The Whiz! Bang! Man
It's all in the hips.
Nobody knew where The Whiz! Bang! Man had come from. He simply appeared one day on the lush, rolling fairways of the picturesque Lowcountry courses. He swiftly became a local legend, and every golf enthusiast in the coastal regions of southeastern South Carolina and northeastern Georgia was eager to test their skill against his. After all, it wasn’t everyday they got to play with someone who shot a hole-in-one off every green on the course.
There was nothing overtly extraordinary about The Whiz! Bang! Man. He was slightly paunchy, with a beard that was somewhere between tastefully stylish and outright slovenly (a fine line, if ever there was one), and he dressed in non-descript golfing attire: immaculately pressed khakis and solid colored polo shirts. He never took his sunglasses off either.
Even in the dusky twilight, when the players hurried to finish off their final strokes before the moon wheeled itself into a darkened sky, the Ray-Ban Wayfarers never left his face. Those who played with him during those eventide hours told stories of how his eyes seemed to glow underneath the black lenses.
“You mean the moonlight reflects off his glasses?” the uninitiated would attempt to rationalize.
“No, not moonlight,” the Whiz! Bang! Man’s opposition would stress with exasperation. “A white and green glow shining out from underneath those damn Ray-Bans.”
“Oh, I don’t know about all that. Sounds like hogwash to me. Seems like you probably shouldn’t take it so hard that he beat the bejesus out of you.”
He didn’t talk much. Nobody had ever heard so much as a peep about what his real name was. Whenever anyone asked, he’d simply shrug and motion vigorously down the fairway, clearly wanting to get on with the game. Everyone called him The Whiz! Bang! Man because of the peculiar sounds his clubs would make. He’d pull his arms back, winding up his shot: whiz! He’d release the tension in his upper body with a colossal swing, and bash the ever-loving snot out of each and every golf ball he hit: bang!
All in all, a curious fellow, with curious habits, and even more curious skill. And then one day, just as suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone.
Colbix Zamrin emerged from Inter-riftspace to find Victyr Frankyl cooling his heels in his lushly appointed study. Frankyl glowered at the temporal excursionist.
“Well?” he demanded impatiently. Colbix nonchalantly removed the tacky sunglasses and fake, yet deceivingly lifelike beard that he’d worn persistently for the last two months, grateful to no longer need to disguise his true identity. The white orbs of his green tinged pupils rapidly adjusted to the dim lighting of his own epoch.
“Well, it’s done. I’ve fulfilled the terms of our wager.”
“Going back in time to when humanity’s golfing prowess was rudimentary at best is cheating, wouldn’t you say?”
Colbix shrugged. “You didn’t say that was out of bounds. You just said I had to prove my own mastery of our most cherished pastime by winning a hundred consecutive games. I’ve held up my end of the bargain. Now you should do the same.”
“So you say. How do I know you’re telling the truth? Nobody traveled with you through the Inter-rift.” A self-satisfied look of triumph was splayed across Victyr Frankyl’s smug face. Colbix handed him the Ray-Bans.
“You didn’t really think I’d come back here with nothing to show for my efforts, did you? It’s all on there. Every stroke. Every hole. Every game.”
Frankyl’s haughty smirk wavered as the intelli-lenses were thrust into his reluctant hands. It seemed as though Colbix Zamrin had truly gotten the better of him. Perhaps the boy was smarter and more conniving than Frankyl had previously given him credit for.
“Fine,” the world’s richest and most influential business magnate sighed begrudgingly after an interminable silence, wherein Colbix observed him with unblinking expectation. “You have permission to marry my daughter.”
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When a human suitor seeks to wed the daughter of the powerful and prodigious, they're sent on quests to achieve the incredible or search out the impossible.
When an extraterrestrial suitor seeks to wed the daughter of the powerful and prodigious, they're sent to play golf a lot.
i love the ridiculousness of this story. but i couldn't quite understand how he was so good... is it just 1000 years of golf evolution or something? not the sunglasses?