Five

Nina ventured a half look at me as we set off. I saluted - I don’t know why, but I’m glad I did because she smiled and displayed a row of perfectly aligned teeth. I never really thought of teeth as being attractive but… eh, go figure. It was cute.

I hugged the inside of each curve until we were almost kissing the arse of Mike’s cart. Mike must have hit the park brake. His cart locked all wheels and slid to a stop. I braked but our buggy’s brake DNA was more Minardi than Ferrari and we slid into the back of Mike.

Fortunately the first tee was directly below the clubhouse balcony so only a hundred or so onlookers noticed.

The first real word Nina spoke to me was, ‘Smooth.’
‘Heh,’ I said like it didn’t bother me. I bowed to the balcony before pulling a three wood, my only wood, from my bag and throwing some limbering air swings.

We joined Mike on the tee and I said to him, ‘So you’ve run over the basics with our academy recruits?’

He sniffed and planted his wooden tee. ‘Nah, not really.’

Nina and Lisa stood off to the side looking like they weren’t sure which end of their clubs to hold. Concepts like rules, explanations, technique, lessons, driving ranges and practice fired through my mind, but I knew Mike wasn’t into details.

I caught Nina’s eye as she pulled her nervous gaze from the peanut gallery. ‘What’s say I hit two off the tea and we call the best shot yours. You can take the first shot out there somewhere.’ I waved around an arc because there was no telling where our next shot would be taken from.

‘That’d be good,’ she said and threw me her ball.

‘Yeah,’ said Lisa. ‘Do that for me, Mike.’

‘The best shot’s mine,’ he replied. Well he didn’t have to try with Lisa.

I wasn’t really trying with Nina, on account of Hermione Granger ringing alarm bells in the back of my head. But I was trying to save her some embarrassment. I remember my first golf strike. After fifteen air swings I yelled my first “Four!” And that was on a driving range.

Chapter Six