WHERE HAVE ALL THE BIRDIES GONE?

It’s true: No caddie would miss a pro golfer’s tee time unless he was dead.

Despite a swing that Snead, Palmer and even Tiger Woods would envy, Roger Finley is suffering a nasty slump, slicing, hooking, whiffing and sliding way down in the rankings. Still, his reputation lands him captaincy of the American team playing against the Brits in the Stewart Cup, the four-day tournament being held at the posh Pinehurst Golf and Country Club. When Finley’s caddie, Dylan Blanchard, is found bludgeoned to death, Graham Sheldon, head of Countermeasure, Inc., is on hand to supervise security and lend moral support to his girlfriend, golfer Lee Ofsted, and work alongside the local cops to figure out whodunit and why. Lee’s caddie Knows Something. So does Peg, Lee’s biggest fan. But before Graham can digest all their information, Lee is attacked in her hotel room. Meanwhile, although Finley’s wife is clinging to him like Velcro, a leggy blonde is following the hapless pro around the course. Is someone less friendly out to sabotage Finley’s career? Could it be a Brit? A rival on the American squad? When the tournament ends, so will someone’s career.

Lee’s fourth (after Nasty Breaks, 1997, etc.) is plotted by the numbers. Duffers everywhere, though, will respond to her case of nerves when she tees off, her play in her first major event and her impossible shot on the eighteenth hole.