Greatness Courts Failure

Books

The Downhill Lie: A Hacker’s Return to a Ruinous Sport by Carl Hiaasen

Thursday, September 18th, 2008

Please tell me how a man who, over many, many years, chronicled the development and ultimate decline of the state he loves, waited 32 years to once again take up golf when nearly every square inch of Florida has been turned into a single 22,500 hole, 90,000 par golf course? Doesn’t the state require you to grab a club on your way out of the door – just in case? I could perhaps see dropping golf as an act of defiance against the overdevelopment but when it’s a sport you actually appreciate and have fond memories of playing with your father, 32 years seems quite a bit of time to just not getting around to it. I start to become cranky and nigh on intolerable if I go a week without playing!

But thankfully, Carl Hiaasen did once again take up golf and kept a year and a half long journal of his – for lack of a better word – adventure. Or, maybe there is a better word – misadventure. If you haven’t had the chance to read this yet, please do. If you can’t afford the $15 because last week’s Nassau left you $50 shy, try the library. Or, better yet, snag it from the backseat of that son of a bitch who sank the 30 footer on 18 that left you picking up the tab last Saturday. That’ll teach him to order those Heinekens and potato skins while you sipped your fifty-cent can of Busch and nibbled on a roasted peanut.

Hiaasen pretty much attacks golf head-on as only someone with unlimited time and a decent pile of cash can do, quickly ramping up from mild duffer to full blown addict in seconds flat. Remember the fun house mirrors at the boardwalk or fair that showed a distorted but funny view of yourself? Well, Downhill Lie is kind of like that because you’ll laugh at Hiaasen’s on again off again love affair with drivers and putters, balls and equipment, his struggles to break ninety, and his mishaps driving a golf cart. But, after you put the book down, you’ll realize that it wasn’t a funhouse mirror you were looking at, it was a flat mirror and what you were laughing at all along was just plain ol’ you.

We’ll rate this one a full sleeve of balls. Many golf books are ponderous and most golf biographies and autobiographies require the patience of Job or the disposition of a masochist. Hiaasen’s humor and ability to laugh at himself in his vain pursuit of golf perfection makes us laugh right along.