Jimmy was hot and tired by the time he walked all the way to Hole 18. He had put his golf holes up for adoption, and all of the people who adopted the holes had taken him to TV court to try to take that power away from him.
Jimmy walked out of the TV court and spent the long walk up the course thinking about whether he wanted to continue to allow the holes to be adopted.
Jimmy’s dad loved this course and was happy to leave it to Jimmy. The two used to play golf together, and Jimmy’s dad would show him all of his favorite parts of the course.
Jimmy felt bad for letting things get so out of hand. He knew the adoptees’ shenanigans scared off the old regulars and made golfing really difficult. Jimmy himself didn’t play golf anymore.
Hole 18 was a gift shop run by Paige. Technically, it was Jimmy’s hole, but Paige opened the boutique at the end of the hole. Jimmy walked towards it.
Not all of the holes were bad. Hole 3 just had a sign for insurance. Hole 16 was just an avenue for a golf pro to provide lessons. However, Hole 2 was a mad carnival, Hole 15 was overrun by bees, and Hole 17 was a nightmare.
The store sat at the end of the 18th hole. It featured merchandise with the same themes as the adopted holes. The products for hole 1, the one hole that Jimmy had kept, featured basic golf equipment—a smaller version of what you found in the pro shop. Hole 7 included golf-themed tarot cards for sale. Hole 14 featured putters of alternative history events like Crab Liberation Day.
Jimmy wandered through samples of honey and Halloween masks until he found Paige.
“Hi Paige,” Jimmy said. “You didn’t go to the trial?”
“No, I didn’t have anyone to cover the shift. How did it go?”
“I walked out,” Jimmy said. “I’m trying to decide what to do. I have a question for you, though. When golfers come through here—how do they seem? Do they like the course?”
“Some people hate it,” Paige said. “They say it’s the worst 18 holes of their life. But a lot of them, a majority of them, are astounded by it. They can’t believe that they survived it or what they just witnessed. They spend a long time in the gift shop recounting all of the crazy things they saw and did.”
“What do you think?” Jimmy said. “We could just have a normal golf course again with a gift shop at the end of it.”
“Honestly,” Paige said. “I’m not sure what a golf course is for. Is it about the game? Is it about exercise? Is it about novelty? If you know what a golf course is for, you know what to do with it.”
Jimmy looked through all of the items. He noticed the fake gravestones that said things like, “He Putted it Away” and “Fore-gone but not Fore-gotten,”
“Thanks, Paige,” Jimmy said. He walked towards the clubhouse and saw everyone assembled. They were looking at him expectantly.
“I have not made a decision,” Jimmy said, and everyone let out a sigh of relief. “I’m going to take a few days off. Assuming you all don’t burn the place down while I’m gone, I’ll play 18 holes of golf when I return. So you might want to go make sure your holes are in great shape so I can truly experience the Finch Golf Club.”
The Finch Golf Club is part of a series, you can read other entries here.