Fair Prey — William Campbell Gault

A golf ace on the verge of glory stumbles over a country-club corpse

Denny Burke knows that a golfer's best resource isn't a putter or a three iron, but the ability to shut out the rest of the world and focus on the game. Burke has been doing that since he was a kid, rising from poverty to a scholarship at the University of Southern California. After graduation, he takes a job at a country club's pro shop, to rake in easy money while he considers joining the professional tour. It's here that he falls in love with Judy Faulkner, and his ability to ignore the outside world disappears.

Burke is hunting for a ball in the rough when he finds Bud Venier, priggish scion of one of the town's wealthiest families, lying dead in the chaparral. As the murder investigation turns the club upside down, Burke doesn't know if his next stop will be on the pro tour, or in the electric chair.