1 Chapter 1

1

Dimas Kanashiro eyed the fairway, blinking away the sweat that crept into a corner of his eyes. The blazing hot sun and few breezes in the Ponte Vedra golf course made the humidity more stifling.

Dimas played this same hole last year and double bogied it. That mistake pushed him from second place to a fourth place tie. Decent winnings for someone on the pro tour who’d been playing a little more than two years, but still a far cry from winning and holding the trophy and money purse for the champion.

He didn’t want that to happen again. Today, to get ahead and take the lead, he’d have to get a birdie. He’d have to hit to the ball to the left, not land in the water, and not have his ball fly too far. A par would maintain him in second place, behind Carl Dipshit Mullins. Ill-tempered, cigar-smoking, pot-bellied, boorish, rude, violent Carl Fucking Mullins.

There wasn’t any margin for error for Dimas.

If even screwed up a shot, Carl could catch up. Dimas didn’t want that, or to even up the strokes and then have to play a sudden death match play if they both tied.

He was only one shot behind Carl. If he made par for the seventeenth hole, he’d still be one shot behind.

He eyed his caddy. Joe filled in for his old caddy who retired two months ago. But Joe had never caddied in a PGA tour. Joe’s quiet demeanor was out of character for him when they arrived at Sawgrass. Normally Joe joked, sprinkled gossip he had heard at the clubhouse the night before, but so far on this tour, he was all business. He repeated facts: the slope, distances, and where other players were in standings. Joe was awed by Sawgrass and every day he seemed to be more awed by it. And Dimas couldn’t blame him.

Joe’s quiet bearing allowed Dimas to steal furtive looks at Carl’s hot caddy, Hunter Mullins, every chance he got. Everyone assumed that Hunter got the job because he was Carl’s stepson, and that was it. But, Hunter had been an outstanding collegiate golfer at Florida State. Dimas and Hunter had played on the same golf team. And not only did they become roommates and shared an apartment together in Tallahassee by sophomore year; they’d become lovers as soon as they’d moved in together.

Except many people didn’t know that.

Even Hunter’s stepfather didn’t know. At least, Dimas had no confirmation on this point.

And what most people also didn’t know was this: Hunter knew his shit. The only thing that kept Hunter from the pros was his long game. He had the best short game in all of collegiate golf. This guy, his boyfriend, could read greens like a psychic could read tealeaves in the bottom of a small cup.

The crowd clapped politely as Carl made the shot. The seventeenth hole was one hundred thirty seven yards from the tee, and yet it caused panic in every golf player since the small island green caused many players to overshoot and land the ball in water. It was more of a skill shot than a power swing. Sergio Garcia famously did a quadruple bogey a few years back, hitting his balls into the water, rather than landing them on the island green, resulting in the Tiger Woods win in the TPC Sawgrass tournament.

Dimas mumbled under his breath. Shit. He toed up to the shot, practice-pumped his club until he was ready, and then swung. Thwack. The ball made a quick, but silent arc as it hurled overhead more than one hundred yards, and landed three feet from the seventeenth hole.

The crowd grasped in unison. But the gasps were then followed by polite clapping again. Hunter lowered his head and tipped his baseball cap to Dimas. Hunter darted his eyes to the right and then scratched his left ear.

Dimas breathed in the humid air and scanned the crowd. He was finally going to redeem his loss a few weeks ago to Carl at the Bayhill Invitational in Orlando. Dimas had coveted winning the trophy at his adopted new hometown. Many spectators were rapt in the moment. He ignored the whispers about this being a battle between the ages. Him—the barely out of college pro, thin, olive-skinned, against an aging veteran in his early fifties, trying to earn a place in history next to Davis Love III and Sam Snead as one of the oldest players to win a major golf tournament. Dimas wasn’t the favorite on this course. Carl was. Carl was definitely the local celebrity and Dimas was the foreign interloper who came to America to play golf. The hours of playing golf, playing and winning some smaller tournaments were now paying off.