Page 60 of Wedge

He grows bored during the flight, nothing to see but clouds, but he is glued to the window during our landing. Florida spreads green and flat and threaded with water, ponds and marshes catching the light like dropped mirrors. The pilot bounces the landing, and he laughs. No nerves about flying at all. He’s a marvel.

“You’re doing the thing,” he says, watching me watch the baggage carousel like the travel case might grow legs and walk off.

“What thing? There’s always a thing.”

“The nervous-dad thing. With the clubs.”

“Those clubs are worth more than my truck.”

“Barely. You have an old truck.” He grins, but there’s an edge to it, nerves under the joke, same as always before something big. Sawmarsh National looms bigger in his head than Grand Junction or Desert Sky ever did, and I get it. Everybody who follows golf, even a little, knows this course. The Island Course, the island green on seventeen, the kind of place that shows up on TV every March whether or not you follow the sport, even though it turns out Final Stage doesn’t actually play the Island Course itself, split instead between Heron Valley and Ponte Marsh Country Club next door. Smaller names, same zip code, same pressure.

Outside, the air hits like a warm washcloth, soft and wet, sixty-something degrees in December, smelling of salt and jet fuel. Adrian stops on the curb with his coat over his arm and just breathes it in.

The rental car’s got GPS already loaded with the route, and he goes quiet somewhere around the exit for the club, taking in the signage, the palms, the manicured medians, the sheer scale of a facility built to host actual IPGA Tour events instead of a private course with a wicker bin of loaner swim trunks.

“Two courses,” he says, reading the printed schedule Ben forwarded.

“One round at each for one and two. Then they split the field based on the standings and swap you around for rounds three and four.”

“So I don’t even know which course I’m finishing on until I know how the first two go.”

“Yep.”

“Great. More math.” But he says it easy, not panicked, filing the information away the practical way he’s gotten better at doing all summer instead of spiraling on it.

“Nope. You show up where they tell you, when they tell you, and hit the ball. Math’s my job.”

Check-in at the hotel’s smoother than any cheap motel we dealt with in Colorado or Arizona, the lobby smelling of lemon polish and coffee, a block of rooms clearly set aside for the field. Other players and their people filter through with lanyards around their necks and the particular tension of guys who know exactly how much is riding on the next week.

Sponsor representatives are milling about, and I see a few familiar faces. The guy from Titan Polo sends a cold flash over me, David Whitfield, Vanessa’s new husband. Damn, I hope he left her back home. She is the last person I want to run into. Seventeen years since I’ve seen her, and I want to keep that streak going. Ben warned me that David was going to be here. And, dammit, there she is. A flash of long blond hair, and I turn away, hoping to hell she doesn’t see me.

A couple of players nod at Adrian, recognition flickering. Twelfth at a First Stage and a strong Second Stage finish apparently buys you a little bit of a reputation in these circles now.

“People know who I am,” he murmurs once we’re in the elevator.

“People know who you might be. Different thing.”

He leans his head against my shoulder for a moment, mohawk sharp against the new-shaved sides, the elevator otherwise empty, taking the small liberty while he can. “Feels like everyone’s watching already.”

“Some of them are. That’s the job now.”

“Was that supposed to be comforting?”

“Not trying for comforting. Trying for honest.”

He huffs something between a laugh and a sigh, and the elevator doors open on our floor before he has to decide which one it actually was.

The room’s nice enough, the kind of hotel room that could be anywhere. The window looks out over palms and enough of the property that you can just make out flags in the distance. There’s practice green traffic even this late in the day. Adrian sets his bag down and just stands at the window, looking out.

“Practice rounds tomorrow and Tuesday,” he says.

“And Wednesday, if we want,” I agree.

“Then Thursday,” he says with a sigh.

“Then Thursday.”

“Top five out of the whole field gets a card. Stephen, that’s…”