"Nobody has watched you the way I have."
The sentence leaves my mouth before I can adjust it. It is factually accurate — four notebooks, hundreds of hours of footage — but the phrasing carries weight I did not intend. Or perhaps weight I intended and did not authorize.
Her eyes drop. Not to the ground. To my hands, holding the notebook. Then to my forearms, where I've rolled my sleeves to the elbow. Then lower — my waist, my hips — a scan so quick and thorough that it would be invisible to anyone who wasn't watching for it.
I am watching for it.
She brings her eyes back up. She knows I saw the assessment. She does not appear embarrassed. She appears challenged, as if being caught looking is another form of the aggressive play she defaults to under pressure.
"So you've been studying me," she says.
"I study every player I consider working with."
"For four years?"
She's done her research. Or Bisi has. Either way, she knows I didn't start preparing last week.
"Your game presents unique strategic questions."
"My game, or me?"
"Your game is a product of your decision-making. Your decision-making is a product of your psychology. I don't separate them."
"That sounds like therapy."
"Therapy addresses why you make decisions. I address which decisions to make. They're complementary but not identical."
She plants the driver head-down on the turf and leans on it, both hands stacked on the butt of the grip. The posture is casual, confident, and designed to communicate that she is not rattled.
The slight elevation of her pulse says otherwise.
"What if I don't want to change my decisions?"
"Then you will remain an exceptionally talented golfer who finishes in the twenties and breaks equipment on television while your sponsors leave. That is a perfectly valid career choice."
"You're not going to sell me on yourself?"
"No. You're already here. Selling at this point would be redundant."
Something shifts in her expression. Not softening — opening. A door moving from locked to ajar.
"What would working with you actually look like?"
"Preparation. Course mapping. Strategy sessions before each round. Real-time reads during play. Post-round analysis. I would tell you what I see, recommend the highest-probability shot, and explain why. You would make the final decision. Always. The club is in your hands. I am beside the bag."
"And when I disagree with your read?"
"You tell me. We discuss it. If you still disagree, you play your shot and I record the outcome. This is not a dictatorship. It is a partnership between your talent and my information."
"And if I'm right?"
"Then I adjust my model. I am not infallible. I am thorough."
She considers this. The hawk passes again. A sprinkler clicks on at the far end of the range, throwing arcs of water across empty turf.
"People say you're difficult to work with."
"I am exacting. People frequently confuse exacting with difficult because exacting requires effort on their part."
