FLAGSTAFF, Arizona, January 3, 2001 -- In 1997, golf journalist John Paul Newport set out to see how much improvement a 3-handicap golfer could make in one year, and if that improvement would be enough to enable him to get through the first stage of the PGA Tour's Qualifying Tournament (universally known as Q School). The Fine Green Line is the end product of his efforts.
We're introduced to a host of colorful characters, legitimate pro prospects, and aging golf dreamers; each of which groups has its own reasons for playing the mini-tours.
First, the bad news: It's a quixotic idea. Newport is simply not good enough to make a serious run at Q School, or even to make any money on pro golf's mini-tours (essentially, minor-league professional circuits). His skills are (almost) good enough, but he's his own worst enemy. Every time he's in danger of putting a solid, consistent round together, he chokes, usually by whacking a ball out-of-bounds with the driver when he should pull out a long iron and keep the ball in play; or by getting a terminal case of the yips (as he does when he finds himself two under par on the back nine in a Monday qualifier for a PGA Tour event -- he ends up four-putting from six feet on the way to shooting 74 and finishing well out of the running). The "Fine Green Line" is the line that separates the golfers who make it as professionals from those who don't. In the author's case, the line is anything but fine.
Can we "manage" to keep the ball in play?
Newport's course management flat-out stinks; at least a couple of times a round, he shoots himself in the foot by attempting high-risk, low-reward shots that make the difference between competing with the pros and looking like a wannabe.
(I really shouldn't be so tough on the guy -- especially since he would undoubtedly beat me by 10-15 strokes on any given day. But course management is one of my hot buttons. I'm a humble bogey golfer, but I like to think I do it by combining double-bogey skills with scratch course management. In my view, golf isn't about busting the ball as far as you possibly can -- it's about making the most of the skills you have and making as few stupid shots as possible; ideally, none. That doesn't mean you don't occasionally whack one into the woods -- but that's not a stupid shot; it's just a bad shot, which happens to everyone. I'm talking about using your head at all times; always knowing where you want to put the ball, taking the trouble out of play, and making the least-risky shot that's going to get the job done, in any given situation. Newport absolutely drove me nuts, with his descriptions of the myriad ways he found to turn a great round into a mediocre one by means of self-inflicted disaster holes. What's more, when he has a bad hole, it affects the way he plays the next several. One thing I've learned, in the 11 years I've been playing, is that you can't let that happen -- a quadruple bogey can't affect what you do on the next hole; if it does, your round is over. End of sermon.)
Those who can't do, can write!
I'm not sure how Newport was able to convince his publisher that he was a strong enough player to take on the task. He'd broken 70 exactly once, somehow carding a "magical" 69 on his home course on a day when the planets were all lined up just right and the wind was at his back for 18 holes. This hardly qualifies him as tour material -- and, of course, he knows it. Near the end of the book, he quotes Lee Trevino as saying that to have a realistic chance at qualifying for the PGA Tour, a golfer should be able to shoot five under par at least every other time out on his home course. (I've heard a slightly different Trevino quote: "Play the five toughest courses in your state. If you can shoot under par on all five, you're ready to try out for the tour.")
We laugh with him, not at him. I mean, who among us has never four-putted?
But that's the bad news. The good news is that whatever his playing shortcomings, Newport is a terrific writer, and The Fine Green Line is an entertaining read. He takes us through the trepidation he feels when taking his first lesson with a big-name golf teacher, whom he'll see periodically throughout the year when his game needs work. He describes the mini-tour scene -- how the tours work, how they came into being, and who plays them.
We're introduced to a host of colorful characters, aging golf dreamers, and legitimate pro prospects; each of which groups has its own reasons for playing the mini-tours. We meet retired tennis great Ivan Lendl, who now spends his time shooting 79s and 83s in mini-tour events, tooling around from one tournament to the next in his $80,000 Porsche and occasionally entertaining selected tour players at his Connecticut estate. We hear from Dick Mast, "King of the mini-tours," who has had a few brushes with greatness on the PGA Tour but has never been able to keep his card for more than a season or two at a time. We also run into guys like Briny Baird and Rob McKelvey, regulars on the Nike Tour (now the Buy.com Tour), who are on their way up and will probably end up on network TV in a few years.
Newport struggles his way through mini-tours in Florida, the Northeast, the Dakotas, and other parts of the country, in preparation for his run at Q School. In between, he gets interrupted by a work assignment involving a trip to California, to play Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill, Poppy Hills, and Spanish Bay, with an eye toward absorbing some of the New Age culture that has established itself in that area along with the golf. Here, he undergoes hypnosis and spends an evening with Michael Murphy, author of Golf in the Kingdom, a book that has gained a cult following among golf mystics.
Forget royalty -- let's hear about the poor and the obscure
A third of the way into the book, it's already obvious that Newport has no chance of achieving his goal of making the first cut at Q School -- he's a good golfer, but not nearly good enough, failing to break 80 most of the time. But once we get past that, The Fine Green Line is a lot of fun. I don't know about you, but I find golf's fringe characters much more interesting than the top pros, who are simply superhuman shotmaking machines. Golf isn't supposed to be about eagling 600-yard par-5s, shooting dozens of consecutive rounds under par, and winning obscene amounts of money. It's about struggling against oneself and the vagaries of topography, wind, rain, and the yips. It's about persistence in the face of adversity and absurdity.
This is where Newport succeeds -- we know he can't possibly hit the big time, but we don't care. His crash-and-burn failure at Q School -- he pull-hooks his first tee shot into a swamp, en route to a 93 in the first round -- is a foregone conclusion; but we empathize. As the saying goes, we laugh with him, not at him. I mean, who among us has never four-putted or hit a ball into a swamp?
I'd like to have seen this book written by a better golfer -- someone who actually had a realistic chance of turning pro, making a few bucks on the mini-tours, and getting somewhere at Q School. But Newport does a creditable job of taking us through the experience, all the same. And he doesn't take himself too seriously. Although he secretly hopes he can come out of nowhere and end up on the PGA Tour, he knows perfectly well it's not likely to happen. But he keeps his chin up, laughs a lot, and meets a lot of interesting people in the process. And he gets his publishing company to pay his expenses for a year, to enable him to do all this and tell the tale. Nice work!
Copyright © 2001 John J. Kafalas
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