On the short par-three fourteenth, Don and Victor were both on with makeable putts. Bobby’s shot sailed over the pin, spun back, hit a ball mark, and veered right. Victor and Bobby both made their putts.
At the fifteenth tee box, Victor came up to Bobby as he got ready to tee his ball up. “The way I see it, this is a big-decision hole for you, my young friend. After this are three par fours. This is the scoring hole. Do you unleash it and show us how good you really are, how that five handicap is bullshit, or do you hold back and keep it at even which gives us the front and cumulative, and leaves you with a bill for a grand, which I’m not positive you have. It’s a real interesting decision. Glad it’s not mine.” He patted Bobby on the back.
Bobby was still unsure how serious these guys were. Were they just bullshitting him, getting into his head by playing tough guy? He knew he couldn’t pay the bet if he didn’t win the side by at least two. And if he couldn’t pay the bet, it was going to go hard on him if these guys were for real. If they weren’t for real, they were doing a good job of pretending.
He let it go. He had no real choice. He needed to get up by a point in order to make any kind of decision about what he was going to do. The ball stayed on the right side of the fairway. It was easily three ten or three twenty.
“Jesus Christ,” Don said. “You been keeping that in your bag, haven’t you?”
“It’s a good drive,” Bobby agreed.
“And I’m guessing that’s not even close to your best,” Victor said.
“It’s close,” Bobby said.
“You’re full of shit,” Victor said.
“Victor, hit the ball,” Don said.
Bobby missed the eagle putt, got his birdie, and watched Don miss a birdie putt and Victor scramble to save par from the right-side bunker. Back up by one.
He was in control now. They had a short par four and two longer par fours to go.
“Boy, you can hear the wheels in his head spinning, can’t you, Victor?”
“They better spin the right way. I’m thinking this little monkey is running out of tricks.”
With the stroke-shot lead and three holes to go, he didn’t really have a decision to make yet. If he needed to, he could even drop a stroke. He took a five iron out of his bag and put it into the turn of the dogleg with less than sixty yards to the pin. He birdied the hole, and Victor parred it. Don got tangled up in the trash on the right side of the fairway and got away with a bogey.
Bobby went to the seventeenth tee ahead by two strokes. Don sidled up to him. “A kid like you cheated us awhile back. Quite awhile. Vic tuned him up in the lower parking lot. But you don’t have to worry unless we think you’re cheating us. We’ll discuss it later.”
His drive on the seventeenth didn’t draw as much as he wanted it to, and he came close to the water at the right side of the fairway. Still, he chipped on and made an easy par that kept him two strokes up.
“This is it, ducky. This hole decides everything that hasn’t already been decided. And things have been decided. Try not to let that influence your play here.”
Bobby wasn’t going to lose and have to welch on a bet. He stepped up to the tee with that in mind. He let it loose, and his stomach churned when he blocked it right. He watched as the ball cleared the trees on the right and ended up on the ninth fairway. Don and Victor both hit good drives that left a hundred and fifty and less to the hole.
Bobby drove over to the trees, through them onto the ninth fairway. He had seen it clear the trees, but it wasn’t on the fairway. He drove across the fairway to the rough on the right of nine, then through another line of trees. Nothing, and there was no one on the first tee.
He headed back to the ninth fairway. There was a threesome just getting on the green. He drove up. “Any of you see my ball? Titleist black three. Two blue dots?”
One guy shook his head, but the other two looked at him.
“You find my ball?” Bobby shouted. “There’s a match going on. You find my ball?”
The guy shook his head.
Bobby got out of the cart and walked to the green. “This is serious, man. Did you find my ball? I need that ball. I’m not joking. This is very serious. If you took my ball, there’s going to be trouble.”
“Stan,” one of the guys said.
“I didn’t take his ball,” Stan said.
“Stan.” Victor had come up behind Bobby. “I’m going to ask you one time. Nice. You have his ball? Not going to ask again. Think very seriously about this.”
The old guy dug into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a Titleist black three, two blue dots.
“Now, Stan, you take that ball and put it back where you found it. Exactly where you found it. Come on. I’m going with you. You put it exactly where you found it. Exactly.”