Fairway Phenom (10 page)

“Okay,” Malik said, offering his hand.

Luis took it. “Fine by me,” he said, flashing a grin.

“We’re on, then!” said Mr. Ridley, tousling their heads. “Let’s go for it!”

The next few days flew by. Malik couldn’t play golf, since he hadn’t bothered to call ahead for a starting time. Oh, sure,
he could have snuck on the course if it were a weekday — but on the weekends, the place was too crowded. And besides, Malik
told himself, he was through with all that. No more cheating for him. He and Luis were going to build a team, and they were
going to beat every other team, fair and square.

On Monday evening, Mr. Ridley called. Malik’s mother answered, then handed him the phone, a puzzled, troubled look on her
face. “You aren’t failing
math, are you?” she whispered as she handed Malik the phone.

“No, Ma, it’s nothing like that,” Malik assured her. “Wuzzup, Mr. Ridley?”

“Hey, Malik. Listen, I spoke to the principal today, and she’s willing to let us try putting a team together.”

“All right!”

“Well, wait now, it’s not that simple. What she did was, she’s allowing us to use athletic department funds to pay for you
and Luis to get some practice rounds in before the end of the season.”

“Excellent!” Malik said, getting more and more excited.

“Here’s the catch, though. You and Luis have to convince four other kids to join the team by that time, or she won’t enter
us in the interschool league for the spring.”

Malik was stunned. “But Mr. Ridley, how am I supposed to convince people to like golf?”

“You convinced Luis, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but, well, that was different. He’s my friend.”

“He’s your only friend?”

“No, but, like, he’s my best friend, see — so I
showed him how to make enough money to play. And I let him borrow my clubs.”

“Well, I guess you and Luis will have to use some of those same tactics on the other kids.”

“I guess.” Malik hung up, feeling uncertain of himself. If he didn’t succeed, his dream of a golf team would go up in smoke,
just like that. This was his one chance. He couldn’t afford to blow it.

The next morning, it was as if their fight had never happened. Now Malik and Luis were united in a common mission — identifying
and recruiting the rest of their future golf team. Both boys stood outside the school before classes began, scouting other
kids to see which of them would be likely candidates.

“We’ve gotta start with the coolest kid in the whole school,” was Luis’s opinion.

“That would be Oscar Romero,” Malik said, stating the obvious. “Man, if we could get him on our team, everyone would want
to be on it.”

“I don’t know,” Luis said. “You’re forgetting one thing — if Oscar said no, that would be the end of the whole team. If he
said it wasn’t cool, everyone would believe him.”

“So how do we get him to say yes?”

The fact that he and Luis were even talking again was a miracle, Malik decided. So anything was possible. But Oscar Romero
was cooler than cool. If he wore something one day, a dozen kids were wearing it the next. The week after that, half the school
would be dressed that way — except Oscar wouldn’t be one of them. He’d be on to the next cool thing, always blazing the trail
for those who came after him.

“You
go talk to him,” Luis said. “You got me interested, right? So do the same thing with him.”

“You’re my friend,” Malik reminded him.

“What, I’m not cool enough for you?”

“Cut it out, yo. You’re cool, but not like Oscar. He doesn’t even talk to me. Not much, anyway.
You
talk to him.”

“Me? Forget it. You know more about golf. You talk to him.”

“Tell you what, why don’t we go together?”

“Okay, but you talk first.”

“No, you.”

“You.”

They found Oscar Romero in the boys’ room, combing his hair. “Golf?” he said, not believing his
ears. “Are you for real? Talk to the hand, yo,” he said, putting his palm out to indicate he didn’t even want to hear it.

So much for Plan A. Luis and Malik put their heads back together, but all they could think of was to keep asking kids they
thought of as cool, hoping at least one of them would say yes to being on the team.

It was hard going. Talking about golf, it just didn’t sound that exciting. But both boys knew how much fun it was, once you
got out on the course and started hitting the ball.

