Page 130 of Putting Out
Her position still set over the ball, Reilly raised her head. “Are you kidding me? I’m about to attempt an improbable eagle and you’re proposing marriage?”
Luke shrugged. “Well, if I waited, you might be afraid I was proposing out of pity because you blew this chance to finish in the top fifteen. I wanted you to know whether or not you make this I still love you. Love you and want to be married to you. For real this time.”
Reilly smiled. “You do?”
“Yep.”
“Even after all of our disasters.”
“We were just working things out of our system.”
“You know I love you, too,” she told him.
“Yep.”
“Always have,” she sighed.
“Naturally,” he smirked. “Now take your shot. I really can’t wait to see how this turns out.”
Reilly steadied her body again over the ball. She took a deep breath and visualized the outcome: the ball sailing over Ray’s creek and landing safely on the green.
You can do this, she told herself.
Sometimes strength doesn’t come just from the legs or the arms. Sometimes it is in the heart.
Reilly smiled as the cheesy line her Grams had fed her came back to her in this solemn instant. She figured it wouldn’t kill her to believe it this one time. She drew her arms back in a straight and strong line, felt her hips twist and shoulders turn and with everything she had, she brought the iron down on the ball.
The ball lifted high into the air. The heavy crowd lining the fairway started shouting at it, begging it to go. Reilly heard Luke ordering it to get up while she kept her eye pinned to the spherical white object sailing through the sky.
“Come on,” she pleaded. “Be right.”
It began its descent directly on line with the flag and if it was the right distance… it was going to be…good.
The roar from the crowd registered first. The sound was like nothing Reilly had ever heard. It thundered and rolled until she could see as well as hear that the ball had cleared the water and settled mere inches away from the flag.
Around her the crowd started cheering as the fervor trickled down from the green to the fairway to what felt like the entire course. Reilly dropped to her knees with her arms in the air, her club tossed behind her. One hole. Five hundred and ten yards. Two shots.
They said a woman would never be able to do it.
She felt arms lifting her from behind dragging her to her feet and then in a sudden motion she was tipped over Luke’s shoulders as he carried her and her golf bag over to the crowd where she could give high fives and soak in the moment. She laughed and tried to hold back the tears, hating the cameras who would play a close-up of her crying during the round.
There was no crying in golf. At least not on the men’s tour.
Then again, being hauled about by her caddy/boyfriend while he continued to slap her ass wasn’t something television had ever seen before at a major PGA event, either.
After Luke put her down she made her way up to the green to sink the putt and scored her first and only eagle of the tournament.
The roars didn’t stop when she made her way to the 16thhole. Or the 17thor the final 18th hole, where she stood over a putt for par that would put her alone in fifteenth place.
When the putt dropped, the crowd’s endless voice roared again and this time Reilly didn’t feel any shame in letting the tears fall as Luke swept her up in his arms.
Only for a minute, though.
Golf was all about rules and manners and it wasn’t polite to hold up play.
Reilly thought she had herself together as she knew there would be reporters waiting at the trailers for spontaneous-reaction interviews, but as soon as she saw her Pop, she lost it.
He’d waited for her at the end of the path created by the rope lines to allow the players to exit the hole.
