Psycho strummed wildly, as if wrapping up a concert, then bowed to the fans, who applauded his actions.
Jacy shook her head. "Psycho's out to rattle Risk."
"Risk doesn't rattle," Stevie stated. "Once he gets into his rhythm, naked women could streak the course and he'd play around them."
Play was ready to start. Risk was ready to drive. Addressing the ball, he swung. Swung so powerfully Jacy was certain the wooden tee and grass would catch fire. The whistling whoosh, followed by the fans' appreciative aah gave evidence that the shot had gone long and in the middle of the fairway.
Zen and Aaron followed Risk, sending their golf balls within feet of Risk's own drive. Psycho came last. His preshot routine was a serious chat with the golf ball.
Jacy listened along with the crowd as Psycho held the white pockmarked ball at eye level and directed, "Don't go flying toward someone you recognize in the crowd. No rolling into divots or footprints. Stay out of the sand. No drinks of water at the lake. No hiding in tall grass. We're playing golf, not hide-and-seek.
"In case this is your first tournament," he continued, "you need to know holes begin at tees and end at greens, where the holes begin again. I want to get on a few of those greens today. Rush toward the metal cups identified by staffs and flags, and you'll get to play another day."
Stevie groaned. "Talking to a golf ball? The man's certifiable."
Jacy agreed. "He's trying to throw off everyone's rhythm."
"Aaron looks ticked," Stevie observed.
Jacy caught her cousin's narrowed-eyed, tight-lipped expression. "Care to place a bet as to which player wraps a golf club around Psycho's neck first?"
"My money's on Psycho getting buried in a sand trap."
When Psycho finally hit the ball, he did so without finesse. He whacked the living daylights out of it, as if he was swinging a baseball bat—not a golf club— and aiming for the stands. "Smasharoo," Psycho shouted.
Jacy's jaw dropped. "Total whiff. The divot traveled further than his ball."
Not the least bit embarrassed, Psycho called, "Do-over."
"One Mulligan," Risk said from behind Psycho. "You're not turning the tournament into a round of do-overs. We want to finish play without a flashlight."
Psycho hit his next ball hard, with no sense of direction. "Fore!" he yelled, warning fans his drive had gone wild. He squinted down the fairway. "Damn, I caught a palm. No rebound off coconut."
Positioning themselves on the leading edge of the gallery, Jacy and Stevie walked quickly to where the golfers would take their next shot. A par three, Risk, Aaron, and Zen managed to get on the green in two. Psycho, however, was all over the course.
From the base of the palm, his next shot landed on the cart path. "I'm entitled to a free drop," Psycho quoted the rule book.
"A drop, not a throw," Risk reminded him.
Jacy admired Risk's control. His temper remained in check, his concentration honed on the course. The man was an all-around athlete. His swing remained fluid, effortless, perfectly timed. Even when Psycho used the grinding ball washer just as Risk was about to putt, Risk ignored the noise. He continued with his ritual of stooping, squatting, and circling the green of closely clipped grass, silently reading the break and evaluating the slopes and depressions.
When Risk was ready, caddy Tommy Mitchell lifted the metal stick with the fluttering yellow flag from the metal cup. Risk then hit the ball, his tap sure, smooth, successful. The ball landed with a clink in the cup.
Zen and Aaron also sank their putts without much effort. Psycho, unfortunately, ringed the cup four times before the ball finally went in. He then stabbed his putter in the air like a sword, as psyched as if he'd made a hole in one.
"Don't get creative on the score card," Jacy heard Risk say to Psycho. "It took you eight strokes, not three."
Psycho looked offended. "I'd never cheat."
Risk's raised brow had the younger power hitter retracting his words. "Yeah, well, maybe once. No more than twice."
Outside the protective ropes, throngs of fans trudged along with their favorite golfers. Risk's powerful drive, pin-point putting, and personality drew the largest crowd. The fans' excitement was infectious. Jacy found herself raised on tiptoe to get a better look at each shot Risk made.
"Zen's holding his own," Stevie noted as the short-Ill stop knocked his shot onto the green at the thirteenth hole. "Aaron, I'm afraid, has fallen to Psycho's needling."
Fallen hard, Jacy noted. Once under Aaron's skin, Psycho rode the pitcher's last nerve, just for the hell of it. He distracted Aaron's putting with the slow rip of the Velcro on his golf glove, then hopped around and shook out his pant leg as if invaded by ants. At the fourteenth hole, he deliberately checked his watch a dozen times, all the while yawning, forcing Aaron to play faster. Faster meant less accurate.
It took Aaron six strokes to sink his putt. Psycho shook his head in mock sympathy. "Left your ego on that green."
Moments later, Aaron hooked the ball left off the fairway on fifteen. The crowd moaned as it shot over a hibiscus hedge and directly toward a condominium complex.
"High fly to left field," Psycho called out.
Several bounces and the ball came to rest on the indoor-outdoor carpeting at the foot of a sunbather. Startled, the Swedish blonde sat up so quickly her bikini top slipped, exposing tanned flesh to her nipples.
"I've a sudden taste for melons," Psycho muttered loud enough for Jacy to hear him, which meant the majority of the fans also heard him.
Several women blushed while the men grinned in agreement.
Risk Kincaid read Psycho's mind. "Don't you dare hit your next ball in that direction," he warned.
Psycho waggled his brows like Groucho Marx. "I'm good at carpet putting."
Psycho wasn't, however, good at getting his ball out of the sand trap on seventeen. Risk shook his head as Psycho once again talked to the ball. "Get along, little doggie," he said, herding it clear of the lip.
The eighteenth and final hole showcased a table-top green in the middle of a lake, where fountains blasted. The manmade island could be reached only by a narrow bridge surrounded by spectator mounds. The placement of the pin was near the slope on the southern tip. A difficult putt at best.