The Sand Trap by Dave Marshall Page A

alarm went off. She sat up in a panic, for a
moment not remembering where she was, what she was or what she was
supposed to do. For a moment she thought she had fallen asleep in
Coach’s bed, but she quickly looked around the room and was
comforted by the surroundings of her room in the unit she shared
with Melanie. She and Melanie were to tee off at the course in an
hour and the course was a half hour’s drive away so she had to be
quick as she showered, dressed and went out to the kitchen for a
cup of coffee. She never gave Melanie a thought as she knew Melanie
did not need any alarm clock or any caddie to either wake her up or
get her ready for the practice day. True to form, as Rebecca left
her room and walked to the kitchen, Melanie was sitting at the
kitchen table, already dressed to play.
    “Let’s go."
    “Give me a moment to get a coffee at least,
“ Rebecca whined as she poured a coffee from the Mr. Coffee carafe
into a thermal paper cup and sweetened it with two packs of
artificial sweetener. “What did you do last night?” she asked
Melanie as she put a lid on the coffee cup.
    Melanie did not look at her and did not say
anything. She just stood in the middle of the living room, dressed
in her madras, late sixties style, men’s golf pants and a too large
men’s golf shirt. No amount of coercion by Rebecca, Coach and the
other girls on the team could induce Melanie to change her outfit.
By now she had several sets she wore on alternate days of golf.
Today’s outfit was the green and blue madras pants with the red
shirt. Her eye for fashion was clearly less acute than her eye for
golf, yet her style was actually starting a fashion on campus as,
instead of the other girls influencing her style, the others were
starting to emulate her. Rebecca refused to join that particular
movement.
    Rebecca looked at her and saw, although she
could not put her finger on it, that there was something different.
Melanie was always fairly expressionless. Some said she was just a
cold fish, although Rebecca knew differently. But this morning her
expression was more than either resolute or cold. Rebecca shrugged
it off and grabbed her coffee.
    “Ok. Let’s go!”
    Melanie said nothing as they drove to the
Cedar Grove Country Club. This was not unusual behaviour for
Melanie before she went on the golf course and Rebecca did not push
her to conversation. She had her own thoughts to get lost in and
soon they pulled into the parking lot and the bag drop area.
    Coach was waiting by the bag rack.
    “You guys like to cut it fine don’t you, “he
exclaimed with an exasperated laugh. He was a pleasant person, but
he seemed in a particularly good mood this morning. It was a
beautiful sunny southern California fall day. He was at one of the
U.S. top 10 rated golf courses. But most importantly, as the coach
of a golf team from a podunk college from a podunk city in a podunk
state, he had the two top seeded golfers in the national
tournament. With any kind of performance by these two golfers his
move up to higher levels would be assured, maybe even a Pac 10 or
Ivy League job.
    Rebecca picked up Melanie’s bag. She had
been able to convince Melanie that a new bag would not hurt her
golf game and the new one was leather with the Clapshorn big horn
sheep mascot embroidered on the front. It was certainly heavier
than Melanie’s old canvas bag, but Rebecca did not mind. Other than
the putter, the clubs in her bag were the one’s she had brought
from the Folly. Rebecca had the pro shop in Billings make Melanie a
new putter that was the same short length as her old one, two feet,
but with a good grip and a modern head. It did improve her putting,
especially on the short ones, so in a mock solemn ceremony, Rebecca
and Melanie pretended to say some ancient Celtic prayers as they
chucked the old one in a dumpster behind the clubhouse.
    “You tee off in ten minutes on number four,”
Coach informed them. “You’ll be playing with a couple of