Up and Down in Tycho

by Robert J. Santa

Parker was nineteen feet away from forty thousand dollars. As a late starter he was encountering more and more dust and tiny rock fragments on the greens, but to make matters worse Travis Johns had taken two to get out of the trap protecting the right side of the sixteenth. His first swing was well behind the ball, which was bad for him since it caught the lip of the trap and settled back down inside the divot he had just made. It was worse for Parker who now had to contend with a fine layer of mica that reflected the light back up at him with enough force to cause him to dial up the darkening on his visor one more notch. He let his eyes adjust for a moment then squatted back behind his line for what would be the third time.

It would be a soft roll, slightly away from the constructed bump in the turf, and it wasn’t the subtle drop that concerned him. The bigger worry was the fall-away break just beyond the hole; there was enough slope to carry the ball to the edge of the putting surface if he didn’t strike the putt squarely. Too much of the face and he would be looking at another nineteen-footer for par, with strong odds of a bogey. Par would lose money. Bogey would bankrupt him.

So, Parker took his time lining up the birdie attempt. With the Modified Stableford scoring system for the tournament he knew that if he sunk this putt, the one-under would carry him over the line from tied for seventh with four other players to holding sixth place all by himself. Two of those four others were on the front nine, finishing out the course after having started on the tenth. They were both on their last holes, both within three hundred for the easy wedge. They would be on in regulation, and Parker knew that the ninth green was a bear. He had bogeyed it twice and parred it twice. Those two could be expected to do as well and no better. They would still be tied for seventh, and after divvying up the prize money they’d have done well but not great. If Parker held sixth place instead of seventh it would mean a difference of forty thousand dollars. He had already made enough to pay for his round-trip and the transport fees for his clubs and his gear. Forty thousand would be the take home.

He needed it. He needed the bird just to break even, not for the tournament but for the year. The last three holes were the toughest of the course. For the first three days of the tourney he had done no better than a collective par. No bogeys, no birdies in nine tries. He didn’t think he’d do much better this time around, even with the benefit of having played the holes before. So this was his best shot at recovering some of his losses over the year.

Four straight without bringing home the bacon. He was no Travis Johns, and he never had been. Johns could survive for a hundred years on the interest alone from his endorsement contracts. But Parker was one of the guys at the bottom of the pack, listed as an afterthought when the top names were done hogging the media. Yeah, this was an important putt.

He stood, so quickly he felt his feet just about come free from the surface. His mind was racing, thoughts and images rattling around in a Brownian movement that he felt unable to control. He looked up and saw the familiar lines of the California coast blended with Canada and Alaska and the fat South American continent connected to the Northern by an umbilical of Latin countries. It always cleared his head to look up. He could recognize geography without the benefit of neatly-drawn, black lines separating self-imposed boundaries.

Parker felt focused again in only a moment, so he stood over the ball and looked along his line. His left hand was at the end of his putter near his chin; his right was further down the shaft near his belly. He took two practice strokes then shuffled forward one boot length. He looked back along the line and copied the strokes he had just made. The impact was perfect; the ball never left the turf. It rolled forward over the glittering dust, slowing as it approached the hole. For the briefest moment Parker thought he had read the break wrong, but as the ball continued to slow it made a left-hand turn that finished right in the middle of the cup. As the ball dropped down he heard the familiar rattle of the ball in the cup, made as it would be from something other than a vacuum environment.

The observer dish monitoring him also sent him some information on his heads-up, the most important of which was the leader board. It was no surprise to him that Johns was still eleven points ahead of him, but he was somewhat shocked to see that Christian Everett Greenwood had birdied both the seventeenth and eighteenth to bring him within one of Johns. If Travis Johns took a penalty stroke on his drive – a possibility for everyone else, but not so for him – or three-putted for bogey there would be a play-off for the top prize money of three point three million. It was exciting, but really irrelevant to Parker. In order for him to even get within sight of the lead he would have to double-eagle every hole from here out. He knew that wouldn’t happen, but he did take note of the board a little further down from the top. There he was in sixth, and the two guys tied for fifth ahead of him only led by a single point. If he made just one birdie he would hold fifth by himself.

