Ayaan Ahmed Khan

Centre number: MY024

Candidate number: 2042

The sun creeps up behind the horizon, a chilling breeze and an eerie sensation reverberates
through the strands of hair on his arms. Awkward impulses ricochet and ripple through his
midsection, spreading to the rest of his body like a virus. Compelling was the urge for him to
empty the stomach of its morning’s contents. The blackness of the night slowly fades into a
more orange hue, making its statement that daylight has arrived, like a boisterous king
arriving at their palace on a red carpet.

Since he was small, he had been grinding it out with integrity and passion, facing nature's
wrath and its harsh elements. A club was always in the clasps of his miniscule hands.
Practice was being put in, ball after ball. Hole after hole. His main goal, to get good at his
craft.

Now, there is a remorseful frustration as he honestly thought he could really have improved if
he kept at it. All those years to seemingly now fall into a deep pit of wastage.

He sighs to himself, “Only if…”

Well, now is not the time to analyse himself. Moisture rises, dissipating in the atmosphere.
The bellows of birds boomed and bounced from nearby trees, in addition to their slumped
feathered bodies perched in wooden highrises.

Bags are strapped up and loaded. The main starter with a red megaphone announces,

“Have a good game and good luck, you may proceed now.”

Rickety buggies rattle to their allotted starts. The game is set and there’s no turning back
now.

Along the undulating road and path on the way there, he was behind the wheel. His head
was surprisingly empty, with not a single thought that loosely fluttered through his mind. He
did, however, register the oncoming breeze seeping through his hair. To get the most out of
it, he extended his left hand and opened all his 5 fingers like the wing of an aeroplane. At
last the tires slowed and brake pressure was applied. Bringing the cart to a noisy halt and
momentarily rocking the occupants forward and back. This was it. Time to play.

When he dismounted from the cart, his sensitive nostrils were slightly irked by the dense
pollen. His initial thoughts started to leak through his head, like a full water dam with
contaminated water ready to burst. Relievingly this time it was not the usual nervousness. It
was a sense of confidence that rose up from seemingly nowhere.

Three siren blasts echoed through the course, followed by the ahead flight hitting their shots
on this shotgun start.

“Whoosh” “whoosh” “whoosh” “whoosh”

He didn’t show much interest in where their shots ended up, He was now focused and ready
to go. After they had cleared ahead taking their own sweet time, He was first up in the flight.
He was first up. The sun crawled higher up in the sky in direct sight of his tanned face, as a
result forcing him to heavily squint. Deep down inside he knew he wasn’t ready, his back
was still stiff from the sub-par warmup and the lack of preparation in the morning. His tight
pant pockets housed a brand new bridgestone ball, the one that Tiger plays, Tour BXS, and
a thin chipped white plastic tee with worn out height markers. His flight turn had come, He
was wide awake now. This was it. He hinged on his left leg to stab the earth with the tee
stacked below the ball, all in one swift motion. He made sure twice that he was not teeing up
ahead of the tee box markers, like a cautious mariner at sea trying not to go astray in
uncharted waters. He stood behind the ball, his mind clearer than filtered water in a glass.
He took three- just three practice swings, each one with increasing speed, one after the
other. That was it really, all the warm up he had. He addressed the ball for real this time, dry
grass getting trampled and caught under his new rubber cleats. He stood over it, all tall and
all. He knew He was aiming for the centre of the fairway, not confident but not skittish in the
sense He was going to do something radical.

“Whoosh.”

He blasted it in the middle. Right where He wanted it. Off the face, the ball was very near to
being hit thin and going nowhere, but what’s close to bad? Good. It was a good shot.

Second shot. Not bad, but not ideal. Pushed out to the right like traffic getting out of the way
for an ambulance on a narrow road. He finished the first hole with a par save.

There weren't really any competitive attitudes between himself and the rest of his
flightmates, they really were just fun people. Always cracking jokes here and there.

He went along, long hauling through the round. Sweat was trickling down his back and down
the front of his torso. Big numbers were on the card, all hells had broken loose. Well, in this
game you can never win on the first day, but you can lose. And he somehow managed to
achieve the latter.

There were not many holes left, and it was coming to an end. It was a miserable second half
of his day. Sometimes the strongest starts have the weakest finishes in that case.

Second day. It’s the second day now. The first one is over. Done and dusted. His belt was
inverted, but he only realised half way through. Foreshadowing the events that were to
become of him
“Whoosh whoosh whoosh” all day long, he creamed the balls really nice. Could he score
though? No. Big numbers were still there to haunt him.

He was on the brink of a meltdown, that of which was greater than the magnitude of
Chernobyl. Suddenly,

“ZZZ” noise on his dark wrist.His galaxy watch vibrated.

He was on the follow through of his third shot on a par four. 30 or so yards in, he had left it
way too short to the right. HIT and IN. Though performance was sub par, no pun intended,
He just took that shot and stored it in the narcissistic highlight reel locked up in his mind. Self
gratification of sorts he would often convince himself.

Three bottles of Hundred-Plus and two litres of water later, the day was over. The
tournament was over. Hours later His eyes darted up and down as he scoured the
leaderboard. From the top all the way to the bottom. He located his name.

Sitting in neat print on second…. Second to last place.