Chapter 29

Roland's presence didn't interfere with Kim's golf game -- if anything, he was a good-luck charm for her. She finished the first two rounds at a combined six-under par 138, and was tied for the lead. It was a three-day tournament -- Friday through Sunday -- so everything would depend on Sunday's final round.

Tess did less well, but made the cut Saturday at one over par. On Sunday, however, Tess' back went out on the fourth hole and she was forced to withdraw. I took her back to the motel, went back to the course to find Roland, and, with his help, located a physician who was willing to see Tess, on a Sunday, and at the motel. I was impressed to find that such a physician existed in the city of Portland, and more impressed that Roland could summon him to help us.

Much later, Kim and Roland returned to our room from the course. Kim had lost her lead and had to settle for second place, but she'd earned $117,000.

The doctor had departed by that time, but he had left Tess comfortably medicated. Tess was upset at having had to withdraw, but she wasn't unduly concerned about the injury. "It's something that happens to me, from time to time," she explained. "It happened to me once last year, on the Futures Tour. Not as bad, but the same problem. That time, Will gave me a thoroughgoing massage. He did wonderfully well... As I recall, Will, that might have been the first time you got lucky!"

"First time with you, you mean," I said.

"You knew that's what I meant!" Tess said, scowling at me. "Still, I thought, at the time, that you might have been a virgin -- after all, real massage therapists don't spring erections while administering their treatments."

"If they were massaging you, they would," I said. Hey, I can be gallant, now and then.

"Kim, I'm going to have to skip the State Farm Tournament," Tess said. "Will and I are going to fly to Washington. I want to see Dr. Chang, in Arlington, Virginia. He's the only one I've ever found who can really bring me out of this."

"Does he do acupuncture?" I asked.

"He may do it, but he's never done it for me," Tess said. "But he's good -- real good. He's always my guy, when the back starts acting up."

The State Farm Classic was in Springfield, Illinois and would start on Thursday. Kim would have to fly to Chicago immediately -- Sunday night -- to give herself adequate time to prepare. Tess and I were looking for a flight east that evening as well -- preferably straight through to Washington. We had reserved a room in an Arlington, Virginia motel close to Dr. Chang's office.

We hadn't been able to get in touch with Dr. Chang or his answering service on Sunday afternoon, but Tess was confident that he'd see her at least on Monday afternoon. By the time we were back in the D.C. area and had registered at our motel, it was 3 a.m., EDT.

We slept.

Monday morning, Tess managed to talk to the doctor and he agreed to see her at 3 p.m. At his request, Tess stopped taking the painkillers provided to her by the Oregon physician.

By noon, her back was bothering her again, and she asked me for one of my amateur (but skilled) rubdowns.

I complied.

I think I afforded her some real relief, but, as usual, I got the boner in the process. I did my best to disguise it, doing some deft maneuvers behind Tess' reclining form, trying to assure that she didn't notice that, once again, my libido was outdistancing my more altruistic, virtuous side.

She moved once, though, unexpectedly, and got inadvertently poked.

"You got a hard-on?" she asked. At least it wasn't said in an accusatory tone.

"Yeah... Sorry."

"Don't be sorry. Let's put it to good use," she said. "Chang's taken me off my happy pills. Maybe you can take my mind off the pain with your Magic Wand."

"Won't it just make it worse?" I asked.

"Not if we do it doggie," Tess said. "When I'm up on hands and knees, I feel fine. It's just kind of a pain in the ass to lie around on your hands and knees, full time."

"Well, don't make any sudden moves," I said, "or you may find out what a real pain in the ass is like!"

"Sorry, Will. I'm not into that -- and that means that you're not into... uhh... that, either!"

"Little Will is perfectly happy with his present accommodations," I assured her, "but if you ever get curious, and decide you want to try it, I'm definitely your man!"

Tess turned her head around on that one -- wincing momentarily when she found out that, even while comfortably on her hands and knees, head-turning was a no-no. "What do you mean, 'I'm your man, '?" she said. "I didn't know you had an... affinity... for anal sex."

"Oh, I don't think that I do," I explained, "but you've heard of 'training bras?' Well, I've got a 'training dick, ' here... Ideal for beginners!"

"God!" Tess said. I've got to stop teasing you with the small-dick jokes. First, I got Kim started doing them, and now -- you poor man! You're doing your own!"

I had told Tess that Little Will and I were happy with our present accommodations, and that was more than true. Actually, Little Will, at that moment, was experiencing sheer bliss! With Tess and I having skipped sex on the previous Saturday night, and then the back problems she acquired on Sunday, and with Kim off gallivanting with this Roland guy, I was coming up on -- what was it? My God!... Something in the neighborhood of seventy hours without having had a single sexual contact with a female.

