Gary Moran reviews Dan Jenkins's depiction of roguish journeyman Kenny Lee Plunkett.
Dan Jenkins's Dead Solid Perfect is to readers of golf books what Eamonn Darcy's right elbow is to connoisseurs of the classic swing. It is quirky and quixotic, appalling and admirable, exaggerated and effective.
Jenkins's 1974 novel, reprinted in 1999, is at times profane, crude and politically incorrect but unless you're a sensitive soul it is quite a page-turner. Darcy's elbow is high, wide and flying but unless you're a swing snob the results are impressive.
Unlike Dead Solid Perfect, Darcy's swing is never likely to be turned into a movie. Jenkins book was converted to the silver screen with Randy Quaid playing the part of journeyman Kenny Lee Puckett as he fought to hold off a final day charge from Jack Nicklaus in a fictional US Open at Heavenly Pines.
The Puckett character contains elements of the real life stories of John Daly and Rich Beem. He is a fast-living, hard-drinking, womanising gambler who honed his skills in money matches at his local Goat Hills course before hitting the Tour.
Once out there he forms a successful practice day partnership, and for a time a friendship, with the more experienced Donny Smithern who shows him the ropes.
He learns from Smithern what tournaments to skip, the best places to stay and that "when a guy is a rookie everyone he meets around a country club who wears a tournament-committee blazer and has a suntan seems to be somebody important. Most of them aren't. They only want to bore you with stories about their own golf games, and then introduce you to another idiot as if you're their new best friend".
By the time he is contending at Heavenly Pines eight years later, Puckett has "a whole list of people from coast to coast that I don't ever want to be trapped at dinner with. If they don't mutilate you with tales of their new graphite shafts, then they'll solid put you into a full snore with anecdotes from the dazzling world of the savings-and-loan business".
When they're not talking golf the players are usually talking women. All agree that a good wife, a Barbara Nicklaus or a Winnie Palmer for example, is a great help to a touring professional, but if a man has to live with "one of those unraked bunkers" it is a heavy load to take.
Puckett has found his share of hazards and is already on wife number three.
The first, Joy Needham, was his high school sweetheart who unfortunately couldn't stay out of a motel room with any guy who was a great dancer, drove a fast car or told her a dirty joke. Her brothers were also the unrefined local heavies whose exploits provide some of the slapstick humour which is a Jenkins hallmark.
The second, Beverly Tidwell, was "one of those mistakes a man makes when he marries a rich intellectual".
The present incumbent, the well-endowed Janie Ruth Rimmer, is a cocktail waitress and second-rate country singer with an irreverent view of golf.
A betting scam on high school football hatched with his old Goat Hills pal Spec Reynolds is another humorous sideline while the main plot moves to the final nine of the Open with Puckett, Smithern and Nicklaus all in contention and Puckett's complex relationships in turmoil.
We won't reveal the outcome although you should be reading this book more for the birdies and bogeys along the way rather than the end result.
There is a more serious side to Jenkins who has received the Golf Writers Association of America "Best Story of the Year" award on seven occasions during a lengthy career with Sports Illustrated and Golf Digest.
