Pro

Del Bonnet, a teaching pro at an obscure Florida golf resort, needs a change and needs it badly. Having crossed an ominous threshold-his 50th birthday-Bonnet receives frequent communiques from the AARP people. He gazes into the future and visualizes the prospect of assisted living growing larger by the day. Serendipity intervenes. A sales rep working out of his station wagon leaves a handmade driver in Bonnet's modest golf shop. The pro privately auditions the driver with astounding results. Bonnet - celebrated for thirty years as the only touring pour to be arrested on the course during a PGA event - is quickly convinced that he has secured possession of no mere golf club, but a sword of salvation. Although the pro realizes that his name is more likely to appear in psychiatric texts that on the sports pages, Bonnet decides to embark on the PGA Seniors Tour. Thus the formation of a strange triumvirate known as Team Del, consisting of the pro, the golf club that soon becomes dubbed "Big Luther" and a caddie, Doublewide McBride. Bonnet soon learns that the caddie is long on off-the-wall intuitions, short on behavioral graces recommended by Emily Post. Team Del's quest for notoriety and the quick buck becomes threatened by the vile specter of Bonnet's longtime rival and golf course nemesis. Bruno Pratt, at his best, functions as a contradiciton of all the teachings contained within the Sacred Scriptures of Golf.Bonnet regards Pratt as the kind of man who would steal the butter off a blind man's cornbread.Yet another shadow arrives in the form of a wealthy Seminole, Billy Crossdresser, a man with designs on Bonnet's girlfriend. While the misadventures of Team Del and the inevitable showdown with Bruno Pratt might not serve as a tribute to the memories Hagen and Hogan, the events detailed in The Pro stand out as perhaps the most hilarious odyssey in the modern annals of sports fiction.Shropshire, Mike is the author of 'Pro', published 2001 under ISBN 9780312242312 and ISBN 031224231X.