"That's more like it," Sebastian told himself, loud enough for Zuri to hear.
"Keep going," she said.
He looked at her as if kindness from a competitor were a foreign language he was willing to learn. "You too."
Brayden birdied the seventh as well, a pure three-wood onto the green and two putts from thirty feet. Clifford clapped hard enough that people turned. "That's my boy," he called. Brayden's shoulders rose and fell. He glanced at Zuri's ball, still twenty yards short in the fairway after a conservative layup, and for a half-second his expression was not triumphant. It was almost apologetic. Then it closed again.
Zuri made par. Mei-Lin made par. The leaderboard, updated by a volunteer with a pencil and a radio, read:
LANGSTON -1
HASKINS E
CHOI +1
RUIZ +2
They were seven holes into eighteen, and the day was beginning to take its real shape.
VII.
The eighth at Pinecrest was the hole members bragged about and juniors feared. A par three over water, one hundred seventy-four yards from the tips, the green a narrow shelf with a bunker left and a false front that fed anything short into the drink. The pin was back right, which meant the safe miss was long left and the proud miss was wet.
Penwell stood near the tee markers and said, for the group and for the gallery, "One seventy-four to the front. One eighty-two to the pin. Wind in your face about one club."
Clifford, who had somehow drifted inside the gallery ropes again, said, "She's going to need more than one club."
Zuri did not look at him. She pulled a five-iron. Pop had taught her that pride was a club selection error. She made a smooth swing. The ball hung against the wind, lost a little height, and landed fifteen feet short of the hole, then released to eight feet. The gallery made a sound that was almost a cheer and then remembered itself.
Brayden hit six-iron. His ball covered the flag and spun back to six feet. Mei-Lin hit five-iron safely to twenty feet. Sebastian, trying to be a hero, hit four-iron fat into the water, dropped, and made double.
Zuri stood over her eight-footer and felt the old familiar narrowing. The world shrank to the line Pop had taught her to see — not a straight line, never straight, but a curve you could trust if you trusted your feet. She made it. Birdie. Two under.
Brayden made his. Birdie. One under.