Rule 13

He’d been the first one off the tee this final day of the tour­na­ment. His caddy hadn’t shown, but ESPN and their adver­tis­ers would wait no longer than ten min­utes, leav­ing him to trun­dle his bag alone down the fair­way in search of his ball. He squinted, one hand extend­ing his sponsor-splattered visor into the morn­ing sun to get a bet­ter view of the copse that seemed to have eaten his slice.

Of course, a hang­over from the night before was not help­ing him con­cen­trate, and he wished he could remem­ber exactly what had led him to wak­ing in his now-missing caddy’s hotel room. Hope­fully the fes­tiv­i­ties that had given him this headache, and which had prob­a­bly caused Bob’s no-show, had been worth his cur­rent predicament.

If his mem­ory ever cleared, he may even find out where his nine iron had gone. Once he’d neared the trees, a gleam of white appeared in the under­growth and he headed it for it, the hum in his skull eclips­ing that of the Goodyear blimp above.

Won­der­ing how Rule 13 would effect this next shot, he picked up his miss­ing club from the grass, lined him­self up, and swung. Cross­ing his fin­gers, he hoped that the cam­eras were not as con­fused as he’d been about which arc to fol­low: that of his ball, or Bob’s divot-severed fin­ger. At least, he thought, I played it where it lay.