Missing Links » (First Broadway Books Trade Paperback Edi)

RICK REILLY is the author of the cult classic Missing Links, Slo Mo, and The Life of Reilly, a New York Times bestseller. A senior writer for Sports Illustrated, he has been voted eight times as the National Sportswriter of the Year by his peers. He lives in Denver, Colorado.

Raymond Lee Hart - better known to his unshaven buddies as Stick - has a pretty good life, most of it spent at Ponkaquogue Municipal Golf Course and Deli, the single worst golf course in America. For Stick, Dannie, Two Down, Thud and the rest of the "Chops," Ponky is a little slice of paradise - if you picture paradise with a rusted-out '57 Chevy on the 8th hole and ninety-five-cent egg sandwiches waiting after the round. Mostly, the Chops like to bet, a habit that's about to get them into serious trouble. Just adjacent to Ponky, over a twelve-foot-high hedge, lies the Mayflower Country Club, the most exclusive private club in all of Boston. For the Chops, it is both an irritant and a lure. Tortured by the Mayflower's immaculately manicured fairways and intrigued by its fanatical exclusivity, the Chops propose a bet. Stick, the devious Two Down, and the slyly beautiful Dannie, Stick's sometime bedmate, plunk down a thousand dollars each, a small fortune for people who sometimes take the bus to the course. The first to play all 18 holes at the Mayflower wins the pot. Lying, cheating and fraud are encouraged. But as each of these three pursue their quest - and one another's money - the charm of their odd friendships, and their strange loyalty to Ponky, begin to unravel. One of the three will win The Bet, but it seems a hollow victory. Missing Links is a tremendously funny novel, but it is also a book wise in the ways of friendship and family, broken dreams and unexpected gifts. Above all, Missing Links is a long overdue tribute to those unsung heroes of the game of golf, the dog-meat public course and the incurables who play it.

Publishers Weekly

Some time ago, Reilly, a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, contributed a humorous article about the Ponkapoag Golf Club, aka Ponky, a blue-collar golf course in Canton, Mass. The author's first novel returns to Ponkychanged here to the Ponkaquogue Municipal Course and Deli in Boston's working-class neighborhood of Dorchesterfor a rollicking tale about a grungy group of "Ponkys" who aspire to play at the Mayflower, a nearby elite, invitation-only course. Narrator and Ponky leader Raymond Lee Hart initiates a group bet to see which member of his regular foursome can become the first Ponky to play at the snooty club. The Ponkys' schemes include a night raid on the Mayflower, a forgery scam and a pair of romances that offer potential access to a Mayflower foursome. Reilly resolves the bet halfway through the novel but saves his funniest moments for a final play in which Hart and another Ponky square off against Hart's stuffy, domineering father and a second Mayflower member. The humor occasionally flags, particularly when the author takes the father/son conflict a bit too seriously, and a working knowledge of golf is required to appreciate much of the funny stuff. But from scratch players to duffers, all who spend their leisure time chasing the little white ball will relish this wry tribute to the game. (June)