"Luminos is reviewing. They haven't made a decision. But the club-break is already on social media, and their brand guidelines have a morality clause that covers—" she glances at her phone "—public displays of unsportsmanlike conduct detrimental to the brand's image of excellence and composure."
"I broke a club. Athletes break clubs."
"Athletes ranked in the top five break clubs. Athletes ranked eighteenth break clubs and get called unstable."
That one lands. I feel it in my sternum.
"So what's the play?"
Bisi uncrosses her arms. This is the part where she stops being my friend and starts being my agent, which means the warmth leaves her voice and is replaced by something more useful.
"You've fired three caddies in eighteen months. Your ranking has dropped from ninth to eighteenth. Your sponsor portfoliohas gone from seven active contracts to four, and after today it might be three. The narrative around you has shifted from 'fearless young star' to 'talented mess,' and talented messes do not get invited to pro-ams and charity events and brand summits where the real money lives."
"I'm aware of the narrative, Bisi."
"Then you're aware that you need to change it, and you need to do it before the next major or Luminos follows Okafor-Klein and you're playing on prize money alone."
I lean against my car beside her. The metal is hot. Desert sun. I can feel it through my polo.
"What do the sponsors want?"
"A professional caddie. Not a buddy. Not a cousin. Not someone you can bulldoze. Someone with enough reputation and expertise that their presence on your bag signals to the market that you are serious about course management and emotional regulation."
"Emotional regulation."
"Their words. I would have said 'not breaking your fucking clubs on live television,' but I lack their corporate delicacy."
I almost smile. Bisi is the only person who can make me almost smile when I want to throw my bag into traffic.
"Who?"
She pulls out her phone. Scrolls. Turns the screen toward me.
The name hits before the photo loads.
Nerys Quillan.
"You're joking."
"I am constitutionally incapable of joking about your career."
"She's a—"
I stop. I don't actually know what Nerys Quillan is now. I know what she was. Everyone in golf knows what she was.
The photo loads. I've seen pictures of her before — old tournament coverage, sports-magazine profiles from a decadeago, the occasional industry-event shot where she's standing at the edge of a group looking like she'd rather be reading weather reports in a locked room.
But I haven't looked at her in a while, and the woman on Bisi's phone is not the woman I remember from the highlight reels.
Dark auburn hair, cut sharp just below her jaw. A streak of silver starting at her right temple and running back through the rest like someone painted it there with intention. Gray-green eyes that look directly into the camera without performing anything for it. Strong jaw. High cheekbones. Tall — noticeably, obviously tall, the kind of tall that makes other women look like they're standing in a hole.
She's wearing a white polo and dark trousers. No jewelry. A plain steel watch. Her expression is so controlled it looks like a landscape — something geological, formed by pressure and time rather than anything as temporary as emotion.
Her hands are visible in the photo. Long fingers. An old scar along the right thumb. She's holding a course notebook, and her grip is precise and relaxed in a way that makes me think about how those hands would feel on other things.
I swipe to the next image. Tournament coverage from her playing days. Younger — maybe thirty, dark hair without the silver, holding a trophy. Same expression. Same jaw. Same refusal to perform excitement for the camera.
Next image. An action shot on a links course. Wind pressing her clothes against her body. Lean. Strong shoulders. She's mid-stride between holes, and even in a still photo I can tell she moves like someone who has calculated the most efficient path between two points and is not interested in alternatives.