Parker climbed into the cart and sealed the door. Then he sat there for a moment. Fifth place earned three hundred ninety thousand, enough to erase a year’s worth of debt and then some. The bonus was that he would automatically qualify for the Invitational next year, which he already did by scoring in the top ten, but fifth would mean his transport costs were paid by the LuPGA. He could barely make the cut and still walk away with prize money. Sixth place would be fine. His beautiful wife could stay out of the office she hated so much, and he could keep doing the job he loved almost as much as her and the kids. Fifth would be better.

As Parker drove to the next hole he thought about all the hours he spent in the weight room building up his wrists and forearms. Where a strong man could work his biceps on the preacher bench with a fifty kilo bar Parker could do it with his wrists, and not just a few times but series after series of reps. His shirts were custom-tailored because off the rack was too constricting from the elbows down; many times he couldn't even button the cuffs. He’d been doing these exercises obsessively for almost a year, and the payoff was that he was strong enough to hold the clubface even through the bottom of his swing for a ninetieth of a second longer than he could before. It didn’t sound like anything special to the uninitiated, but other members of the LPGA started copying his behaviors when his driving rankings climbed. That flat clubface meant straighter drives, much straighter, with an accuracy that was frightening.

If he gave up now or was forced out all that effort would have been for nothing. It wouldn’t mean the difference between straighter drives and bananas; it would only mean he would be pointed at by neighborhood kids when he wore tee shirts. Parker could make par-par and be happy. A bird on either of the last two was possible, but considering how he had played the holes all week it wasn’t likely. Even-Steven was fine, and he concluded his cart ride to the next tee box with the thoughts that if he was given the opportunity to go for a tough cut or just lay it up and settle for the par he’d par it and shake hands with the other golfers with a smile on his face.

The signal on the seventeenth tee was green, as it should have been since Parker was one of the final golfers of the day. While one of the most straightforward holes, this was also one of the most difficult. A huge expanse of hazard separated the tee from the front edge of a hill that ran sharply up to a green elevated seventy meters above the base. More hazard surrounded the hill, but this was not the challenge, for that lay in the fact that there was no landing area for the drive. There was an area partway up the hill, but it wasn’t designed as a flat area for a graceful lie. It was just hill. To the right of this area was a sharp drop down, making any drive into this valley a short chip to get out then another onto the green for a two-putt bogey. At least the putting surface was generous: a long strip more or less flat with a rounded section that usually held the pin, as it did today. And, more good news lay in the drop zone located just at the base of the hill should the drive wind up in the hazard. Parker set up his tee, a little higher than he usually did just because he liked to on this hole, and selected his driver. He could easily clear the lake of brightly-painted blue talcum with a long iron, but he knew he would have no difficulty with the big dog and he just might wind up on that tiny bump a third of the way up the hill that was considered the ideal landing area. He felt relaxed and confident coming away from birdies on both fifteen and sixteen. He addressed the ball, wound back on the drive with the slow grace of pouring syrup on pancakes, and let the club head fall.

And right before he made contact with the ball he was stabbed in the right forearm.

His suit monitor flashed the nightmare phrase SUIT INTEGRITY FAILURE at just below eye level. Parker gripped the pain in his arm with his left hand. The sound of air escaping out of his sleeve stopped immediately meaning it must not have been a terribly large hole. He dropped his club and ran for the cart, which was entirely wrong because he stumbled and fell. His hands came away reflexively to protect his face. Again, the warning flashed on his heads-up. He bounded up from the ground, covered the breach, then calmed himself enough to take several, quick hops to the cart. After he was inside he sealed the door then retrieved one of the patches from the glove compartment, not once considering how strange a name that was since it never contained gloves. He cracked the patch one-handed – as it was meant to be – then slapped the gooey mess over the two holes less than a centimeter apart. The environment inside the cart was protected, and it could be pressurized and filled with breathable atmosphere in a matter of moments. The patch was a temporary repair; he would be safest inside the cart until an RV could pick him up.

