Page 25 of Wedge

“Why the hell am I doing that?”

He glances at me. “It shows up when the pressure does. I watched it build all day out there. Off the course too.”

I don’t answer that. Just watch myself hesitate again on the screen. Off the course, too. I don’t like that I’m broadcasting like that.

“Can you fix it?”

“Yes. But we don’t fix what we don’t understand.” He pulls up round one, same swing, no hitch. “Round one. Same swing. Same guy. Less noise in his head.”

We sit there a while, the frames ticking by, him tracing the hitch back through the missed putt, the flared drive, the whole slow collapse.

“You’re better than that back nine made you look,” he says, finally clicking it off.

“Feels like the back nine’s the only real part.”

“It’s not. Right now, it’s just the loudest.” He stands, offers me a hand up. I look at it, then take it. Strong. Warm. My fucking cock twitches. He’s still talking and I force my attention back. “You’ll learn to catch it before it snowballs. We both will. Here’s the plan. Range, one bucket, nothing but tempo until that hitch is gone. Then fried fish.”

I follow him out into a hallway that’s blinding after the dim room, glancing back once at the dark screen, my own hesitant swing still hanging there even after the picture’s gone.

The range is nearly empty this late in the afternoon, just us and one guy way down at the far end hitting drivers like he’s mad at them. The sun is sliding toward the peaks, the light going long and gold across the grass, and the air smells of cut grass and warm rubber mats. Every crack of the other guy’s driver echoes back off the pines at the edge of the range.

Stephen hands me a wedge first, same as always. “Start small. Feel your tempo before we go looking for the hitch.”

I hit a few easy half-swings, nothing that should trigger anything. They come out clean, no hesitation, no seizing.

“See, this is the thing,” he says, watching. “It only shows up under load. Easy swings don’t stress you enough to find it.”

“Well, how do we find it, then? This is just you and me on the range.”

“We add pressure.” He nods toward the flag two hundred yards out, one of the range targets with a number painted on it. “Hit that flag. Not near it. On it.”

“Really? That is a stupid-tiny target.”

“That’s the point.” He hands me the seven iron. “Go on.”

I set up, and the moment I actually try to be precise instead of just swinging free, I feel it: that same hitch in the video, my hips catching at the top like they’re afraid of commitment. The shot goes fine, a little right of the flag, but I felt the difference happening in real time, which is almost worse than not knowing. Well, shit.

“There it is,” Stephen says, like he watched it happen from the outside, too. “The instant you started caring about the outcome instead of the swing.” He reaches over and taps my hip lightly. “Right there.” I feel that tap everywhere.

Focus, A.

“Right when I started caring? Great. So the fix is just… don’t give a damn?”

“No. You’re allowed to care and still swing free. Those aren’t opposites. Your brain’s just decided they are.” He steps in close, so close I can smell him. He adjusts my grip slightly, hands warm over mine for half a second before he steps back. “Same as a rifle range. Find the target. Settle on it. Then stop thinking about it and squeeze.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Golf is a stupid game.”

I try it. Hit it again. Same hitch, slightly smaller.

“Better,” he says. “Again.”

We go like that for a while as the shadows get longer across the range: him calling targets and me chasing them. The hitch shrinks each time, but smaller, quieter, something I’m learning to talk over instead of something that owns me.

“You know what’s funny,” I say, between swings, mostly to distract myself from thinking too hard about how good he smells, “Is that this is basically what you told me on the tenth tee at Steamboat. Play like you’ve got nothing to lose.”

“Knowing it and doing it under pressure are two different animals.” He hands me another ball. “Nobody rises to the occasion. You fall to the level of your training. That’s why we’re out here hitting a thousand balls instead of talking about it. We need your body to do it without asking permission.”