That qualified as blue balls territory for me, nowadays.

Oh, the humanity!

We stayed in Arlington through Wednesday. Tess visited Dr. Chang for three days running, spending two hours each day in one of his little examination rooms, taking heat treatments and doing designated exercises.

By Wednesday morning, with one session still ahead of her, Tess was walking normally again and we were able to leave the hotel room to go out for breakfast. She'd been spending a lot of time in bed, not much of it in gainful employment as a sex object.

Tess had planned to play in Springfield that same week, and then to take a week off, at home, before heading for Halmstad, Sweden to participate in the Solheim Cup Match Play event. The Solheim was the women's version of the PGA's famous Ryder Cup matches. It was a biennial team event -- United States versus Europe, and it was considered a great honor to be selected to represent the U.S. The best women players from the United States and Europe would be there. Most of the European players were regular stars on the LPGA Tour, but a few were the leading players from the European Women's Tour.

Tess would be the only LPGA rookie on the American team. She was tremendously excited about having been invited to participate. Others -- like Kim -- might have qualified, but, alas, you had to have been born in the U.S.A. for this one.

Tess had never intended to play the week before the Solheim, and despite missing the Illinois tournament, she still stuck to her earlier decision not to play in Arkansas the following week. Better, she thought, to train near home, and then leave for Sweden in plenty of time to acclimate herself to conditions there.

Kim had another strong showing in Springfield, winning $43,400 in the State Farm Tournament. Now, she was looking at a very considerable break in her schedule. Kim had not planned to play in the new tour event in Arkansas, either. With Tess' plans changing, and our departure for Sweden moved up by a few days, Kim decided she had enough free time for a trip back to South Korea to see her family. There was a Tour event scheduled to be played in South Korea in late October, and I knew Kim planned to go back for that. However, her father's health was encouraging her to go home six weeks earlier, at a time when she would have more time to spend with her family, away from golf courses.

She would also stop in Portland on the way back, she told Tess, to check in again with Roland Hidalgo.

Tess and I would be getting together with Kim again in early October, in California for two events out there on consecutive weeks. After that, the three of us planned to fly to South Korea for the SEMA Korean Championship, October 19-21.

Both women would have ample time off during September, but October would involve coast-to-coast travel to California, followed by our longest flight yet -- across the Pacific.

There were events, on consecutive weeks, in Korea, Thailand, and Japan! Tess and I were going to see the world. Or, at least, the golf courses of the world. It was unfortunate that these events were so closely packed together on the calendar. Not much sightseeing would be on the program.

Tess rested at home the last couple of days in August, and then we ventured out onto her home course to test her back's recovery. After two easy practice days, Tess pronounced herself 100%, notified the Captain of the U.S. Solheim Cup Team that she would definitely be good to go, and we started to practice in earnest.

On Sunday, September 9, we flew to Kennedy Airport, New York, and picked up a connecting flight to Copenhagen. A representative of the American team met us there for the ninety-minute drive to Halmstad, Sweden, just across the straits. The matches were to be played at Halmstad Golfklubb. (Those Swedes spell funny.)

Tess would have four days for familiarization with the course, and for participation in the several social events scheduled for the two teams. As the team's only rookie, she would spend a considerable amount of time learning the protocols associated with this competition, now experiencing its tenth biennial renewal.

As in the case of the men's Ryder Cup, the Solheim is a highly competitive event, marked by some good-spirited nationalism, but also by sportsmanship, mutual good will, and -- for the younger players on both teams -- an exciting opportunity to compete against, and to team up with, the finest women golfers in the world.

Tess' membership on the team was based on her superb record in tournament play during the past year. She was, at the time of the selection, the third-leading money winner on the LPGA Tour. Her overall rank was a bit lower than third, because the number of events in which Tess had earned "points" toward Solheim qualifying was relatively low. She had, for example, failed to qualify, early in the season, for the Kraft tournament in California -- a "major," and a big source of qualifying points.

But winning the British Open easily put Tess into the Tour's top ranks. More importantly, the American Captain, Betsy King, knew Tess' game and expected her to be a highly aggressive, point-earning terror in the competition.

There would be twelve players for each team, but not all twelve would play in all three types of competitions. The tournament featured eight "foursome" matches, eight "four-ball" matches, and twelve singles matches. All in match play format.

