“Who told you that?”

“Word gets around. I’m a man with tremendous sources. So what’s the deal? Why the sudden interest in golf?”

“I’m a sports agent, Norm. I try to represent athletes. Golfers are athletes. Sort of.”

“Okay, but what’s up with the Coldrens?”

“What do you mean?”

“Look, Jack and Linda are lovely people. Connected, if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“LBA represents Linda Coldren. Nobody leaves LBA. You know that. They’re too big. Jack, well, Jack hasn’t done anything in so long, he hasn’t even bothered with an agent. So what I’m trying to figure out is, why are the Coldrens suddenly hot to trot with you?”

“Why do you want to figure that out?”

Norm put his hand on his chest. “Why?”

“Yeah, why would you care?”

“Why?” Norm repeated, incredulous now. “I’ll tell you why. Because of you, Myron. I love you, you know that. We’re brothers. Tribe members. I want nothing but the best for you. Hand to God, I mean that. You ever need a recommendation, I’ll give it to you, you know that.”

“Uh-huh.” Myron was less than convinced. “So what’s the problem?”

Norm threw up both hands. “Who said there’s a problem? Did I say there was a problem? Did I even use the word problem? I’m just curious, that’s all. It’s part of my nature. I’m a curious guy. A modern-day yenta. I ask a lot of questions. I stick my nose in where it doesn’t belong. It’s part of my makeup.”

“Uh-huh,” Myron said again. He looked over at Esme Fong, who was now comfortably out of earshot. She shrugged at him. Working for Norm Zuckerman probably meant you did a lot of shrugging. But that was part of Norm’s technique, his own version of good-cop, bad-cop. He came across as erratic, if not totally irrational, while his assistant—always young, bright, attractive—was the calming influence you grabbed on to like a life preserver.

Norm elbowed him and nodded toward Esme. “She’s a looker, huh? Especially for a broad from Yale. You ever see what that school matriculates? No wonder they’re known as the Bulldogs.”

“You’re so progressive, Norm.”

“Ah, screw progressive. I’m an old man, Myron. I’m allowed to be insensitive. On an old man, insensitive is cute. A cute curmudgeon, that’s what they call it. By the way, I think Esme is only half.”

“Half?”

“Chinese,” Norm said. “Or Japanese. Or whatever. I think she’s half white too. What do you think?”

“Good-bye, Norm.”

“Fine, be that way. See if I care. So tell me, Myron, how did you hook up with the Coldrens? Win introduce you?”

“Good-bye, Norm.”

Myron walked off a bit, stopping for a moment to watch a golfer hit a drive. He tried to follow the ball’s route. No go. He lost sight of it almost immediately. This shouldn’t be a surprise really—it is, after all, a tiny white sphere traveling at a rate of over one hundred miles per hour for a distance of several hundred yards—except that Myron was the only person in attendance who couldn’t achieve this ophthalmic feat of hawklike proportions. Golfers. Most of them can’t read an exit sign on an interstate, but they can follow the trajectory of a golf ball through several solar systems.

No question about it. Golf is a weird sport.

The course was packed with silent fans, though fan didn’t exactly feel like the right word to Myron. Parishioners was a hell of a lot closer. There was a constant reverie on a golf course, a hushed, wide-eyed respect. Every time the ball was hit, the crowd release was nearly orgasmic. People cried sweet bliss and urged the ball with the ardor of Price Is Right contestants: Run! Sit! Bite! Grab! Grow teeth! Roll! Hurry! Get down! Get up!—almost like an aggressive mambo instructor. They lamented over a snap hook and a wicked slice and a babied putt and goofy greens and soft greens and waxed greens and the rub of the green and the pursuit of a snowman and being stymied and when the ball traveled off the fairway and on the fringe and in the rough and deep lies and rough lies and bad lies and good lies. They showed admiration when a player got all of that one or ripped a drive or banged it home and gave dirty looks when someone loudly suggested that a certain tee-shot made a certain player “da man.” They accused a putter who did not reach the hole of hitting the ball “with your purse, Alice.” Players were constantly playing shots that were “unplayable.”

Myron shook his head. All sports have their own lexicons, but speaking golfese was tantamount to mastering Swahili. It was like rich people’s rap.

But on a day like today—the sun shining, the blue sky unblemished, the summer air smelling like a lover’s hair—Myron felt closer to the chalice of golf. He could imagine the course free of spectators, the peace and tranquillity, the same aura that drew Buddhist monks to mountaintop retreats, the double-cut grass so rich and green that God Himself would want to run barefoot. This did not mean Myron got it—he was still a nonbeliever of heretic proportions—but for a brief moment he could at least envision what it was about this game that ensnared and swallowed so many whole.

When he reached the fourteenth green, Jack Coldren was lining up for a fifteen-foot putt. Diane Hoffman took the pin out of the hole. At almost every course in the world, the “pin” had a flag on the top. But that would just not do at Merion. Instead, the pole was topped with a wicker basket. No one seemed to know why. Win came up with this story about how the old Scots who invented golf used to carry their lunch in baskets on sticks, which could then double as hole markers, but Myron smelled the pungent odor of lore in Win’s rationale rather than fact. Either way, Merion’s members made a big fuss over these wicker baskets on the end of a big stick. Golfers.

Myron tried to move in closer to Jack Coldren, looking for Win’s “eye of the tiger.” Despite his protestations, Myron knew very well what Win had meant the previous night, the intangibles that separated raw talent from on-field greatness. Desire. Heart. Perseverance. Win spoke about these things as though they were evil. They were not. Quite the opposite, in fact. Win, of all people, should know better. To paraphrase and completely abuse a famous political quote: Extremism in the pursuit of excellence is no vice.

Jack Coldren’s expression was smooth and unworried and distant. Only one explanation for that: the zone. Jack had managed to squeeze his way into the hallowed zone, that tranquil room in which no crowd or big payday or famous course or next hole or knee-bending pressure or hostile opponent or successful wife or kidnapped son may reside. Jack’s zone was a small place, comprising only his club, a small dimpled ball, and a hole. All else faded away now like the dream sequence in a movie.