That didn’t help them now, though. By Wednesday afternoon, they still hadn’t found a single recruit. All they’d gotten was
laughter and mockery. Malik and Luis were about ready to quit.

But not before their first weekly practice round with Mr. Ridley at Dyker. He met them after school, and they drove there
in his car — a black SUV. They stopped first at each boy’s house to load their clubs in the back, then headed for the course.

“So how’s the search going?” Mr. Ridley asked them right off.

“Not so good, Mr. Ridley,” Malik confessed.

“We’ve got nobody so far,” Luis added for emphasis.

“Oh, I see. Well, keep trying. Maybe our round today will inspire you. I think what you guys need are some creative sales
techniques.”

“Huh?” Luis asked, puzzled.

“Later for that,” Mr. Ridley said. “We’re here. Let’s get out on the course and play some golf!”

Mr. Ridley started in on them right away — correcting the way they “addressed” the ball, as he called it, adjusting their
stance, their grip, their follow-through. They didn’t keep score. If they hit the ball badly, they had to hit their next shot
wherever it landed, just like in a real competition.

“Golf tournaments can work several ways,” Mr. Ridley explained. “They can be medal play, which means they’re scored the normal
way — whoever gets the lowest score wins. Or they can be match play — each player against one from the other team, and whichever
team wins the most matches wins. In the case of the interschool league, they play best ball.”

“What’s that?” asked Malik.

“Well, you’ve got a foursome — say, you two guys
versus two from the other team. Say you get a six on a hole, Malik, and Luis gets a four.”

“Ha! I beat you!” Luis said. That angered Malik for a moment, until he saw that Luis was only joking.

“The two guys on the other team get fives,” Mr. Ridley went on. “That’s ten for each team, but because each team uses their
best ball, you guys would win on Luis’s four.”

“Whew — it’s complicated,” Malik said.

“But it’s fun, too, because it means you and Luis can root for each other, instead of playing against one another.”

“That’s cool,” said Luis, and Malik thought he heard a note of relief in his friend’s voice.

“We’ll figure out handicaps for you, once we start our official practice rounds in April. Matches will be in May and June.
That should give the team enough chances to practice between now and then — especially if we get some people on board quickly,
so we can teach them before it gets too cold.”

“Yeah,” Luis said, “that’s the thing, Mr. Ridley. Maybe
you
could get some kids to join, because we can’t do it.”

“Sure you can!” Mr. Ridley said, clapping them
both on the shoulder. Malik had felt like giving up just as much as Luis, but Mr. Ridley’s enthusiasm was getting to him now,
feeding him with good energy.

By the back nine, the boys were both hitting consistently good shots. “Next time, we keep score,” Mr. Ridley said. “We’ll
try each week for lowest combined score, so you get used to being on the same side. The last thing we need is competition
between our teammates before we go into the league.”

“So how do we get kids to join?” Luis asked, bringing the conversation back around to the problem.

“Like I said — be creative.”

“I don’t get what you mean, Mr. Ridley,” Luis said.

“Well, from what you’re telling me, it’s hard getting kids excited about golf, right?”

“Yeah,” Malik said. “But if they ever played, they’d like it.”

“So you’ve got to hook them with something else,” Mr. Ridley said, his eyes dancing.

“You mean, like, a prize for trying golf?” Malik asked.

“There you go.”

“Yo, I’ve got an idea!” Luis suddenly blurted out.
“I know this girl, Samaya — she paints T-shirts with this special paint? I could get some and do them up really cool, like
with a golf logo.”

“How ‘bout a golf ball swoopin’ through the air with a rainbow-colored trail behind it?” Malik suggested.

“Cool — and something jiggy written on the back, too!”

“I’ve got it,” Malik said, slapping his hands together. “’Join the Club!’ Get it?
The club?”

“Yeah, man! And the ball could have the school’s initials, and underneath, it could say, ‘Golf Rocks!’ Man, these shirts are
gonna be phat — I oughta sell ’em for good money!”

“The idea,” Mr. Ridley reminded him, “is to get the kids excited about it. But tell you what — I’ll buy half a dozen T-shirts
for you to experiment on, and some fabric paint, if you need it.”

