The Downhill Lie: A Hacker's Return to a Ruinous Sport
by Carl Hiaasen
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Book Summary Information
Author: Carl HiaasenEdition: Hardcover
Published: 2008-05-06
ISBN: 0307266532
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Knopf
Book Reviews of The Downhill Lie: A Hacker's Return to a Ruinous Sport
Book Review: "One day you're suckered into self-confidence [by] a few decent shots; the next, you can't hit the green with a sledgehammer."
Summary: 4 Stars
Returning to golf thirty-two years after he gave it up, Carl Hiaasen, author of hilarious mysteries, shares his struggles to relearn the game of golf and maybe, even, learn to have fun with it. Golf is not a natural "fit" for Hiaasen--"I was just as restless, consumed, unreflective, fatalistic, and emotionally unequipped to play golf in my fifties as I was in my teens," he admits. He starts "on the path to perdition" in November, 2002, when Sports Illustrated asks him to go to Barbados to write a humorous piece about the photo shoot for the swimsuit issue, and he ends up playing golf with his editor during the downtime.
Unfortunately, for Hiaasen, he plays well on enough that he begins to play golf (with second-hand clubs) back home with friends, and soon gets caught up in the golf-mania of finding the perfect equipment, reading books by gurus like Bob Rotella, David Leadbetter, and legend Harvey Penick, subscribing to golf magazines, and buying anything that may improve his game--from pendants to wear around his neck (to reduce stress) to capsules of herbal supplements (to improve concentration).
Describing himself as a "reclusive, neurotic, doubt-plagued duffer," he keeps a diary for almost six hundred days, obsessively recording, often in salty language and off-the-wall imagery, the rounds he plays with his friends, including Mike Lupica and CBS's David Feherty. Admitting that he suffers from "Wildly Unrealistic Expectations," he reflects the disappointments and frustrations of all beginning golfers as he describes playing in front of strangers (badly), having to play a new course for the first time (badly), and playing in a tournament (badly).
Continuing his mockery of politicians for failing to protect the environment in Florida, a theme of many of his mysteries, he talks about the growth of golf communities and the loss of animal habitats, but he also reminds the reader that golf courses are not all bad. They could have been "two thousand, zero lot-line houses." Hilarious in his descriptions of his efforts to learn the game, he is also serious about his frustrations with it. He suffers, he tells us from "the most corrosive fundamental of golf, the Suck Factor." When his wife and his seven-year-old son take lessons and love the game, Hiaasen is reminded of his own golf experiences with his father, and despite his "own foolish and overwrought tribulations," he begins to see "warmer days ahead." Perhaps he might grow to love the game and share it with his family. n Mary Whipple
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