The thing I aimed to do before I handed over that last key was walk the course one more time at first light, the way I had every morning for thirty-two years. Touch the old oak on nine. See the greens wake up. A man is allowed a goodbye.
But I had it in my mind to check one thing too, because I knew that course better than the men who fired me ever would.
The members clubs that went missing came off a rental cart. Now I know every cart in that barn, and I know the log we keep of which one goes out with who, because I set that log up myself years ago. The new kid runs the carts now. He is not careful with the book, but the book still gets kept.
So before the sun was full up, I let myself into the cart barn and I opened that log. The cart those clubs vanished from had gone out under the new kid the day they disappeared, not mine, never mine. And there, shoved behind the spare batteries in the back corner where he figured nobody old and slow would ever look, was the bag of clubs itself.
He never even got them off the property. He just waited for the veteran to take the fall.
I did not move them. I did not need to. I called the pro shop, told them exactly where to look and where to read, and I walked out to make my last round while the dew still burned off.
I was standing at the old oak on nine when I saw them coming up the fairway, a whole crowd of the old members, walking out to find me.
Somebody had heard. Somebody always does. These were people I never once asked for thanks, people who never saw me train half the young groundskeepers in the county. But they knew who kept their course beautiful for thirty-two years, and they were not going to let it end on a lie.
The management group that took over the contract sent their fellow out to that Friday gathering expecting a quiet handoff. Instead he found the clubs back in the pro shop, the log open on the counter, and a crowd of members who had already made some phone calls of their own to the city.
The new kid was let go. The low-bid crew never came. And the city, come to find out, was none too happy with a management group that fired a thirty-two year man without asking a single question.
They asked me to stay on, name my hours.
I told them I would keep the greens one more season, long enough to train the next one right, and then I would hand over the key to somebody who earned it.
I touched that old oak on nine on my way in. Still standing. So was I.