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together by one author after another, the crazy plot is surprisingly
consistent. Yet the contributors have made no effort to disguise
their individual styles, which range from Barry's potty-mouthed
slapstick to Richard Bausch's tonier stuff to James Crumley's pulp
fiction. Indeed, this shift in tone is one of the book's great
pleasures. So is the sex and satire, if not necessarily in that
order. Still, the ultimate reason to read The Putt at the End of
the World is for its strange-but-true evocation of the game
itself. Here's Tim O'Brien's take on a ball with a mind of its own:
For
the first thirty feet, the old Titlist did not touch the earth,
heading for orbit, engines roaring, but then suddenly the rain and
wind and fog forced a scrubbed mission. Gravity reasserted itself.
By pure chance--a miracle, some would call it--the ball dropped
heavily onto the green, not five feet from the cup.... It caught a
sidehill slope. It wobbled off line for a second, then straightened
out and continued its erratic pilgrimage toward destiny.
Fictionally
speaking, at least, that's what we call a hole in one. --William
Davies
There's a great tradition of golf fiction,
stretching from P.G. Wodehouse's Edwardian
follies to John Updike's narrative birdies and chip shots. The
Putt at the End of the World is a worthy addition to the canon,
in spite of the fact (or because of the fact) that it's a team
effort. Nine authors, including such worthies as Dave Barry, Tami
Hoag, Tim O'Brien, Lee K. Abbott, and Les Standiford, have
contributed chapters to this farcical thriller. The premise, which is
less wacky than it initially seems, involves a software tycoon named
Phillip Bates, who's built a deluxe golf course north of Edinburgh.
To kick things off he convenes a celebrity invitational, and draws
not only a clutch of world-class hackers but several terrorists,
counterterrorists, and what appear to be counter-counterterrorists.
Clearly there's more at stake here than a mere 18 holes.