The foursomes would feature two players from each squad, playing as a team, and alternating their shots. Players from the same team took turns, hole-by-hole, teeing off. It was possible, however, to take some advantage of a player's particular skills, by planning -- much as a baseball manager might -- which player would "lead off" during the match. If, for example, Tess, as an exceptionally long hitter, were positioned to hit second (for her team) on the first tee, it was likely because the Captain had foreseen that Tess would then be hitting first off the tee on the second and fourth holes -- both of them long-drive holes. To some extent, the entire 18-hole event could be mapped out in this fashion, for maximum advantage.

Tess was teamed with a veteran player, Alice Grant, one of the lower-ranking American team members. Grant was known for her skilled approach shots and for her success out of fairway sand traps. The Captain's thinking was, she could make the most of Tess' long tee shots. Conversely, Tess was, herself, excellent from the fairways, and she could be expected to make up for Grant's lack of length in many instances.

If the team clicked, hitting one another's shots alternately, they could hope to win the day's match and pick up a half-point for the American team. Fourteen and a half points (out of the 28 points available) would win the Cup.

The United States led, six matches to three, over the nine-match history of the Solheim Cup. But the competition was keen, and the past four Cups had been split, two for each team. Betsy King, and her assistant captain, Beth Daniel, both had distinguished records as former players in these events, and they were keen on winning this year's competition.

It turned out that the Henderson-Grant pairing for the Americans was a stroke of genius on the Captain's part. They clicked from the start, and despite being up against two very strong European players, Tess and her partner blitzed the Europeans and finished on the 14^th hole, 5 and 4.

The results, for the remainder of the teams playing foursome matches, were mixed. At the end of the day Friday, the score was USA 4 1⁄2, Europe 3 1⁄2.

Saturday's matches featured "four-ball" competitions. In four-ball, there are, again, teams of two players to a side. But each player competes in the normal fashion -- hitting her own shots throughout the match. The best score of the two, on a particular hole, is the team's score for that hole, and the hole can only be "won" if a particular player's score is lower than either of her opponents.

Tess had, once again, been selected to play in the Saturday events. This time, her partner was Sarah

Sheridan, perhaps the weakest competitor on the American squad. Sheridan, obviously, was no slouch as a player -- else she wouldn't have been invited to the big dance. Nevertheless, she wasn't among the strongest players, and the Captain's teaming her with Tess was, I believed, a testimonial to how much confidence Betsy King had in her rookie player.

The European Captain, Helen Alfreddson, followed a similar strategy. Her power player for the twosome was none other than countrywoman Annika Sorenstam, and the partnered player was, like Sarah Sheridan, a lesser-known Spanish woman, Anna Maria Ortega. If everything went according to the two Captains' planning, this foursome would, in effect, be a head-to-head match play competition featuring Tess against Annika.

Well, nobody was too surprised that it didn't turn out that way, precisely. Annika and Tess each won a hole on the first nine, but each of their less highly regarded teammates also were responsible for winning holes, and on three occasions, Sarah Sheridan made saving shots to "halve" holes that, but for her good play, were going to be lost. In short, she was outplaying Tess and keeping them in the match.

On the tenth hole, the European team was one up. It was still anybody's match, but Tess was feeling a little down because she knew that Sheridan had been holding her up, instead of the other way around, as had been expected.

"I'm stinking up all of Southern Sweden," she told me, "and if the wind changes, they're gonna smell it in Denmark, too."

"Not that bad," I said. It had been, however, pretty bad. We might have been three or four holes down if Sarah hadn't been on the top of her game.

"What am I doing wrong, coach?" Tess asked me.

Well, it was mostly a rhetorical question. I was no golf coach, and I seldom was able to afford Tess substantive advice about her swing, or her choice of clubs. I almost never volunteered any suggestions that could remotely be considered "coaching tips."

Still, she had asked me what I thought. She couldn't fault me, could she?... If I gave her an answer. She could ignore it; she could tell me I was full of shit. But, she couldn't really fault me, just for answering.

OK, so... What did I think?

"I think you're hitting your drives too hard."

"Why? I haven't been very wild. I'm mostly in the fairway, or the first cut."

"You've had some kind-of awkward second shots on the par fours," I told her. "Your tee shots have been too good. You get into places where the course doesn't always reward length off the tee. Then you're between clubs for your approach, and, a couple' times, you've screwed up the second shot."

"I remember one -- OK, two holes, where something like that, maybe, happened," Tess said. "And I got up and down on both of them."

"Sure you did. You got up and down for your par, but those holes were short-fours. Those were birdie holes for you, Babe. This is match play, and four-ball. In four-ball, par just don't signify."

"That's why I'm hitting hard! You gotta be aggressive to get a bird."

"Whatever you say, Tess. How many birds you got today -- so far?"

She thought about it. "One," she said, finally.