“We should wear the first two around as samples,” Malik suggested.

“Yeah!” Luis said excitedly, giving their teacher a high-five. “Mr. Ridley, man — you rule! This is gonna work — I can feel
it!”

W
hile the T-shirts were being made, Malik busied himself thinking up other ways to get kids interested. He practiced and mastered
a trick he’d seen a pro golfer do in a TV commercial, where he bounced a golf ball up and down on the head of an iron, over
and over again. His little sister, Keisha, walked in on him practicing the trick and demanded to be taught how — so Malik
decided it was something pretty cool.

He also dusted off his juggling skills. Pretty soon, he could juggle four golf balls in the air. He colored them different
colors with indelible markers, and pretty soon, he was ready to rumble.

That Sunday, he went over to Luis’s house to show him his mad new skills, and to see how the T-shirts were coming. “Man, these
are phat!” he said,
holding one of Luis’s finished masterpieces. “I call this one.”

“Nuh-uh,” Luis said, grabbing it back from him. “That one’s mine. You can have that one over there that’s drying. It’s cool,
too. But this one was my first try, so I claim it.”

On Monday, the two boys showed up at school with their hot new T-shirts. Luis went to find Mr. Ridley and give him his.

Then, at recess, Malik started doing his thing with the club and balls. Kids started gathering around, hooting and hollering
and cheering him on:

“How do you do that, man?”

“Lemme try!”

“Cool beans!”

“We got a golf team now?”

By the end of that day, Malik had recruited two kids to come to the driving range with him. One of them was Curtis Ibanez,
his and Luis’s stickball buddy.

“Man, I’m gonna hit that ball so far they’re never gonna find it!” Curtis was already bragging, strutting around in the T-shirt
he’d put on.

Malik, watching him carry on, smiled to himself. He knew that you hit the ball farthest when your swing is in control, not
when you try to kill the ball. Curtis had a lot to learn, and Malik couldn’t wait to teach him.

Meanwhile, he was happy that a bunch of kids seemed interested in the whole team concept. He knew that the other stuff—getting
good at the game by mastering your own weaknesses — would come later on, with lots of practice, just as it was coming along
for him.

The next day, Malik was doing his recess thing again, when who should bop by but Oscar Romero — wearing one of Luis’s T-shirts!
Oscar was stylin’, showing off for a half dozen girls who were giggling uncontrollably, blushing and acting like idiots to
get Oscar’s attention.

Soon, the whole school would be wearing golf team T-shirts, even if none of them ever lifted a club. It didn’t matter, Malik
thought. The money from the T-shirts would support those few who actually joined the team. The ball was rolling now, and nothing
could stop it.

“Man,” said Luis, shaking his head at his own phenomenal success. “I should have charged double and pocketed the change!”

Two weeks later, Mr. Ridley officially initiated the school’s golf team. There were six of them now, enough to play matches
with other schools when the season started in the spring. True, one of them was a girl — but hey, Malik thought, that was
cool. At the driving range, Marissa had hit the ball farther than some of the guys. And Malik knew she could putt — he’d seen
her at mini golf, knocking down holes in one.

“Okay, everyone,” Mr. Ridley said, beaming as he looked at his team, dressed in their supercool T-shirts, just as he was himself.
“Everybody please take these consent forms home and return them, signed by a parent. And I want you all to know that we’ve
raised enough money for practice rounds, and to purchase four used sets of clubs for the team!”

A huge cheer went up from the kids, including Malik. Sure, his set would probably be the worst of them all, but he didn’t
care. It was so cool to have a bunch of kids he knew, playing on a golf team with him.

Next spring was going to be a blast, thought Malik — and so was next summer, because Mr. Ridley had offered him and Luis jobs
as caddies at his club in Staten Island!

Malik was totally golf-crazy now, and he promised himself he wouldn’t stop playing and practicing until he was the best golfer
he could be.

The only problem now was,
How was he going to get through the winter?