Unforgettable for his howlingly funny sendup of pro football in Semi-Tough
and his equally droll spoof of the PGA Tour Dead Solid Perfect, columnist Jenkins (Golf Digest) is as irreverent and hip a sports satirist as ever tarred and feathered a poor unwary and overpaid former Muni-caddy from Fort Worth, Tex., without benefit of anesthetic. In this latest blasphemous roasting of the PGA, Jenkins's first novel in 25 years, he offers up nonhero Bobby Joe Grooves, aka "Spin" to his friends, a latter-day self-styled golf historian who—resigned to his role as a "light-running money-whipped, steer-job, three-jack, give-up artist" (read: journeyman touring pro)—has made a "separate peace." Bobby Joe has become disenchanted with the cheating ways (on and off the course) of the European darling superstar, Knut Thorssun, aka Knut the Nuke, who, largely thanks to his cavalier disregard for rules, has two majors to his credit. Twice-divorced, Bobby Joe is keeping his libido in bounds with Cheryl Haney, a Hooters-class Fort Worth real estate agent. Struggling to make the Ryder Cup team for the first time in his 16-year career, Bobby Joe is having a hard time pacifying his main squeeze and exes, and fighting off a self-styled wannabe golf hack who insists on calling him "Spin" and wants to pen his memoir. To make matters worse, when Cheryl learns he strayed with his amateur partner's horny wife at Pebble Beach, she goes into knee-lock. Hawaiian Open to Ryder Cup, the tour (and thereby the tale) comes down to crossed-putters mano a mano with Knut. A sort of "Saturday Night Live
does Harvey Penick's Little Red Book," this goofy encyclopedia of golf shines with rays of simple truth. (Aug.)
Forecast:This book will be catnip for golf lovers, and the upcoming Ryder Cup matches should feed into the pre-pub hype.