He asked the observer to replay its view of his drive, but he could see nothing other than the skulled shot that pushed right into the middle of the hazard. What had happened? He pondered this, first thinking that his suit had torn and rejecting the idea almost immediately thereafter. While much thinner and more light weight than the usual suits, a golfer’s outerwear was more than enough for the challenge and could no more tear a seam or wear through with a friction hole than it could change colors from its I-AM-HERE neon yellow. They could only be punctured, but Parker was alone on the seventeenth tee. Unless someone had fired at him, which was as ridiculous as the tear and equally rejected without further thought. It came down to a micrometeor, as Parker called it, not remembering whether it became a meteor after it entered atmosphere or if it was called one before it did so. In the recorded history of work on the Moon’s surface only once had anything been struck by stellar debris, and it was the hydroponics building, two acres in size that afterwards had no noticeable damage. The odds of being struck were astronomically small, and Parker was so caught up in the near-death experience that he didn’t notice the pun as he thought of it.

Slowly, however, moment by moment his brain returned to a semblance of normality, and he was able to think again. He thought about how lonely it was out there on the seventeenth tee with no one around, not even a rescue vehicle, for a solid four minutes. He thought about the integrity of his suit failing again and no atmosphere in his cart and slowly suffocating to death as he waited for help to arrive. Then he thought about Dana and office work and three hundred ninety thousand dollars. Then he stepped on the pedal and drove the cart to the drop zone.

Parker stepped out of the cart and waited for the patch to fall off of his arm. When it didn’t he pulled the seven iron out of his bag and a brand new ball, noting it with the observer. He took a legal drop, addressed the ball without taking a practice cut, and swung away. He tensed, waiting for the hiss of air, heard none as the patch held. His ball went straight up, a high arc that looked like it had all the right stuff on it even after it dropped over the crest of the hill. He let the observer play the new angle, and he saw his ball hit the middle of the green and hold, though it rolled almost to the fringe about fifty feet from the cup.

The cart path wound up around the back side of the hill, affording Parker an excellent view of the par four eighteenth. He could see the glittering sand and the clubhouse and the long hill that meant the course was over and you could get back to a pressurized environment with hot meals and cool drinking water instead of the stuff that recycled back through the suit. Parker could feel his concentration slipping, the snapping of all those thoughts like firecrackers, and he shut it down with the finality of a manhole cover dropping into place. One swing at a time. Do it right then move on to the next one and do it again.

Parker stopped the cart at the end of the path and walked up to his ball. It was about one foot from the edge of the green and at least fifty to the cup; he had landed on the right most side of the green furthest away from the pin. As he squatted down to check his lie he felt the fabric of his suit stretch across his legs and his back and most importantly across his right arm. He stood immediately and inspected the patch. It was still firm. He double-checked the lie, but this time he stayed standing, backing up from the ball a few meters. There was nothing exceptionally challenging about the putt. He could certainly get it close to the hole and two-putt out for a bogey. The minus one point wouldn’t hurt him that much. He stood before the ball; dialed up his shades one more notch, practiced a few strokes, then stepped forward. Parker’s putter eased back and moved forward very gently making solid contact in the center of the club. The ball slid forward at a perfect pace to be within three feet of the hole, sliding softly left less than a foot, and when it fell into the hole Parker gave a short exhalation of disbelief. He had not actually intended to make the putt and was only keeping the reality of par in the back of his head. The helmet speakers were still vibrating with the sound of the ball rattling in the bottom of the cup as he walked forward to verify the evidence of his eyes. There it was, sitting down there, waiting for him to pick it up and carry it to the eighteenth tee. It was par the hard way: drive into hazard and drop for one with a terrible up and on and a long one-putt. Nevertheless, it was par.

