Despite the red hair and green eyes, Pat doesn’t have a drop of Irish blood in him, unless you count his marriage to Kathleen, but that’s over. Leukemia. God, how I hate that word. Since Kathleen’s death the end of last summer, Pat has been little more than a shell. Last fall he didn’t even make it to the golfing week he and Bear and Charlie and I have managed every year since the end of college, ten years in all. And like Bear and Charlie and myself, golf is Pat’s passion—his greatest passion, if you don’t count Kathleen.

Bear had the idea of doing this year’s golf trip in spring. For St. Patrick’s Day, he said. Ireland. In honor of Kathleen, we were sort of thinking, though we didn’t mention that directly to Pat. It went without saying, we hoped. It was short notice, but Bear knows some people in the business. We booked tickets. We didn’t let Pat say no. Just grab your clubs and let’s go. We went.

The place was less than two hours from the Dublin airport, and we arrived just in time to check into the bungalow, head out to the course, and putt a few practice balls before our first round. As I said, golf is our passion, and we’d slept on the plane—sort of—but when it comes to golf, we could have played in our sleep.

Every year we have this tradition: the million dollar putt. It’s the longest, most difficult putt the practice green affords, and it determines who has the honor on the first hole. One year Charlie almost made his. Another roll and he’d have been in. “Holy mackerel!” Charlie had wailed, his putter flying, his knees buckling. “One more muffin.” You see, if you make the million dollar putt, not only do you get the honor on the first tee, but the rest of us pay for your drinks the whole week. Fat chance!

This year’s million dollar putt had plenty of distance, almost a hundred feet, and plenty of slope, mostly downhill but also sidehill and uphill, too, at the end—a monstrous snake of a putt. In turn, Charlie and Bear and I whacked our putts—not a one was close, but at about four feet, mine was closest, and I felt I had a good chance at a week of free drinking, especially since Pat seemed distracted by something. Right away we could see he’d hit his putt much too hard. The ball fairly leapt off the face of his trusty bull’s-eye putter. Obviously he hadn’t been practicing on the living room carpet all winter like the rest of us. The putt rolled well past the hole and on up the slope, and then it hit something—a bright green high heeled shoe someone had discarded, we later found out—and after bumping the bright green boot, the ball rolled back down the slope, gathering speed, rolling, rolling, rolling, until it dropped straight into the hole. None of us could believe it. “Holy mackerel,” Charlie yelped. Bear shook his head. Pat just looked perplexed. “I don’t have any clothes,” he said.

“Huh?”

“I didn’t bring any,” he went on. “Except what I’m wearing. I forgot. It never even occurred to me until just now.”

Thinking back, I guess I’d supposed he’d crammed everything into his oversized golf hardcase. I’ve thought of doing that myself sometimes. Thinking even further back, I guessed that maybe in the past, Kathleen had done all Pat’s packing. They’d been so close. I was at the party in college where they’d met, and if ever there was such a thing as love at first sight, that was it. I was at their wedding just a few months later—best man—and in the years since, Meg and I had been over to Pat and Kathleen’s place more times than I could count. No couple could be closer than Pat and Kath. They did everything for each other. Pat, clearly, was lost without her. One time a couple of years ago Meg joked privately that they probably even wiped each other after ... okay, that’s not polite, but Meg has a dirty mind and she meant it in a nice way.

“Don’t worry,” I told Pat. The pro shop’s got plenty of gear to outfit you for the whole week. And if you run short of cash, you can probably squeeze into some of Bear’s duds.” This was my attempt at a joke. Bear tips the scales at over 250. Pat is normally a svelte 175 or so, and since Kathleen he’d lost a lot of weight.

“Ha, ha,” Bear said. He picked up the high-heeled shoe. “Here,” he said, handing it to Pat. “A start on your wardrobe. Take it along for luck.” Pat accepted the shoe and stuck it in his golf bag.

Clothes or no clothes, Pat hit a good opening tee shot, right down the middle. The rest of us also found the fairway, but not nearly as far out as Pat’s boomer. Face it, we’re not in Pat’s league when it comes to golf. He often breaks 80, and a couple of times he’s shot even par 72 on our home course. Bear, Charlie, and I need luck and a couple of Mulligans to break ninety on our best days.

All through the round, Pat was really on his game. He didn’t need luck. He hit one good shot after another, holed a few long putts, and by the time we reached the eighteenth tee, he was two under par for the day. Bear, Charlie, and I were already on the far side of 100. But we were all having a great time. The course was not only difficult, it was beautiful. The views of the sea were particularly spectacular, with waves crashing the rocks and sun spangling the spume. From time to time I’d catch Pat staring out at the water. He seemed more interested in the scenery than in the golf, but that didn’t stop him from playing as well as I’d ever seen him play. I made a mental note that maybe distraction, not concentration, was the secret to good golf. I made another mental note to tell Meg about an impolite thought I’d had: that maybe I’d have to sacrifice her if I wanted to shoot the round of a lifetime. She’d get a kick out of that. Of course I didn’t tell Charlie or Bear, and I certainly didn’t tell Pat, although I had this weird idea that maybe he wouldn’t mind the comment.

On this last hole, Pat was in the fairway again, long and down the left side, near the sea, and I was in a fairway bunker, and Charlie and Bear had both sliced their balls into the rough on the right. Charlie and Bear found their balls and hacked their way out onto the lush green fairway. I blasted out of the sand and then hit my third shot just short of the green. Pat was standing by his ball, but staring out to sea.

“Hey, partner, it’s your turn,” Charlie yelled. “Go ahead, put her on.”

Pat looked puzzled, and momentarily embarrassed. “Oh, right,” he said. Nonchalantly, he took an iron out of his golf bag, and without even a practice swing, lofted the ball high into the pure blue sky. It might have been the best shot he’d hit all day. The flight was so pure, so perfect. The ball just soared. And then it fell, landing softly, taking one small hop, one little roll, before stopping dead, less than a foot from the hole.

“Holy mackerel,” Charlie exclaimed. And then he whispered, “Pat sinks that for a 69. Holy mackerel.”

We turned to congratulate Pat. A 69. I never dreamed I’d play that near a 69. I almost said ‘holy mackerel’ myself. “Nice shot,” I started to say. But Pat wasn’t there. Just his golf bag, with his iron lying across it. He’d disappeared.

Charlie and I looked at each other. We looked at Bear. We all hurried over to the bag. From there we could see Pat. He was headed down through the rocks to the beach. And on the beach, a girl was walking. She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. Hair like sunshine. Skin like clean, soft, rain-soaked sand. Her walk was gentle waves. She was so beautiful she took my breath away.

“Hey,” Charlie called. “Hey, Pat, where you going?”

Pat had reached the sand by then, and he didn’t acknowledge Charlie’s call. But the girl turned, and she looked up at us, standing there on the little bluff, and she smiled. Her smile just about made me melt. And then she turned to Pat, and almost as if she’d been expecting him, she waited. We watched him walk the rest of the way to her. We watched them talking to each other. We watched them stroll back down the shore, away from the clubhouse, away from us. After two or three steps, they were holding hands.