The Pro: A Golf Novel - Hardcover

Shropshire, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 031224231X ISBN 13: 9780312242312

Verlag: Thomas Dunne Books, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

Del Bonnet, a teaching pro at an obscure Florida golf resort, needs a change and needs it badly. Having crossed an ominous threshold-his fiftieth birthday-Bonnet receives frequent communiques from the AARP people. He gazes into the future and sees the prospect of assisted living growing larger by the day.

Serendipity intervenes. A sales rep working out of his station wagon leaves a handmade driver in Bonnet's modest golf shop. The pro privately auditions the driver with astounding results. Bonnet-celebrated for thirty years as the only touring pour to be arrested on the course during a PGA event-is quickly convinced that he has secured possession of no mere golf club, but a sword of salvation. So armed, he decides to embark on the PGA Seniors Tour.

Thus the formation of a strange triumvirate known as Team Del, consisting of the pro, the golf club that soon becomes dubbed "Big Luther," and a caddie, Doublewide McBride. Bonnet soon learns that the caddie is long on off-the-wall intuitions, short on behavioral graces recommended by Emily Post.

While the misadventures of Team Del might not serve as a tribute to the memories Hagen and Hogan, the events detailed in The Pro stand out as perhaps the most hilarious odyssey in the modern annals of sports fiction.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mike Shropshire is a longtime journalist who has written for numerous newspapers and magazines such as Sports Illustrated. Author of three nonfiction books including Seasons in Hell, he lives in Dallas, Texas.

Rezensionen

A brilliantly comic diversion, this irreverent spoof does for golf what the author's Seasons in Hell did for baseball. That is, it defines the genre in terms of spirited satire. Del Bonnet was kicked off the PGA tour for conduct involving a brown-eyed girl, oral sex and a car crash. Naturally, he also lost his job as a college coach. He has made a hard landing as the pro at Caloosahatchee Pines, a country club for geriatric golfers with "the bone structure of a parakeet" in the snake-infested swamps of central Florida. When a golf club drummer pushes a weird, big-headed "Kryptonite" driver, and Del discovers that it gives his ball super range, he decides to join the $45M Seniors Tour. Since he needs financial backing, Del's friend, groundskeeper and snake rustler Doublewide (for his house, not his size) McBride suggests Dottie Ridge, a 70-year-old former Rockette and Chiquita Banana with "the body of a rubber monkey" and control of her senile husband's sizable estate. After a strenuous "audition," Dottie agrees to back Del for a year, and they affectionately dub the club Big Luther (which is what one of Del's ex-girlfriends used to call his biggest asset in the mating game). Doublewide signs on as caddie. Shropshire outdoes himself with eccentric characters on zany outings in one remote city after another with Del and Big Luther taking on the oldest of the best with the priceless advice of Del's father, a con artist and used-car salesman. The locker room patois, much of it scatological, fits the scenario and may limit the audience, but a more hilarious look at the trappings and rituals of a country club sport would be hard to find. (June 8) Forecasts: Prominent displays and handselling could make this book as a high scorer for Father's Day.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Thomas Dunne Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2001
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 031224231X
• ISBN 13: 9780312242312
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 256
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar