synopsis

TALES FROM THE CHESTNUT HILLS COUNTRY CLUB

Six short stories

Freddy and Mike, A Parable... In a time before golf carts, when caddies toted player’s bags, Freddy, an older, "A" caddy takes an immediate dislike to Mike, three years younger. He picks a fight and beats Mike up. The parable lies in how Mike not only gets even but insures himself against Freddy’s further aggression.

Cheating (Not Always) Shows and Never (Sometime) Goes... All the members know Freddy cheats. But, no one has actually caught him in the act. Eddie Sanborn, long time player in Freddy’s foursome, ruminates on Freddy’s cheating -- whether he does or doesn’t -- and cheating in general, from cheating the I.R.S. to cheating in marriage.

Glass and Crystal... Bill Hollis, the club professional, once played on the P.G.A. Tour. At the peak of his career his game went sour. He took to drink. His wife divorced him. When offered the Chestnut Hills professional job, he takes it. He finds he enjoys teaching, especially teaching junior golfers. His teaching career seems headed for prominence when the success of one of his students, athletically talented and beautiful, fifteen year old, Marci Roberts, daughter of a well-to-do investment banker, the protégé of every teacher’s dreams, begins to gain national, media attention.

Ace Aikens... When George Aikens receives a nice promotion, their son and daughter’s education behind them, he and his wife, Mimi, decide to join the Chestnut Hills Country Club and take up golf.

George makes a hole-in-one and thereafter golf takes over his life: lessons; practice; obsessive watching the golf channel; reading every golf magazine; etc.; etc. Mimi, on the other hand, discovers she hates golf.

Ladies Day... Tuesday is Ladies Day at the Chestnut Hills Country Club. After a morning of golf, then a nice lunch, many of the ladies stay to play bridge. Helen Becker is beginning to find the routine tedious. She longs to turn her life into something more meaningful, but is at a loss on how to do it.

Shifted Sand... Away for many years, Ken Slotman returns to his home city for business and a round of golf at the Chestnut Hills Country Club, where as a boy he devoted much time to the game. He also has arranged an extra-marital tryst with divorced Ann Sharp, formerly Ann Mathews, a girl on whom he had a boyhood crush and where the two have been surreptitiously correspondening since a high school reunion the year before.