Once Upon a Green

By WES SNOWDEN

Faced with the failure of his family's sporting goods store after ninety years in business, coupled with a rocky marriage, amateur golfer Bobby Bolton's life wasn't turning out quite the way he planned.

Everything changes when a new golf equipment supplier offers a one million dollar prize if Bobby can make the jump from being an everyday duffer to professional status in the space of one year, Bobby decides to take the gamble, although he remains highly suspicious of the mysterious golf club manufacturer's motives.

When the supplier introduces Bobby to their strange custom-fitted clubs, he starts to win tournaments, but at a chilling cost, he hadn't bargained for.

You don't have to be a golfer to enjoy this delightful story about a man who will do almost anything to become a professional golfer. On his perilous quest to win the prestigious  Masters tournament, he makes a life-threatening deal that he soon comes to regret.

With the help of some friends and an unexpected ally, Bobby, show he has what it takes to perform under pressure

 An entertaining story for golfers and none golfers alike.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CORVENT CREATIVE
• Release date: Oct 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386160113

WES SNOWDEN

After a successful career as an international business owner, Wes Snowden now spends his time between Toronto, Vancouver, and Scottsdale, Arizona. As a relatively new author, Wes has written a broad range of  books, all unique in their storyline. Although his writings are enjoyable for all ages, the author enjoys writing kid's stories for grown-ups the best. Wes has just finished four full-length adult novels- White Swan Wishes, Zachary's Gold, One Last Move and The Leprechaun Wars All four will be published by spring of 2020. Reviews and comments always appreciated at: [e-mail]

Book preview

MILLION DOLLAR CONTEST

THE SPECTER OF BANKRUPTCY hurts.

Sometimes it hits you fast like a runaway freight train, other times it creeps up slowly, like a thief in the night. Regardless of how it arrives, it lingers over every decision you make. And it’s hard not to take it personally. You end up blaming yourself for the failure every day until finally some obscure branch of authority arrives to tell you it’s all over. Your dreams of building a business empire are dead.

It's becoming very difficult to make any money in the sporting goods business these days. Competition from on line giants and huge chain stores are cutting everyone’s profit margins to ribbons, but I’m doing my best not to be quitter.

Bolton Sporting Goods Inc. started by my Grandpa George Bolton almost ninety years ago, has provided a decent living for the Bolton family for the better part of three generations. I’m determined to try almost anything to avoid being the family member that ends up closing the doors for good,

I listlessly pushed an untidy pile of unpaid supplier invoices across the scarred old desktop. I scratched my head with the stub of a pencil for the fifth time trying to make sense of it all. Every month the gap between income and expenses was growing wider and not in a good way.

I just turned thirty-nine. Although it didn’t bother me all that much, I have to admit I was starting to feel that Father Time had me in his sights. I might be a little overweight since I have one of those potbellies that seems determined to resist all efforts at slimming down. Numerous small things bothered me these days. Things like needing glasses and getting up a bit slower from my chair.

Moving inventory around the store inevitably made me reach for pain-killers the next day. My wife, Norma, didn't help with the situation either. Her constant nagging about the lack of money was becoming a real drag on my spirits. Maybe a few little ones would have helped to shift her focus away from my lack of success.

I wished now that we had tried harder to have a family, but the time had just passed by with nothing to show for it.

OUTSIDE THE STORE, a gentle rain had been falling all day. Business volume was even slower than normal. Other than a few people wandering in to try the latest PING drivers and the odd customer looking for new grips, there wasn’t much doing. I decided to fire up my computer and do a little surfing on the net.

I usually started by reviewing some price comparisons with my biggest competitors, but today, I found himself going through the golf improvement websites. When I typed in words Golf Improvement, I was astounded to see references to over 384,000 websites

I moved from website to website, sometimes breaking out into loud laughter at the more extreme gadgets and gizmos, all promising to lower the average golfer’s score virtually overnight. There were swing trainers, wrist monitors, compression wraps, and no end of devices guaranteed to help keep your head down. I knew first hand that most of the stuff was crap.

I started to chuckle when I saw an ad for the ‘BOOMERANG.’ It was a special golf club designed to provide resistance to the golf swing. It consisted of a conventional golf club handle with a very flexible wand-like shaft.

At the end of the shaft, a heavy orange ball was attached to provide weight resistance. In theory, if a golfer swings this contraption several times in a row, he or she