He had to back down the long slope of the seventeenth and around a short bend to approach the eighteenth tee. At the top of the hill, directly level with the green, was the clubhouse, though only the golfers called it that. Parker could see the lights flashing on and off, and he reached out to flick the lights of his cart in recognition of the applause. It was strictly prohibited to communicate with a golfer for any reason, but it was a rule that was rarely enforced provided the contact was limited to the occasional congratulatory light flash. Parker realized after a moment that it was probably Travis Johns up there in the clubhouse waiting to double-up with him for the ride back. Johns was a gifted player who led the field in almost every tournament. His biggest fault, however, was that he had always led a privileged life and didn’t consider lunar golf to be that hazardous. Should Parker’s patch fail he seriously doubted Travis Johns would be able to suit up, jump in his own cart, and come to his rescue before he suffocated. Good thing there was an RV stationed at the club house, Parker thought, then he looked up.

The RV was gone.

He braked a little too sharply and sent debris scattering forward onto the tee. There was only one place for the RV to land beside the clubhouse, with nothing but the sharp drop of a hill face on any other side. Conceivably it could be on the far side of the clubhouse hidden from view, but there was no good reason for it to be. The redundant lock was located on this side, what would be Parker’s left, and the landing site was well-lit and leveled and perfect and really the only place to set down.

The RV was gone.

Christian Everett Greenwood must have taken it back to base. It was a twenty minute flight with another twenty minutes or more to dock and prepare for the return trip. Without being able to contact the clubhouse to ask Johns how long the RV had been gone there was no way of knowing whether it was four minutes away or forty. Either way, four minutes was plenty of time to suffocate.

Parker sat inside the cart deciding whether or not to quit. His nine years on the tour had been more good than bad, and he’d have a tidy little nest egg saved up if he hadn’t choked at the last four events. The money from today would be great, though it was by no means enough to make retirement an option. With his third-place finish at the Australian Amateur he thought he’d have a great run on the ground, but there were too many golfers, too much competition, and it was a crap shoot who would take the prize money and who would have their brother caddie for them because he didn’t need to get paid. The LuPGA was it, it was there or nowhere, and if he pulled out now he’d never come back. Parker looked up at the utterly dull, granite-gray landscape and stepped out of the cart.

This last hole was a straightforward drive up a generous fairway with only some “trees” planted along the left side for interference. It was the second shot that was designed to be the hardest: the eighteenth green was also elevated, about thirty meters, and it was protected by a wall of sand trap that ran its entire length except for a small space on the left. The pin placement was well forward on the oval green, right between two gentle breaks. It was not too terribly difficult a hole, though the pin placement just about guaranteed a par, a bogey if the approach wound up in the beach.

It was one more hole. If Parker’s patch held he could finish out the round and turn in his score card. The patch wasn’t designed for any activity. On the contrary, it was designed to seal a tear in a suit that was going to do nothing until rescue arrived. According to all safety protocols Parker should stay in the cart and wait for the RV. But if he did that he would forfeit his card. He would win nothing, and all those transport costs would bankrupt him. He would have to sell the house, he and Dana would go back to ordinary jobs, the kids would have to go to public school. There was another patch in the glove compartment. And there was nothing in the rules that said he couldn’t continue to play with a holed suit. It was just stupid and dangerous.

He pulled the three-wood out of the bag. There was no need for the big dog since the landing area was plenty generous, and a monster drive only meant the difference between long pitching wedge and smooth eight or nine. Parker teed up his ball and took one practice cut. The swing felt fine. This was an easy first shot, with all the complexity coming on the next one. He stepped forward, exhaled, and started the club along its arc. The club head waited there at the top for almost no time at all then rocketed down to make utterly satisfying solid contact. It flew straight and true and the reward of the sound of the club striking the ball was only tarnished by the hiss of escaping air.

Parker dropped the wood and left it there, holding his hand over his right forearm and skipping towards the cart. As he took his left hand away to close and seal the cart door the hiss became louder than before, and Parker realized with horror that the patch was completely loose. It would not grip. He fumbled around in the glove compartment and came away with the second and last patch. He knew it wouldn’t seal properly with the first one in place, but for all he tried he couldn’t remove the first patch. While the side with the puncture was loose the side that was flat against his sleeve felt as if it had bonded on a molecular level. Parker cracked the second patch and tried to put in it place over the first, but the angle was wrong and all the epoxy ran out around the edges leaving the hole unsealed.

