The Sand Trap (16 page)

“Won’t you be exonerated if Melanie and Chad
do well?”

Chad had posted the lowest score, a six
under, of all golfers that day and was the top ranked player of the
sixteen.

“It’s a mixed bag there. Some Alumni, mostly
friends of Burt’s parents are saying this is what happens when you
let a woman play with the men.” He paused and addressed her in as
serious a way as possible. “And Rebecca, promise me, trust me on
this, you will keep Melanie away from Chad.”

At that point the others from the Clapshorn
group started to arrive and Rebecca and Coach broke off their
conversation as Rebecca quietly told him to come up to their suite
after the group dinner to help them strategize. By the time Rebecca
returned to the suite, Melanie’s portion of the Chinese food had
been eaten and the door to Melanie’s room was closed. Rebecca
listened at the door and heard only the sound of the TV tuned into
a game show. She decided to just leave her alone. If Melanie wanted
to talk, she would come out. Coach did come up to the suite later,
quietly knocking at the door as an expectant Rebecca let him in.
They did strategize, but it was not about Melanie’s future.

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On the first day of the elimination round,
Melanie enjoyed some of the best golf she could remember. For the
first time in her life no one laughed at her swing and she felt she
did not have to apologize for her special attributes and unique
talent. She was playing against the lowest handicap young golfers
in America in 1978 and she was totally in her element. After
winning her first match three and two against the NCGA Eastern
region champion the rest of the field knew that she was not a one
shot wonder. Both Rebecca and Coach had talked to her about
strategy when playing such good golfers. It was not complex. Don't
play for a great score; rather play to win more holes than the
other person. No, “going for it” over the trees. Halving a hole is
better than losing it with a chancy shot. Just be a consistent
par-birdie golfer and the other player’s mistakes will let you win.
They were sure with her ball striking consistency she could have
bogie free rounds, and even win the odd hole with a birdie.
Consistency and patience would win the day.

The strategy worked like a charm to get her
into the final eight for the afternoon match. Her opponent matched
her birdie for birdie but bogied three holes to her pars. She did
not crush the guy; but it was an impressive win.

She followed the same strategy in the
afternoon match. It was tougher than the morning since the guy made
only two bogies so she only won two and one. The win meant that she
was now in the final four and would play in the morning’s match
before the championship eighteen in the afternoon. She pretty much
concentrated on her golf during the day and only peripherally
noticed the crowd that was gathering around her. She did hear
cheering from Texas and New Hampshire and once she waved and smiled
at them. But other than that it was all golf and that was a world
in which she was more than comfortable. So it was a good day.

However, there were a few things she learned
at the end of the day that gave her mixed emotions.

The first and worst was that Chad was also
in the final four. She had very mixed feelings about that. She
realized now the potential existed for them to meet in the final
match play. Part of her wanted to embarrass him just the way she
did with Burt. But that match had exhausted her beyond anything
anyone else could imagine. She knew it was the only realistic way
she could get back at Burt, Chad or the others. She could have gone
to Coach and told him what happened but in the end it would be
their word against hers. She was far too naïve and uninformed at
that time to understand rape kits and other such ways of proving
her story was true. But the fact was, she blamed herself and was
ashamed and she did not want her Dad or her Grandmother or Rebecca
or anyone else to know what had happened. It was her fault. She
should never have lost control of her circumstances and let Chad
take over the way he did.

It had felt good to do what she did to Burt
and it had been calculated and planned. She had no such plan for
Chad and even if she did, she wasn't sure she could even beat him.
When she really examined her feelings she knew she was terrified of
meeting him in the final match. While she had no intention of not
winning her own match tomorrow morning, she secretly hoped that
Chad would lose and she could keep playing with the kind of
fabulous men she had played today. They were both gentlemen and
simply accepted her as a golfer and not as an anomalous woman
freak. Neither were bothered in the slightest that she beat them,
and the one from North Carolina actually asked her out on a date
when the tournament was over. She politely declined, but she was
having fun playing with people who respected her for her golf and
did not care about her unusual anything.

Playing with Chad would ruin that.

The other thing she learned was that her
success had now reached all the way to the Canadian media and a
television team from CBC had gone to the Folly to see just where
this golfing freak came from. Her Dad knew nothing of what was
going on and said they could only stay if they paid golf fees and
played the course or else he would sick the old collie on them.
Brutus the thirteen-year old Border Collie was not much of a
threat, but the TV crew from Toronto still had the time of their
lives losing balls through a full nine holes at the Folly and it
was captured on video and played for the nightly CBC news. The
Folly would never be the same again.

To her embarrassment, she learned that
someone had called Hale Irwin and Andy Bean again, the American
media still had no idea about the Moe part of her swing coaching,
to congratulate them on the success of their student. Although both
had been following the NCGA championships, neither knew a Melanie
McDougal, but thanked the reporter for the compliment anyhow.

So as she went back to the resort for a
strategy dinner with Coach and Rebecca, she was both pleased and
nervous and maybe a little afraid for the first time in her life
that she could remember.

