Continued from...

Entering the shop, Wen ran straight for the tool room and began rummaging around for something that might help.  He was on the verge of asking the computer's opinion when a picture of his grandfather entered his mind.  Grandpa Bolton was a golf course superintendent back before the turn of the century, back when things were simpler, freer, and more fun.  "What would Grandpa do in this situation?"

"Use a bigger hammer, boy."

Wen grabbed a sledge hammer.  

The wall screen in his clubhouse office read 0558 hours.  Wen checked the course monitor and spotted Judd Peeler beginning his daily task of moving pin placements.  It was quick and easy on the synthetic greens, but when he arrived at the natural grass putting surfaces, things slowed down.  Old Judd steered the ancient hydraulic cup-cutter out onto the surface, checked for level readings and triggered the insertion sequence.  As the plug of moist, sandy Bentcross Bio-4 emerged, Judd gently transferred it to the previous cup location and tapped it down.  He then limped off the green, shaking his head.

Judd always shook his head when he left a grass green.  Wen smiled at the thought of the cantankerous old fellow.  Judd enjoyed coughing some indistinguishable obscenity into his hand whenever anyone said "Woodland Ridge Golf Club."  He would wander off muttering, "Ain't no woods, no ridge and no golf, for that matter."

Wen knew the reason for Judd's attitude.  The old man was a former club pro, caught up in the purge of personnel deemed nonessential when the mega-golf corporations took over.  Quite a few folks were tagged nonessential, especially golf pros and agronomic specialists.  According to Judd, golf courses were now lonely, automated, soulless golf parks, places where people could be funneled through and fooled into thinking they had played golf.

"Wen?"  The wall screen interrupted the silence.  "You have a call coming through from Corporate, Director Tai."

Wen sat up straight, his spine suddenly rigid, to hide the slouching posture of a man who typically spent his day watching screens and preparing reports filled with numbers.

"Wendell!"  The face of Burton Tai, supervisor and director of North American Golf Operations, appeared on the split-screen.  Burton's trademark was a big smile that foreshadowed bad news.  (The bigger the smile, the more painful the message.)

"Yes sir?"  Wen tried to ooze respect for authority.

"Had some trouble down there, right?"  The split-screen displayed Wen chasing a robotic mower through hedges and patios, flailing the machine with a sledge hammer and apparently filling the air with vile oaths and curses aimed at the NRM-7.  Wen was glad for the poor audio in the older surveillance camera systems.

"Mr. Tai, the machine escaped the disabler barrier and did a great deal of damage.  It even killed a dog.  I don't have the equipment to shut it down and..."

"Hey, hey, relax Wen . . . that's not important."  Tai reached for a document and studied before returning his gaze to the screen.  "We own all that property now anyway.  In less than two months, we start construction on four new buildings along that side of the course.  Every one taller than the one you live in now--60 stories. It'll be great!"

"But, sir, we already have high-rise offices and residential along two borders of the golf course.  That side is the southeast part of the property!  That's where my grass greens are!  The new buildings will shade all the fairways on the front as well.  I can't grow Bermuda in the shade."

Wen was visibly upset; Tai showed no reaction.

"Not to worry, Wen.  We'll install Agri-Lamp systems.  That will let you keep growing fairways, and we can start tee times earlier.  Plus, you can convert those last three greens to  synthetic and we'll automate the pin-placement rotation.  Then you can cut the payroll to just two clubhouse food service stewards and a golf vehicle attendant."

"Okay, I . . . uh, I . . ." Wen stuttered and coughed.  He had expected this.  Why else would Corporate let his robotic mowers fall so far behind on battery replacement?  They were going to carpet the whole course!

TO BE CONTINUED...