The heads-up warned him of OXYGEN LOW, the timer beside it rapidly ticking down from one hundred. Without hesitation he pressurized the cart with its own atmosphere. He would have to position his cart right beside the ball, leap out, make his cut then get back inside and repressurize. The reality of his danger was beginning to affect his nerves; his hands and knees trembled as he steered the cart up the fairway. His head was pounding, and it was only then he realized he was breathing shallow and had to take in three, great lungfulls of air to re-oxygenate his system. Of course, the icing on the cake was that he had driven the ball perfectly. It was sitting up on the fairway right in the middle of the landing area, positioned for an easy nine iron to the green.

Parker knew the timer was getting low, that he was pushing the limits of the observer’s patience, and since it had none he held his breath and opened the cart door. He put his hand over the tear and drew out the nine from his bag. Once more breathing shallow he stood over the ball, and without taking any practice swings, gripped the club and swung, trying his hardest to ignore the tiny hiss. It was a great shot, with a high, beautiful arc that Parker wasn’t watching while he climbed back into the cart. He set the atmosphere controls then looked up just in time to see the ball catch the top of the bunker and tumble back down about a third of the way into the sand. This was more of a problem than usual since the cart was unable to be driven over the hazard, being both mechanically impossible and a penalty. He would have to walk the forty or so meters from the cart to the ball, make his cut, then walk back. He was sure he could do it. With his hand over the hole and a deep breath he’d have plenty of time, more than enough.

He left the cart at the top of the hill, right off the fringe of the putting surface that absolutely glittered with reflected light. In rapid succession he took a dozen breaths, hyperoxygenating himself to the point where he was light-headed. Then he stepped out of the cart, drew the fifty degree from his bag and fast-stepped it across the green. About six meters from the ball he stepped into the sand and approached from the side. It was a decent lie, narrowly avoiding someone’s carelessly raked boot print. Again, Parker took no practice swing and simply addressed the ball and blasted at it. Sand and rock dust flew everywhere, but the ball came out cleanly. He watched it for a second, enough to know that it was a clean save, then hopped back towards the cart with his hand over his arm. As he reached for the handle of the cart two things happened simultaneously. The first was that he noticed the light on the handle was red. He hadn’t sealed the cart door, and the whole time its atmosphere was pumping out. The gauge on the dash registered zero. But this was hardly as bad as the second thing he noticed: the timer beside the OXYGEN LOW warning counted down from three to one and changed to NO OXYGEN.

Parker hadn’t been planning for another setback, but he reacted as if he had. He reached inside the cart, not caring to cover the hole in his sleeve, and flipped the cover off the panic button, calmly and carefully depressing it at the same time. It flashed, and the heads-up displayed that he had called for the RV. It’s response was immediate, it was en route. Then he stepped around to the back of the cart, drew out his putter, and very calmly stepped onto the green.

His shot out of the hazard was a beauty, and under any other circumstances he would have been delighted with the twelve-footer that was left. But he was already reflexively gasping and knew that he would have one shot only to sink the putt. The edges of his vision were beginning to blur, becoming crinkly black fingers that waved at him from everywhere he looked.

He thought of Travis Johns inside the clubhouse hearing the panic alarm and going to the window to see what the problem was instead of suiting up. He thought of Dana feeding elbow macaroni and tomatoes to the kids, that at least his insurance policy would keep them well if the RV didn’t make it in time. He almost stepped on the ball then shook his head to concentrate and found that he couldn’t. There was no more time. Without even lining up the shot he stroked it. As the putter made contact the invisible string that had been holding him up was cut, and he fell.

It was impossibly slow falling in such little gravity, and as he looked out at his ball he realized it was going to miss. He could think of nothing else as his knees touched the surface of the green. Then the ball jumped, striking a piece of rock debris he would have noticed and cleared had he had the time to do so. It was as if a hand reached out and gave the ball a shove, for it moved well left directly towards the hole. His helmet thudded against the ground, and he smiled as the RV that was less than one hundred meters away screamed down in a terrific dive. But it was not the sight of the rescue vehicle that made him smile. Instead, it was the sound in his speakers of a ball falling into a plastic cup.