Chapter 27

Tess, it turned out, had the course record for the Women's Open at St. Andrews. Of course, this was the first year in which the championship had been staged on the Old Course, so all it really meant was that Tess was low scorer for opening day.

We were assured, however, by several somewhat excited officials of the facility, that it also was the low women's score for any competitive round in the history of the course.

It made all the papers in the British Isles, and I imagine that it was reported back in the U.S.A, as well.

The second round wasn't quite the artistic success of the first for my golfers, but they both did quite well, all the same. Tess' second-day 69 had dropped her lead down to three strokes on the field, but she would be teeing off last on Saturday, along with her nearest competitor, Sophie Gustafson, a tall Swedish veteran who had tied for second in the British Open the previous year.

Kim fired a 70, putting her at five under for the tournament and hovering around the top ten and ties. Scores, in general, were running surprisingly low.

Tess was all business, all day. No farting around, no joking -- even with me. She was steely-eyed and eager, often showing a little impatience during the lengthy waiting periods between shots.

She wasn't into flashing anybody today. I was confident that her panties, although not "in a bunch," were still squarely in place under her skirt.

"Wilbur," I said to our driver while Tess and Kim were hitting practice drives after the second round, "I want you to find us someplace wonderful for dinner tonight! Someplace with a view. With wine -- or even hard stuff! These two will have late tee-times tomorrow -- Tess, especially. We want them to sleep late in the morning, with pleasant dreams tonight! What can you suggest?"

"Let me make a telephone call," Wilbur said. He hastened inside the nearest public building where a telephone might be found.

By 8 p.m., we were cleaned up and dressed for going out. As planned, we met Wilbur downstairs at the car.

"We're going to be having a Scottish family dinner tonight!" Wilbur announced. "It's at my Uncle Wallace' house, twenty miles north of here, and a lovely spot!"

"This is something you arranged, since we spoke?" I asked him.

"Don't worry!" he said. "There's been enough time. It's a farmhouse -- well, they don't farm, but it's a farmhouse, all the same. It's a lovely place, and you'll like My Uncle Wallace and his wife, Lurinda."

"It's an imposition on them, Wilbur, isn't it?" Tess asked. "... Shouldn't we go somewhere where we can pay our way?"

"No, you should not!" Wilbur said. "Let's be going, then!"

And so we drove north and east, along the water, until Wallace's farmhouse was in view, high on a hill ahead of us. When we parked, we saw that the house was on the very edge of a great cliff overlooking the Bay, with a truly frightening drop to the water far below, and some reasonably impressive (for a bay) crashing waves hitting against the rocky shore below.

"Where's the farmland?" I wondered. In my experience, farms were a lot flatter than this, and farmhouses were, generally, surrounded by croplands.

"It's below us here," Wilbur said, "down back from where we've just come. And it's not so fertile, or productive, as the kind of farms you probably know, back home. But it was a farm, once, all the same. Wallace, though: He's a gentleman farmer. I think perhaps he has a couple of potted tomatoes, and that's about it."

Wallace proved a genial and generous host, however, and Lurinda served the best meal any of us had tasted since well before leaving the States. British food is often made fun of, elsewhere (and, strictly speaking, I hadn't been exposed, just yet, to "English" fare), but these Scotsmen certainly seemed to be handy in the kitchen, and I had no complaints.

Wilbur stayed off the sauce, because he was driving, but when we said farewell to our hosts, well after dark (that's how late it was!) and headed back to the hotel, the three of us were... not entirely sober.

There might be a bit of a price to pay in the morning, but a small hangover might take Tess' mind off the task remaining before her that weekend.

We all three gratefully fell asleep without so much as a kiss goodnight.

It would be lovely to be able to describe, in dramatic terms, the next two days of combat on the Old Course. But it was, in fact, no contest. Tess obliterated her competition on Saturday, and began Sunday's final round with a six-shot lead on the field. Thereafter, she took no prisoners, established a tournament scoring record that would be a long time getting broken, and won her first LPGA tour event, and her first major, all on the same day. And she had won it wire-to-wire. I was pretty certain that there hadn't been so much as a single moment, from that early-morning start on Thursday, when Tess had so much as even shared the scoring lead.

She owned St. Andrews, and, for the moment at least, all of Scotland.

