PROLOGUE
BROOKES
Someone says something. Someone responds. Someone laughs.
I don’t know. I’m not paying attention. The voices that bounce around the room are muffled and tinny as I sit with my manager, Cam, on one side, and Blake, my agent, on the other, in this sleek boardroom on the thirty-sixth floor of some generic skyscraper in downtown Dallas while Donald Spielman, the commissioner of the American Golf League spears me with a warning look in his eyes. Man, those veneers are so big and white, they’re practically fluorescent. They make his unnaturally tanned skin look even more orange than it usually it is.
An elbow collides with my arm, and I’m snapped out of my daze, glaring at Blake to find him staring at me with a smile that doesn’t meet his eyes. “Brookes?”
Oh, shit. They were talking to me…
Sitting up a little straighter, I square my shoulders and clear my throat. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
Donald’s insincere smile falters before returning with force. “Golf is a gentlemen’s game, Brookes.”
Fuck, I hate that. A gentlemen’s game. Absolute fuckingbullshit. Golf is a sport for rich, old, conservative assholes. Men like Donald Spielman and the rest of the AGL cronies.
Ever since I won my first Championship fresh out of college, I’ve been told I’m too loud for the sport, too wild, too… much. But hell, I’m the man who single-handedly brought golf into the twenty-first fucking century. After Tiger, things went downhill, and fast. But then I came along and suddenly kids started picking up clubs because they wanted to be me. Women started playing golf again, watching golf, coming to tournaments because, well, because I wear the fuck out of a pair of golf pants, or so I’ve been told. I changed the sport of golf for the better. I’m the one who brought it back from the brink of an old rich white man death. And instead of celebrating the new generation of golf I created, instead of embracing it, men like Donald Spielman have been gunning for me, waiting with bated breath for me to retire early or, I don’t know, die probably.
“After careful consideration, and many discussions with our major sponsors,” Donald continues, looking at his suited doppelgängers lining either side of the long mahogany board table. He clasps his hands in front him, spearing me with an unimpressed glower. “We’re putting you on notice, Brookes.”
“Notice?” Blake repeats. “What does that mean?”
One of the other tangerine tits speaks up. “Brookes will need to clean up his image and start living the values consistent with the game of golf, particularly the values of the AGL. We have a detailed conditions list for you to adhere to.”
Before Blake can grab it, I snatch the paper that is slid across the table, looking down over the list of conditions and balking. Lifting my head, I look across the table at the men, my eyes bugging. “Is this a fucking joke?”
Donald winces at my profanity, shaking his head with a resigned sigh.
“Brookes!” Blake hisses, chastising me.
I look from Blake to Cam and back again, holding the list in the air. “They’re telling me how I need to have my hair cut. Andlong-sleeved shirts during competition? In the middle of a golf course in fucking August?” I guffaw, gaping incredulously at the men.
“What’s this?” Cam interjects, obviously seeing something he doesn’t like and yanking the paper from my hand. A deep crease knits his brow as his eyes rove the document. “You’re fining him…one hundred and fifty thousand dollarsforeverysingledayhe doesn’t comply?” His pitch increases with every word before he throws a hand in the air. “Come on, guys, even you have to admit this is total bullshit.”
“I can assure you this is a standard non-compliance conditional agreement,” the AGL lawyer says, nodding matter-of-factly.
“We expect you to have those conditions met before Oklahoma, Brookes, or—” Donald stops himself, holding his hands up in surrender. “We’ll have no other option than to take away your card.”
Before I say something that I know I’ll regret or maybe even start throwing fists, I stand so abruptly my chair goes rolling back, hitting the wall of glass that looks out over Dallas. With a forced, completely insincere smile at Donald and his lackies, I pluck my sunglasses from the collar of my polo shirt and slide them on before turning and storming out of the room with a muttered, “Pleasure asfuckin’always, gentlemen.”
CHAPTER 1
BROOKES
Not so long ago, I was the world number one golfer. This generation’s Tiger. The very first college player to get direct access to the AGL. After winning the U.S. Open in my first year as pro, I was propelled into greatness so suddenly. Unfortunately, the years that followed are nothing but a blur of non-stop tournaments, fame, money, and a hell of a lot of women.
When I tore my rotator cuff a few years back, my surgeon handed me a bottle of oxy to help manage the post-op pain, and that’s when things started to become a little hazy.
According to Sir Isaac Newton, what goes up must come down, and when I came down, I hit rock bottomhard. Forced to forgo my invitation to The Masters, the only major I’m yet to clinch, I went straight to rehab in the foothills of the Camelback mountains in Arizona instead. Do not pass Augusta; do not collect a green jacket.
I was once admired—feared by some, envied by others, revered by most. Now, it feels like I’m just some washed-up has-been junkie, trying to cling to the glory days, and hell, I’m only thirty-two years old.
The dinging of the seatbelt sign pulls me from my thoughts,and I turn away from the clouds outside my window, looking up as the flight attendant appears through the door.
“Can I offer you gentlemen a drink?” she asks, smiling directly at me with that look in her eyes like she wants to try and blow me.
I press my lips together in a semblance of an awkward smile, averting my eyes and hoping she does the same.
