RICHMOND – John is looking for his ball when the coyote darts out from the thin row of fir trees lining the golf course. We’re on the 12th hole of Greenacres, which sits more or less at sea level, not far from an IKEA. There are four of us – me, John, Hugh, and Zack – and we've spent the afternoon thus far zipping around the course in gas-powered golf carts, drinking Kokanees and Heinekens, and playing mediocre golf while Leah tries on wedding dresses with her mom and sisters. It's my first time playing a full eighteen holes, having aborted a previous attempt at Will's bachelor party last summer, and my hands are sore from gripping the club, which I haven't held in almost a year.
After some rusty swings at the start of the afternoon, I find myself exceeding my own low expectations. I am still losing after nine holes – but not by much. I consider this a win. The mechanics I learned during Leah and I's lessons last summer are slowly coming back and I am hitting the ball straight almost as much as I am slicing it sideways. On the 12th hole, I make contact with my rented Wilson seven iron so that the ball flies maybe halfway down the fairway.
It is still sitting there – in the taller grass – when I see the coyote emerge from the trees.
Its fur is a dirty shade of taupe and it appears mangey and alone. I am standing maybe two hundred feet away and I can see the gleam of its black eyes as it turns and skulks away from me. It is trotting towards the green, and the pin, and I realize John is still scanning the course from inside the golf cart.
He hasn't noticed the coyote, or that he is driving right toward it.
Greenacres is roughly rectangular in shape, boxed in by a city road, a connector highway, a farm, and an industrial site, which might be leaking raw animal waste onto the course, given the smells lingering around the 17th hole. Aside from the trees and the water traps, I notice there is very little insulating the course from the outside world. In fact, from where I'm standing, I could walk into the farmer's field (which is full of sorghum or maybe rye) and take a piss before anyone thinks twice. I also notice that, unlike the highway and the road, there is no netting to stop golf balls from flying onto the property, and I wonder how many of those little white balls are littered in the dirt before I get anxious and force myself to think about something else.
On the 9th hole, I shoot a Titleist that Hugh gave me towards a water trap. I’ve already lost two balls in the woods, so I go off to see if I can retrieve it. A sparrow is sitting silently in the reeds as I approached the water. From the tee, the trap looks like a pond. But up close, I realize an oily sheen has bloomed across its surface, making the entire thing seem rancid, like curdled milk left sitting in the sun. And so I turn back towards the fairway, and towards the game and the group.
John told me that he thought he could beat Hugh on the back nine, but we’re both playing pretty shitty. He’s a better golfer than I am, more strategic, more poised, but he’s struggling to drive the ball down the green. This would be okay since Hugh has missed almost every putt he’s taken, but I can feel John’s energy diminishing. Around the 13th hole, he tells me “Golf would be a perfect game if you stopped after 14 holes.” I laugh and I think he might be on to something.
Later, on the drive back, the three of them will explain that you almost never shoot well your first time on a course. That just by hitting the ball consistently I was in something like the 80th percentile of all golfers. And I will stare out the window of Zack’s Sunfire watching as the McMansions that line the highway blur together, unsure if I believe them. I will think about John driving towards the coyote, and how I pointed and yelled “Hey! Coyote!” to try and warn him. And I’ll realize that I don’t actually know if he knew what I was saying, or if he even saw it slinking towards the back of the course, retracing an instinctual path that we have tried so hard to erase, all so that I could shoot a 119.
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