BACK ON COURSE

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The ball arced lazily out of the bunker and plopped on the edge of the green, still 25 feet short of the hole. Marianne Morris thumped her sand wedge down in anger.

Ending her round with a bogey, her third in a row, Morris was once more on the verge of elimination midway through a golf tournament. At times like this, she wished Mike were around. He’d cheer her up. He’d have her laughing.

“Yeah, he’d be standing here going, ‘Ah, don’t worry about it, 5-over is going to make the cut, you’re in!”’ she said, perking up. “And then he’d be saying, ‘You’re goin’ to the range.’

“So,” she said firmly, “that’s where I’m going. I’m goin’ to the range.”

As she sauntered away, her shoulders seemed to sag from the weight of her troubles. It’s been that way ever since Mike Morris, her beloved brother, was shot to death Feb. 21 in a robbery at their suburban Atlanta golf shop.

Police suspect someone had been watching the store for days, waiting for an opportune moment. An intruder killed him in the bathroom after shooting the door in, then emptied the cash register.

Marianne Morris was far from home, preparing for a tournament in Australia. They told her Mike had been killed. For a half-hour, she kept muttering “that damned motorcycle” until someone set her straight. He’d been murdered.

They buried Mike at the family plot in Middletown, Ohio. He was her generous, hyperactive, fun-loving brother, her best friend and mentor, a former club pro who could hit a golf ball better than most anyone she’d ever played with. He was 39 and had never talked about dying.

He left a wife and son, an 18-year-old daughter from his first marriage, his parents. He left a sister five years his junior, the one he’d always looked out for.

“When I was growing up, he was just a great brother,” Morris said, her eyes rimmed with tears. “We’d go out in the yard and throw the baseball. He’d let me borrow his car. He’d take me for rides on his motorcycles.”

She added softly, “I’d give anything to have him back.”

Morris considered quitting the LPGA tour, unsure if the game was worth playing anymore. Then in late April, she made a comeback at the Chick-fil-A near Atlanta, the same event where Mike served as her caddie a year earlier.

A first-round 67 left her two strokes off the lead. But after a sleepless night, with her stomach rumbling and her emotions ragged, she bogeyed six of the first nine holes and withdrew at the turn.

Morris missed the cut in four of her next five outings. With career earnings of $820,600 in her first eight years on tour, she’d won just $9,100 this year leading up to the Rochester International on June 10-13.

Her hopes swelled when she squeezed into weekend play at Rochester--5-over turned out to be the cutoff point--but she finished near the bottom at 13 over. Her check for $1,044 barely covered expenses.

The next week brought somewhat of a breakthrough when Morris tied for 27th at the ShopRite Classic, winning $7,704.

For months, Morris could hardly turn around without bursting into tears. The shock is starting to wear off now, and she concentrates on the good times they had.

Right after Thanksgiving last year, she dropped by Mike’s house intending to visit a few days. The weather remained warm, so she stayed the whole month of December. They played a lot of golf.

“He was better than I was, and it came really easy to him,” she said. “But he had a temper when he played and it hurt him because he was a perfectionist.”

Morris is not quite as hard on herself. She remains puzzled, however, that 1996--her best year on tour with seven top-10 finishes--didn’t bring more success. She earned just two top-10s in 1997 and 1998.

“I’m in the middle of a big hiccup,” she said, chuckling.

She still pins the blame more on a troublesome swing than on the effects of her brother’s death and myriad distractions like deciding what to do with the business they co-owned.

“I think all it’s going to take is playing good one week and then you just kind of ride that confidence,” she said.

Although her perspective has changed utterly, her love for the game is undimmed.

“The day this ceases to be fun is the last day you’ll see me,” she said. “But it’s not a life-or-death situation to me anymore. There’s too many other things you can do in life and be happy.

“I know he’s watching over me and I know everything is going to be OK,” she added. “I just wish he was still here. I can’t help it. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t miss him.”