love the results.
“Your rotation locked on the downswing,” she says.
“On the sixth, yeah.”
“And five. It was there on five too, you just got lucky with the contact.”
“Okay.”
“Your grip pressure in your right hand is too tight. You've been clutching the club since the fourth hole and it's causing the face to open at impact.”
“Okay.”
“It's a mental thing. You're second guessing the shot at the last second and tightening up instead of committing and it's costing us—”
“Whit.”
She stops.
I keep my eyes on the path ahead because if I look at her right now I'm going to say something I'll need to walk back and I'm not interested in doing that on the eighth fairway in front of a crew of people. “I know what I did wrong. I was there.”
“Then why does it keep—”
“I said I know.”
Silence.
I grip the wheel and take a deep breath.
I will not get angry. This is supposed to be a fun day.
Still, she's not wrong. That's the most irritating part about all of this. I have spent my entire career taking feedback from coaches and managers, and I have never once wanted to pull the cart over and grumble about it.
Here, I do.
And that's new.
“We're still two under,” I say, trying to find my way back to something useful.
“We should be three.”
“But we're not. We're two, and two is workable.”
“Two is workable if you fix your grip.”
I grip the steering wheel a little tighter, which is not lost on me. “I'll fix my grip.”
“And your rotation.”
“And my rotation.”
“And stop second guessing the—”
“Whit.” I say it quietly this time. She stops again. “I've got it.”
She doesn't respond. Instead she looks out at the fairway with her arms folded and her jaw set as I park up to the golf cart.
More silence.
Funny, an hour ago I was having the time of my life, hanging out with the Whit Marlow, but now I feel like Max after giving up back-to-back bombs.
I don't love that feeling.
I get out of the cart.
She turns and looks at me. “Three wood.”
“Driver.”
Her eyes narrow. “The bunker on the left is—”
“I know where the bunker is. I've been playing this course all morning.”
“Then you know a driver puts you in it.”
“Only if I miss left.”
“You've been missing left since the fifth hole.”
My fists clench because she is, without question, the most frustrating woman I have ever met. If she wasn’t so pretty, I’d have quit after the third hole.
I pull the three wood.
“Good,” she says.
“Don't,” I say.
She blinks. “Don't what?”
“Don't good me. I'm not one of your juniors.”
We stare at each other, and I raise my brow, daring her to respond.
Her mouth twitches as she steps back.
Does she have the balls to say what I think she's going to say?
“Then stop hitting like one,” she says softly, but loud enough for me to hear.
The air shifts between us.
I glare at her. She glares back.
I want to be annoyed, I am annoyed, I am genuinely standing here on the eighth tee with my three wood in my hand trying to impress a woman who seemingly wants to whack me in the balls with his club.
It's not worth it, JB.
Blowing out a breath, I set up, then focus on my grip pressure. It needs to be loose, not clutched.
Okay.
It now needs to move through my hips, arms and club.
I ignore the fact that Whit is standing behind me and refuse to acknowledge her as I swing.
The ball goes long and clean and holds its line, landing right in the center of the fairway.
I straighten up and do my best to hold back my smirk when I hear her exhale.
“See,” I say, not turning around. “We've got this.”
She says nothing for a second. Then quietly. “I hope so.”
By the time I’ve turned around, she’s already pulling her club out, refusing to acknowledge me any further.
I raise my hands, ready to shake every ounce of stubbornness out of her, then let them fall. Touching her right now would either end with me kissing her or being arrested. Honestly, I'm not sure which is more likely.
Nine more holes, JB. That’s all it is.
“And then eighteen tomorrow,” I mutter to myself.
Max and Jess walk up behind us after Whit makes her very clean shot. Jess elbows me and gives me a look.
I give her nothing back.
“How you guys doing over there?” she asks.
“We're good,” Whit and I say at the same time.
Jess looks between us. Her grin gets wider. Max says nothing, steps up to the tee, and hits a drive that lands twenty yards past where mine is sitting, easy and unhurried, like he did it in his sleep.
Whit and I stand there, staring at the white ball, both seemingly willing it to roll in the wrong direction.
It doesn't.
“We need to birdie this hole,” she says, coming to stand beside me.
“I know.”
“Both of us.”
“I know, Whit.”
I glance at her, managing a quick, tight smile. “Promise I won’t forget in the next thirty seconds.”
She doesn’t smile back.
Yeah. That tracks. She hates me, and there’s nothing I can do about it except play better.
Not that it’s going to happen when I have her breathing down my neck like this. I’m more of a positive feedback kind of guy.
Disappointed, I turn and head down to the golf cart, not knowing what I can do to make my prickly pro any happier.