The Golfing Test

I took my friends for a round of golf. On the first hole, Richie shot a hole in one. We clapped and cheered. On the second, he did it again. We were shocked. The third time, we demanded he stop. The fourth time, we were terrified. We screamed at him under the blinding sun. We pushed him down. He didn’t plead or fight. His eyes bore through us towards the fifth hole. I struck him with a 3-iron, breaking the skin on his skull, exposing circuitry. We struck and struck and struck and wept. We left his body in the bushes by the tee, and we played on in silence.

On the fifth hole, Neill made par. He did it again on the sixth, and seventh. In fact, he’d done it the whole game. His strokes were methodical and identical, and the water bottle in his buggy was still sealed. I shook him and begged that he was real. He insisted he was - but the newer models could do that kind of thing. I drowned him in the water on the eighth hole and lay reeds on top as camouflage. 

On the ninth hole I called my wife and told her the replacements had started and she needed to put the kids in the car and drive to the border. 

She asked me about my score. 

I said it was the best I’d ever gotten. 

I sliced my skin with a tee and looked inside.