"Where is Jack?" Myron asked.

"The western course."

"'The what?"

"Merion has two courses," the older man explained, stretching his neck again. "The east, which is the more famous one, and the west. During the Open, the western course is used as a driving range."

"And your son-in-law is there?"

'Yes."

"Driving balls?"

"Of course." Bucky looked at him, surprised. "You always do that after a round. Every golfer on the tour kows that. You played basketball. Didn't you used to practice your shot after a game?"

"No."

"Well, as I told you earlier, golf is very special. Players need to review their play immediately after a round.

Even if they've played well. They focus in on their good strokes, see if they can figure out what went wrong with the bad strokes. They recap the day."

"Uh-huh," Myron said. "So tell me about the kidnapper's call."

"I'll take you to Jack," he said. "This way."

They walked across the eighteen fairway and then down sixteen. The air smelled of freshly cut grass and pollen. It'd been a big year for pollen on the East Coast;

nearby allergists swooned with greedy delight.

Bucky shook his head. "Look at these roughs," he said. "Impossible."

He pointed to long grass. Myron had no idea what he was talking about so he nodded and kept walking.

"Damn USGA wants this course to bring the golfers to their knees," Bucky ranted on. "So they grow the rough way out. Like playing in a rice paddy, for chrissake. Then they cut the greens so close, the golfers might as well be putting on a hockey rink."

Myron remained silent. They two men kept walking.

+

"This is one of the famed stone-quarry holes,' ' Bucky said, calmer now.

"Uh-huh." The man was babbling. People do that when they're nervous.

"When the original builders reached sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen," Bucky continued, sounding not unlike a tour guide in the Sistine Chapel, "they ran across a stone quarry. Rather than giving up then and there, they plowed ahead, incorporating the quarry into the hole."

"Gosh," Myron said softly, "they were so brave back then."

Some babble when nervous. Some grow sarcastic.

They reached the tee and made a right, walking along Golf House Road. Though the last group had finished playing more than an hour ago, there were still at least a dozen golfers hitting balls. The driving range. Yes, professional golfers hit balls here practicing with a wide array of woods and irons and big clubs, nay, warheads, they called Bertha and Cathy and the like but that was only part of what went on. Most touring pros used the range to work out strategies with their caddies, check on equipment with their sponsors, network, socialize with fellow golfers, smoke a cigarette (a surprising amount of pros chain-smoke), even talk to agents.

ln golf circles, the driving range was called the office.

Myron recognized Greg Norman and Nick Faldo. He also spotted Tad Crispin, the new kid on the block, the next Jack Nicklaus in a phrase, the dream client.