The victory was worth $320,000, give or take. The exchange rate didn't favor the United States these days. Perhaps it was the least prize money for any major, this season.

But this wasn't just about the money.

Kim finished seven under for the tournament, tied with three others for 5^th place, and winning $63,400. She was not unhappy.

We spent another night in St. Andrews, with Tess being interviewed, it seemed, by every print journalist in the British Isles. She did two remote television interviews, and politely declined a trip to London, expenses paid, for another television interview on a popular late-night program (that's "programme") there.

On Monday, Wilbur took us back to Edinburgh, where we spent two more days sightseeing in and around that great city.

On Thursday, we flew to London's Heathrow Airport, where we caught a plane for Washington, D.C., with connections to Raleigh-Durham. Very late on Thursday, we were back in Chapel Hill. On Friday, Tess was going to be interviewed by the News-Observer in Raleigh, and would do a remote interview for ESPN from a Raleigh ABC affiliate.

HBO wanted her to appear on a one-hour sports special, with Bob Costas.

Tess wanted to sleep for a week.

We decided to let her sleep for a day -- Saturday, August 11. On the 12^th, we would all three fly to Edmonton, Alberta to begin preparations for the Canadian Open, which was opening Thursday, the 16^th.

Saturday night in Chapel Hill was an important evening, however. Tess' parents were planning a family dinner party to celebrate Tess' British Open victory, and to give Tess and Kim a big send-off for Canada the next morning.

Roy, Jr. was going to be there, and the second-biggest news of the week (after Tess' big win) was that Roy was bringing a young woman along, to meet the family.

Reportedly, it was "serious."

I wondered whether Roy's new girlfriend was going to be the source of some discomfiture for Kim. There had been a time, a few months ago, when both Tess and I had thought Roy might be interested in Kim, in more than a casual way.

But it hadn't ever taken.

It was a mystery to me. Kimmy was warm and sweet, bright and very attractive. Roy had perked up, from the first time Tess had brought her home. I certainly had thought there had been a spark.

He couldn't have been put off by any vibes coming from me, because, in those days, Kim and I were just buds -- nothing sexual had occurred, or had even been suggested. My affair with Tess, even, had barely begun at that time, and I'd had no designs on Kim.

The Kim-and-Roy thing just never happened. Not even a false start. Zippo.

I actually wondered, at one point, whether, maybe, ol' Roy Junior might be gay. It sure didn't seem likely, though, given his history of lusting -- for years -- after his baby sister. As far as I knew, gay guys didn't go to some lengths to secure opportunities to scope out their female siblings.

But what did I know? Maybe they did.

Don't worry -- I didn't mention, at any point, my "gay" theory to Tess. I knew she'd have just busted out laughing.

I asked Kimmy about it, in private... Not about the gay thing -- but about her feelings, regarding Roy. She was plain-spoken. Kimmy never played games: "Yeah, I thought maybe he was interested, last year," she admitted. "But it just didn't happen. Something was missing, I guess. Roy's a nice guy. I might have been... I might have responded to him. But, now? You're asking if it's going to bother me, being here when he brings home a girl? Not a bit!... After all, Will, thanks to you, I'm not exactly drying up in the corner somewhere, these days."

"But I know you need somebody of your own, Kimmy. I always have known that."

"Just remember that you said that, Will. Something may be coming up. It might be something -- pretty big to me. Something from my mysterious past. The day may arrive, pretty soon, Will, m' boy, when you may just have to take a number!"

Well, that was inscrutable. I tried to get Kim to tell me more, but she just smiled and said, "Wait."

So we were all spiffed up in almost-formal wear for the Saturday night dinner. Tess' mom -- the person in the family I thought of as the most balanced and sensible of the bunch -- was balanced and sensible enough to have arranged for the entire event to be catered. She was, accordingly, able to be as cool and relaxed as the rest of us as we awaited the arrival of Roy and "his new girl friend."

The girlfriend, Charlene Westfeld, we were told, was a graduate student in biology (Yay!) at Duke University (Boo!). Charlene was 22 years old -- a bit young, for a graduate student, I thought.

Maybe she was a prodigy of some sort.

They arrived. Roy Junior assisted his young woman friend out of his sporty little convertible, as we all watched from the big picture window in the front room. She was long and tall -- it took some unfolding to get her out of that little car.