“Alright,” Meadow called out. “Here’s how this gon’ work. I’m gon’ give y’all the basics. Mr. Cooks is gon’ fix whatever y’all mess up. Deal?”
“It’s Zaire,” he added. “Y’all can call me Z or Coach Z. Mr. Cooks make me feel old as hell.”
“Coach Z,” DJ tried. “That sound kinda fye.”
Meadow bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling too hard. Zaire shook his head and gave her a sideways glance like, see, this your crowd.
As the kids reset their stances, Zaire took them in…the jokes, the crooked visors, the uneven socks, the excitement they tried to hide under fake attitudes. A warmth moved through him. He remembered being their age, running wild with boys who didn’t have places like this to land. Nobody pulled them aside to teach patience. Nobody put a club in their hands. Nobody told them they belonged anywhere outside of their hood.
Watching Meadow pour into these kids made his soul smile and his spirit. She wasn’t just teaching them golf. She was building a small world for them. A soft place. A place where they could be loud and messy and brilliant without anyone calling it too much.
He swallowed, eyes tracking the little group.
Black kids were magic. Not the kind people romanticized. The real kind - loud, goofy, stubborn, brilliant, and fighting the world before they even understood why. Kids who deserved room to grow without being crushed by expectation or fear.
Black kids didn’t need saving. They just needed space to shine.
And Meadow was out here making that space look easy.
He tightened his grip on the club and looked back at the group.
Yeah, this mattered…more than they even realized yet.
She lifted her chin. “Okay, line up again. Remember what I told y’all last week. Eyes on the ball. Grip firm but don’t choke the club. Pull it back smoothly and follow through.”
DJ pulled back and swung. The ball actually lifted this time, rolling farther than before.
He jumped. “Yo!”
“I told you,” Meadow called. “When you listen, good things happen.”
Zaire walked over and tapped DJ’s shoulder. “Next time, turn those hips a little more. You got power, but you leaving it on the table.”
DJ tried again, turning just like he showed him. The ball took off higher, rolling past his previous mark. He let out a yell that probably woke half the neighborhood.
Mya stared. “Okay, superstar.”
“That was all me,” DJ bragged.
“That was both your coaches,” Meadow corrected. “Be clear.”
They worked through the line. Mya’s form was clean, but she held tension in her shoulders. Karter swung hard with no control. Lay wanted to talk more than listen. One of the younger boys kept trying to hit like he was at a batting cage.
Zaire broke it down in ways they understood.
He pointed at Karter’s chest. “You trying to kill it. This ain’t football. You can’t smack the ball into submission. This game is about making it do what you want with the least effort.”
“So lazy people win?” Karter asked.
“Nah,” Zaire corrected. “Smart people win…patient people win…people who know how to calm their mind, win.”
Meadow watched him from the other side, still correcting grips but listening to every word. His tone was light. His words were not.
“You ever get mad and swing harder?” Lay asked him, turning her visor around.
“All the time,” he answered. “That’s usually when I mess up the worst.”
“So what you do?” Mya wanted to know.
