"I understand."
"Do you?"
I look at her. She looks back. Her expression is the one I've been getting from officials, coaches, agents, and sponsors for approximately three years: the weary recognition that I am talented enough to make their patience worthwhile and destructive enough to exhaust it.
"I understand, Marzanna."
She nods. Writes something on her clipboard. Walks away.
I drop a ball at the creek's edge. Penalty. Pitch onto the green. Two putts for a double bogey.
I am now five shots back with three holes to play.
•
Here is the math.
I need to play the last three holes in four under par to have any chance at a top-five finish. Four under par on three holes at this course, in this heat, with the pin positions they've set for the final round, requires either three consecutive birdies or an eagle and a birdie.
The smart play is to accept the result. Finish the round professionally. Protect my ranking points. Walk off the course with my dignity and my remaining clubs intact.
I birdie sixteen from twelve feet.
I birdie seventeen from twenty-two feet, a putt so improbable that even Greg makes a small involuntary sound of admiration behind me.
On eighteen — a long par-4, dogleg right, water guarding the right side of the fairway — I need one more birdie. The safe play is a 3-wood to the left side of the fairway, which leaves a full 8-iron into a green I can absolutely hit.
I pull driver.
Greg doesn't even bother. He hands me the headcover and takes two steps back.
The drive is enormous. Three hundred and twelve yards. It's also ten yards right of where I aimed it, and it finds the fairway bunker that I told myself I could carry.
I'm in the sand with a hundred and sixty yards to the flag and a lip that means I can't do anything except hack it out sideways.
I hack it out sideways. Then I hit a wedge to thirty feet. Then I two-putt for bogey.
I finish tied for twenty-third.
My phone has eleven notifications before I reach the scoring tent.
•
The parking lot smells like asphalt and dust and the specific variety of expensive perfume that means Bisi Mora is standing next to my car waiting to ruin my evening.
She's leaning against the driver's side door. Black linen suit. Gold earrings. Arms crossed in a way that makes her look like a very elegant bouncer.
"Before you say anything—"
"Okafor-Klein is suspending," she says.
I stop walking. "What?"
"Their marketing VP called me during your back nine. They're pausing the campaign. Not canceling. Pausing. Which in sponsor language means they're canceling slowly enough to pretend it was mutual."
I set my bag down on the pavement. The broken 4-iron is still in there. Half of it, anyway. Greg took the other half and put it in a trash can near the sixteenth tee without saying a word.
"Who else?"
