You stand on the eighteenth tee box and feel the razor-sharp repair tool in your left pocket. Lately, the tool has been your financial acquisition aid and for five years, you’ve kept it sharpened for your annual three-week golf trip. Hidden from your girlfriend of three years, you have left a blood-tinged bread trail. You hope it doesn’t follow you back to your sleepy, cornfield, blue-collar Indiana town. She scoffs whenever you spend a sluggish Sunday glued to the final rounds of PGA tour events wishing you could get another shot to put your name on that leaderboard.

Your usual strategy-lull the opponents for fifteen holes then show your athletic prowess to obliterate the competition the last three-is not working. You face a four-shot deficit that you cannot foresee overcoming.

The eldest of the group, “Leather-Skin,” is your only competition out of the three-person group. He wears a gold bracelet on his left wrist like your grandfather who taught you the game. He greeted you with a firm handshake and a never-ending smile. Each hole, his jovial, joking demeanor has subsided into an abhorrent country-club arrogance. He does not shy away from his political stance and second amendment agenda between shots. You fear your sharpened tool isn’t the great equalizer in keeping your bank account from drying up.

Before you hit your second shot, Leather-Skin walks over to you.

“Hey kid, I don’t think you can hit that green three times in a row,” he says.

You pause and look at the scorecard. No way you can make up the overall bet money.

“How much, old man?” you ask.

“Double the overall,” he says. “Too much for a school teacher?”

“I’m not some stuffy English teacher,” you say.

“It’s not like social studies teachers can hit with the accuracy of Tiger Woods,” Leather-Skin says.

“What’s the terms?”

“Same golf ball brand, same spot, all three have to rest on the green.”

 You pause and eventually shake Leather-Skin’s hand to accept the bet. You take a deep breath, and look over at him. You want to bury his ego, feel crisp bills in your hand and win by any means necessary.

Hustling big money businessmen funded your collegiate existence. What started as an adrenaline rush side hustle during summer break, escalated to pre-class matches to cover your outstanding debts. Your collegiate career suffered and when your one professional season came around, you had lost that hungry competitive edge that fell away once your hustling took priority.

Once professional golf hit a brick wall, you found your way back home. Teaching middle school social studies presented stability and a paycheck to fund your trips.

Before you hit the first shot, you type a message to your girlfriend, “If I’m not home by the morning, look above the dryer and leave town.” You hit send, wonder if she will believe the message and turn off your phone.

The first two shots hit the green. Each one knocks on the door of Leather-Skin’s ego. He keeps a neutral grin while the other two men sigh. As you address the last ball with your club, sweat builds up. You feel off. Your skin burns and your shirt sticks to your back. Your newly formed calluses from this trip throb. Each hole, your grip has lost its strength and hurt worse than any round in your life. You ignore the gut feeling, swing through the doubt. When the club face connects with the ball, you know it isn’t like the first two. The ball floats in the air with no intention of coming down and when it descends, it becomes allergic to the green.

Leather Skin walks towards you. Before he says a word, you stab him like a reflex. You freeze. Shock paints his face. A loud boom disorients you. You feel a sharp pain in your gut and look down to see a red stain form on your shirt. Your consciousness fades, and your journey plays in your mind.

Each trip, you set aside some money, came close to death and vowed never to do it again. You kept hustling to only three weeks per year until it wasn’t enough to satiate the thrill-this last trip over a month long. You needed to regain your hot streak from last year.

As you pulled up to this course, you assessed the place and knew that it wasn’t just another course chock full of geriatric pushovers like all the others. This was a place of once prominent club champions who could still put a good swing on the ball and score from any place necessary. This was the thrill you needed. You knew it would be your last round whether you had to burn it down or collect with a blood-soaked hand.

The following morning, she sits in her car, looks over at the duffle bag stuffed with money, a modest ring and a scorecard with your name and “Winner” written in red ink.

Tyler “T” Hughes is an endearingly quirky writer, musician and golf pro-shop rat from North Central Indiana. A three-year junior varsity golfer in high school. He once lost a post-high school tournament by one stroke and still relives it to this day whenever he brings up his best round ever. He is a graduate of Butler University’s MFA program and while attending graduate school worked in the university’s athletic department across multiple departments finding solace in the basement of historic Hinkle Fieldhouse, specifically the equipment room, known to many as “The Cage.” #LoopLife. Follow him on Twitter: @thughes22.