The Hole Before Time

Deep beneath the roots of the original League Tower — beneath the bedrock, beneath even the molten core of Puttaria — something ancient pulsed.

Not with energy.

But with rhythm.

Not music. Not heartbeat. Not even putting tempo.

Older than all of that.

A swing.

One so primal it didn’t create the game — it created the possibility of a game. A theoretical gesture, left behind by a hand that predated matter.

And it was waking up.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Mike Delaney was meditating on the Mist Hole — a fog-covered green where you couldn’t see your ball, your putter, or even your body. It was where you practiced trust. And lately, Mike needed that.

After defeating the Nullform and saving reality from being overwritten, he’d found himself uneasy. Not because the world was unstable.

But because… it felt too stable.

No anomalies. No impossible putts. Not even one exploding bunker.

It was too quiet.

Until a greenstone courier burst through the fog, holding a glowing scroll marked with a spiral that twisted inward.

Mike opened it.

It read only one word:

"UNPUTTABLE."

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Elder Slice, Bogeyn, and Forebot all stood around a strange hologram in the League’s Archive Chamber.

The image showed a hole. Not a golf hole. Not even a crater. Just a perfect black circle — hovering in midair — in the Primordial Zone at the center of the multiverse.

“No one’s ever scored on it,” Elder Slice said. “Because no one’s ever reached it.”

Bogeyn added, “We only know it exists because it shows up in every golf myth ever told — usually in the margins, under different names.”

The Unputtable.
The Black Cup.
The Pre-Stroke.
The Hole Before Holes.

“It predates physics,” Forebot intoned. “That should be impossible.”

Mike, of course, was already reaching for his bag.

“Sounds like a challenge.”

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

To get there, they had to cross the Glitch Sea, sail through the Cradle Nebula, and pass through the First Course — an ancient ruin of proto-putt structures, where balls were once made of moon-rock and gravity hadn’t finished being invented.

As they moved closer, reality began to fracture.

Mike would blink and suddenly be ten years old, then blink again and be two seconds from his own funeral, then blink again and see Cassie, standing on the green — not as a ghost or memory, but watching.

She smiled.

Then disappeared.

“Time’s unstable here,” Ayla whispered. “Even memory’s coming undone.”

But Mike gritted his teeth.

“One more hole.”

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

It hovered above a shattered hill of ancient clubstone. Not a course. Not a green. Not even solid land. Just air, debris, and… that hole.

A perfect circle in space. Black. Still. Hungry.

No terrain. No boundary.

No cup.

“Where’s the target?” Zeek asked, half-stoned, half-serious.

“That is the target,” said Elder Slice. “You must putt not into it… but through it.”

“Through what?” Chip squeaked, his voice unusually quiet.

“The concept of not-putting.”

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Mike stood at the edge of the stone platform. Wind rushed sideways. Gravity pulsed up, then down, then inward.

He held the Stroke of Destiny like it was the only thing tethering him to existence.

And then — something unexpected.

A girl stepped forward.

Thirteen, maybe fourteen. Dark hoodie. Short curly hair. Wild eyes.

She held no putter.

She carried no bag.

She just stared at Mike and said:

“You’re not the first one to try, you know.”

“I’ve been watching the Unputtable since before your swing existed.”

Mike blinked. “Who are you?”

She grinned.

“I’m Mira. And I’m what happens after you fail.”

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

She didn’t remember her planet. Or her parents.

Just waking up on a dead course, where the ball had no weight and the flagpole had no color.

Every champion before Mike — every chosen putter who tried to beat the Unputtable and failed — left behind a piece of their memory.

Mira was born from those fragments.

Their hopes.

Their fear.

Their unfinished strokes.

“I’m what happens when too many putts are left unsunk,” she said, her voice shaking like old wood. “I’m... the unfinished shot.”

And now she wanted a chance to finish it.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Mike and Mira would both take a shot.

The hole would only accept one.

The winner’s shot would pass through.

The loser would vanish from memory.

Not die.

Be unwritten — as if they’d never played, never existed, never mattered.

Mira looked up at Mike. “If you win, I disappear.”

Mike looked down at her putter — improvised from a broken pipe and a piece of glass.

“I won’t do it,” he said.

But she nodded.

“You have to. Because if you don’t… then this hole wins. And none of it ever mattered.”

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Mira went first.

Her putt was shaky, uncertain, but full of all the half-memories and abandoned dreams she carried.

The ball rolled toward the void…

And froze, midair, just before crossing the edge.

Still spinning.

Still possible.

Mike stepped forward.

He looked at the Stroke of Destiny.

Then back at Mira.

And in one clean, deliberate swing — he putted.

But not at the hole.

At Mira’s ball.

The two collided.

Merged.

And rolled through the Unputtable together.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

When the light cleared, the hole was gone.

So was Mira.

But something was left behind:

A new green.

Not ancient. Not forgotten. But fresh.

Open.

Waiting for someone to discover it.

Bogeyn wept.

Ayla smiled.

Zeek passed out on the grass.

Mike knelt down… and found a scorecard.

Blank.

But real.

And on the back, in familiar messy handwriting:

“Thanks for finishing the swing.”
— Mira