Synopsis
The hilarious sequel to Rick Reilly s beloved bestselling golf novel Missing LinksLife is going pretty well for Raymond Stick Hart. He s happily married to the former Ponkaquogue Municipal Golf Club assistant pro, the beauteous Cajun firecracker Dannie, raising his rambunctious son, Charlie, and getting by writing smart-mouthed greeting cards for fifty bucks a pop. Best of all, nothing has changed at Ponky, the worst golf course in America. You still have to hook it past the toxic waste dump on No. 1 and under the billboard on No. 8, the fried-egg sandwiches are terrible but cheap, and his pal Two Down is always up for a sucker bet.Then, one disaster of a day, Stick s world does a ten-car pile-up. The cheapskate bastard owner of Ponky announces he s retiring to a nudist camp in Florida and selling the club to the Mayflower Club next door, a bastion of blue-blood snobbery that plans to pave Ponky over. Worse, its membership includes Stick s hated father. Who promptly drops dead...
Kirkus Reviews
Golf lore, class war and belly laughs-this is by and large snide, sophomoric stuff from Sports Illustrated's Reilly (Who's Your Caddy?, 2003, etc.). No role model, Ray "Stick" Hart personifies a beer belch. Happy-go-lucky to hell and back, this Bob Saget look-alike has "four-alarm sex" with his hard-bod wife Dannie; a not-bad gig penning gag greeting cards; and he eats and drinks golf. To him, this equals "a first-class George Bailey wonderful life." Reilly surrounds this Everyman with lovable ne'er-do-wells, stick figures from a daft sitcom-Kelly van Edible, of the pneumatic chest and hi-octane libido; Resource, a funky black thief; and Dom, the World's Most Sexual Man. What unites them is their hang-out, Ponky, Boston's waste dump of a golf course, and their scorn for the ultra-Wasps who sink putts at the town's toniest green, The Mayflower. Ray's Dad reigns there, and an Oedipal past has put father and son at odds. Dad dies, with one stipulation in his will: He'll leave Ray $250,000 provided he keep his youthful promise of qualifying for a big-name tournament. Meanwhile, Froghair, Ponky's owner, splits to join a Florida nudist colony, leaving the beloved dump's future imperiled-he plans to sell to the Mayflower snobs. The comically improbable quest to enter the British Open provides the novel its twist-'n'-turn plot, but what remains its chief delight is Reilly's obsessive way of keeping the jokes coming. Crude and goofy but ultimately sweet.