Rebecca listened to Coach’s advice and kept
Melanie away from the other golfers, especially Chad. He had won
both matches that day and was holding a loud court in the
restaurant with the other male golfers, a smattering of parents and
a few reporters. As she went past him on the way to the lobby, she
heard a reporter ask him how he felt about possibly playing his
female classmate from Clapshorn. His answer was as correct as it
could have been, praising Melanie for her golf and saying what a
great day it would be for Clapshorn and women’s golf if the two of
them were to meet in the final match. He quickly turned the
conversation back to his own game and his future professional
prospects. He was popular, Rebecca had to admit to herself, and
unlike the time she played Burt, if they ended up playing each
other the crowd would mostly be with him, not her. Even Coach would
have to be neutral. She was glad for now that she and Melanie could
stick to themselves and she did not have to figure out just what it
was that she did not like about him.

The strategy they devised was the same one
they had worked out the night before and that had worked so well
today. Play to beat the other player, not the course. But they were
down to the top four young golfers in the country so it was less
likely that one was going to make an error that would lead to too
many bogies; simply relying upon Melanie’s consistency might not be
good enough. Coach went over each of the holes with Melanie,
pointing out where it was possible for her to take a chance in
order to win a hole.

“Remember,” he cautioned her. “One stray
shot in match play might only mean the loss of the hole, not the
match. So if you take a chance and blow it just move on.”

Melanie listened carefully to what they said
but quickly realized they were simply talking because they were
more nervous than she was and talking about strategy made them feel
better. There was really nothing either of them could help her with
at this point. She liked them both and was glad they were there.
She wondered why Coach was with her and not with Chad and only
partly attributed that to the apparent relationship between him and
Rebecca. Despite the fact that Coach was married and six years
older than her, Melanie liked him. He was attentive, kind,
sensitive to others around him and good looking. He had once
planned on a pro career after a stellar college record, but a ski
accident had destroyed selected ligaments, tendons and bones in his
right arm and ended his hopes of professional golf. Melanie thought
he would make a great teacher one day, and one day he would indeed
be known as one of the world’s premier golf instructors. For now he
was just Coach, sitting at their kitchen table lecturing her on the
characteristics of the young man she was playing tomorrow
morning.

“Enough you guys! I’ll let you two do the
thinking and I’ll just do the playing! I’m going to bed,” she
protested as she moved to go to her room. On the way she picked up
the fake leather folder on the counter that held the resort writing
paper and envelopes. If either Rebecca or Coach noticed, they did
not say. They said goodnight and continued their own
conversation.

Melanie did not go to sleep right away. In
fact she was not sure if she slept at all that night as emotions
churned her head and her stomach. Once she woke up and went to the
bathroom and using the mirror above the sink she awkwardly examined
her ‘private parts’ as Grandma used to call them, and wondered,
illogically she knew, if she was damaged. Once when she fell asleep
for a moment she dreamt that Chad, Burt, Frank and Henry were all
lined up in front of her naked with their penises stiff in front of
them and she walked down the row snapping each of their cocks in
half. She thought a lot of the Folly and her Dad and the friendly
guys from Saskatoon and she softly cried. She was not quite sure
why; because she was homesick or because she wondered if she would
ever see them again. She shivered when she envisioned Chad kissing
her and entering her.

The writing helped a little.

When Rebecca woke and walked out of her
bedroom, Melanie was at her usual place at the kitchen table
dressed and ready to go. She had on the same feminine golf wear and
the makeup was perfect. Rebecca thought she did look tired but it
was the look in her eyes that bothered her. Rebecca had seen it
before. It was a look that suggested Melanie was with you in body
but her mind somewhere else and it was when Melanie played the best
golf. It was there when she played that back nine against Burt. It
was there when she drove sometimes. It was there the time she
fended off the attack in the bar parking lot. It was there this
morning.

“Good morning,” Rebecca cheerfully
announced. “Ready for a big day?”

“Yup, “Melanie had a resolute tone to her
response. “Let’s go bust their balls girl!” And Melanie was
suddenly standing by the door with a small travel bag in her
hand.

“What’s in the bag?”

“Some spare clothes. I might want to change
at lunch.”

Rebecca did not recall Melanie having any
decent spare clothes but thought the idea was a good one anyhow so
she rose from her chair with her coffee still untouched and they
headed to the car.

“I’ll drive,” Melanie announced as she took
the keys from Rebecca.

When they arrived at the practice range, the
other three golfers were already going through their warm up
routine. Chad had the largest entourage since he was a California
boy and many of his old friends and much of his family had come to
watch. As the top seed in the tournament he also had the largest
press following. The other two men were from Florida and Iowa
universities, so there was not much in the way of family to cheer
them on. But there was a large crowd waiting for Melanie. One group
had a large sign on a stick that said:

LEAVE GOLF TO THE MEN – GO BACK TO THE
KITCHEN

They called themselves the ‘Arizona Men for
Equal Rights’, or something like that.

There was a group that called themselves the
‘Real Women of America’ giving an interview to a furiously
scribbling reporter about the need for woman to recapture their
rightful place in the home and not the golf course.

Others took sides in what to Melanie’s great
discomfort was apparently becoming an issue greater than just golf.
All she cared about was golf.

There was a group of woman all with short
men’s style hair and dressed in men’s suits with a poster that just
said: