“My threesome is very competitive. Bill Johnson shoots to a three handicap. Ed Fitzgerald is a steady five, and I shoot to a six. I am Wilbur Ramsey. We play serious golf. A little money changes hands. We have been members at Pinehurst since we were all thirteen. We are thirty two now.
Last Monday at five after seven AM, the golf pro, Henry Dugan, came up to us at the driving range. “You guys have a tee time today of seven thirty five. Do you mind if I send a fourth out with you?”
“Please don’t send a talkative hacker with us,” I said.
“Trust me, she is no hacker, boys. She is a new member, that is also my student. She will play from the white tees with you. I suggest that you don’t bet money on your game against hers.”
“This, I’ve got to see?” Ed said with a laugh.
We were on the first tee, and from a distance saw a young woman begin hitting balls about ten minutes before our tee time. Could not see her that well, or see where the balls she hit landed.
When she walked towards the first tee, with her caddie, Bill let out a low whistle. “Whew, this gal is stacked.”
Then, I recognized her. Stumbling on the words, I said. “Damn, that is Kelly Morgan. The Kelly Morgan that plays on the Ladies Professional Golf Tour.”
As she walked up to us, she looked us over with a cool detachment. Her bearing was that of the professional that has been scrutinized by thousands of fans as she played her game of precise golf.
I recalled looking at her statistics in the recent issue of “Woman’s Golf.” Her average drive was two hundred and fifty seven yards. Last year she had won two majors, and four other tournaments.
Her drive on the first tee gave us a sample of how the rest of the round would go. She birdied the first three holes.
Her concentration was complete. If one of us hit a good shot, softly, she would comment, “Nice, very nice.” Other then that, she was absorbed with her ball, the course, and her swing which was as smooth as it was powerful.
On the sixteenth, Ed said to me, “A machine, a damn machine, a great damn machine.”
On the eighteenth, she thanked us. “I understand that you play four times a week at this time, could I join you for the next week?”
“We would be delighted,” we all said at once.
After she drove off, I went in to talk to Henry. “Hey Henry, we enjoyed your student. She is going to join us for a week. What is the story with her? Why is she here all of a sudden?”
Henry smiled, and waved me into his office. “Here is the story. She is a North Carolina gal that went to the University of Texas on a golf scholarship. Made All American. Married a guy just after graduation. He became a Delta pilot.”
“She was away from home a lot at the professional golf qualifying school, and then when she made the tour. As you may recall, during her first three years, she did not play well, so made very little money. No private jets to fly her around, that is for sure.”
“Her husband became a cock hound, and was fucking every gal he could. Kelly got wind of it, and divorced him.”
“Right after her divorce, her game came together. The rest, as they say, is history. She has been coming to me to sharpen her game for three years now. To get away from her ex, she has moved here. She lives by her self. She is twenty seven, and is one of the loneliest people I have ever met.”
As he said that, Henry looked me squarely in the eye. “Wilbur, she needs a friend, a husband, but I will be one mad son of a bitch if anyone hurts that girl.”
“Henry, are you telling me that I should try to date her?”
