- A former pro golfer is found dead on a golf course during a tournament, one day after his estranged son sets the course record for the course low score.
- Golf pro Danny Nagano's domineering father, retired champion Russell Huntley, is found on the links, throat fatally slit with a broken club. The team finds motives and opportunity by untying the web of relationships between both players, Danny's caddy John Dudek, who was suspender for substance abuse, Danny's divorced mother, Michelle, and half-sister, Erin, a lab materials researcher.—KGF Vissers
- On the day after beating the record of his father Russell Huntley, his estranged son Daniel, his caddie John Dudek, Russell's ex-wife Michelle Nagano, and her sister, Erin become suspect of his murder. Russell Huntley was found dead in a golf cart in the country club and all suspects have motive to see him dead.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- "CSI" - "Long Ball"- Jan. 21, 2010
It's bright daytime and we're at a golf tournament. We watch some golfers play. (One of them is the dreamy Jason Dohring, Logan Echolls from "Veronica Mars.") Many are having a bad day including Rocco Mediate. At one point he loses his ball and finds a dead body in a golf cart, covered in blood, shot dead. Robbins and Ray check him out. Catherine arrives with news that the guy, Russell Huntley, was a pro for the club.
They investigate the crime scene, like the title implies. Except they don't have the primary crime scene since the guy was obviously shot somewhere else and then drove the cart away to save his life before bleeding out.
Golfer Danny Nagano (Jason Dohring) is on the TV, having a tough day as a woman watches. It's the dead pro's wife and Danny's mom, Michelle Nagano. (Danny took her name since she raised him). It pains her to watch Danny play poorly. The last time she saw Russell he was yelling at Danny at a party the night before for performing really well, breaking his own course record. (He was drunk.)
David examines the body and can't find a bullet. They figure out he was stabbed in the neck. Catherine asks to find out what was on his shoes. (He also had a gambling ticket in his pocket).
Nick, Sara, and Ray work over the golf cart. Ray looks over blood spatter. Nick notices that there are different balls in separate parts of the cart. Which suggests two different players and a possible passenger.
Back at the course, Danny is still playing and Brass pulls him aside for interrogation. Danny also recalls his drunk dad at the party but instead of his stepmom him saying "leave before you embarrass yourself" Danny remembers himself saying it. The last thing his dad said to him was to try to remember what the game is really about.
Nick examines the balls and gets fingerprints for Rusell on one type. The other type has prints from Danny's caddy and a woman named Erin who is Danny's step-aunt. Catherine reports that the murder weapon was likely a golf club.
Nick goes to talk to Erin who works with lasers. He recognizes the machine she's working with. He tells her about the prints and heard she and Danny fought the night before. She says she was there for Danny and was not banging Russell, she prefers caddies. She also didn't like Rusell. She says she bought the balls as a gift and he won and now buys them because he's superstitious.
Hodges examines grass samples and compares them to a satellite picture of the course ID-ing all the different kinds of grass on it. There are a lot. He gives Catherine a science-y update before saying, inconclusively, that the crime scene was a golf course.
Greg tells Ray and Nick that Danny's caddy used to be a pro in Europe in the '80s but got busted for using beta-blockers. Russell Huntley dimed him out. They look at old video of him reverently talking about the honor of golf and how Dudek didn't deserve to play since he was a cheat.
Ray goes to a driving range to speak to Dudek about his prints on the balls. Dudek, who is kinda snarky, says Russell must've borrowed some of Danny's balls. He says after the party at the club house, he did what he always does "pizza and porn." Nick, Sara, and Ray go over the evidence. Catherine enters with the gambling ticket from Russell's pocket which shows Russell bet against Danny on the day that he beat his course record. So he lost big. They think Danny may have been a cheater and his dad knew it.
Nick and Ray try and figure out whether it was his balls, clubs, or his body. They confiscate Danny's bag.
Brass shows Danny old video of him and his dad playing. He wonders why Danny seems so detached in the wake of his dad's recent death. Danny says his father coached him from 5 to 19 and told him he didn't have what it took. Brass asks if he cheats. He says he's not. They take some of his blood.
In the lab Nick and Ray discover that though balls in Danny's bag look identical, they are not, some have been tampered with. It's hard to figure how since the shell is intact. Nick realizes it was done with lasers and pulls Erin Nagano back in. She cops to tampering with the balls. She says giving them to Danny was Dudek's idea all she wanted in return was sex. In a separate interview room Dudek says Danny needed an edge and since he makes ten percent of his earnings he needed an edge. He claims Danny didn't know anything about it. Erin admits Russell figured it out. They both have an alibi. There's video of Erin doing it with Dudek in her lab with a time stamp. (He brought a pizza).
Hodges figures out, through the exciting discovery of fungus, that the crime scene was a closed teaching area on the course.
Sara and Greg go there and find Huntley's bag, jacket, and an open box of the balls. There's no driver in the bag. (In a quick side convo, Sara confirms her long distance union wiht Grissom is going just fine so far). They find th busted club and evidence of blood on the grass. Boom crime scene.
Catherine pulls Danny back in and theorizes he killed his dad. He says he didn't and neither did his stepmother. Danny recalls the party and the argument about cheating and says Russell asked him to meet him at the teaching range so he could prove he was cheating. He met him and showed him the difference between the two balls. He says he told his dad he didn't know what he was talking about and walked away. And although he didn't know, Danny admits he switched the balls back the next day and that's why he stunk it up again. His stepmother drove up as he was leaving.
She says she didn't see Russell and followed Danny back to the clubhouse. Brass theorizes that she saw what Danny did and simply left, not even making an anonymous call. (Which is why he took the cart to get help and bled out.)
Catherine and Ray wonder which one of them, if either, is telling the truth, perhaps they're in on it together since they both had it in for him.
Sara and Greg find the missing club head. The only prints, however, are Russell's, which exonerates Danny and Michelle. Ray notices a funky palm print. He and Nick borrow a fancy machine from a golf company that swings clubs. (Danny said when he left his dad, he was pounding his club against the ground). The machine shows that it's possible that Russell broke the club and the broken piece flew up and stabbed him in the neck. A one in a million shot.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content