Fine Green Line: My Year of Golf Adventure on the Pro-Golf Mini-Tours [Paperback]

John Newport (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 8, 2001

What happens when a man leaves home for a year to pursue his dream?

One day, playing a particularly spectacular round of golf, husband and father John Paul Newport suddenly tastes what it?s like to be a pro. Deciding to take a year off and hit the road playing golf's mini-tour circuit, Newport embarks on a wild trip through America's fairways. Over the course of his journey inside the somewhat shady, often hilarious underbelly of professional golf, he uncovers a world of people so totally addicted to golf, to the delusion of achievable perfection, that they sacrifice everything else to the quest. He also discovers the nature of his own obsession with the game, and how this constant pursuit of perfection on the golf course reflects the same challenges and frustrations one encounters in life. What does it take to master such an intricate, unpredictable game? In golf, as in life, why is one so consistently incapable of acting up to one's clearly established potential?

As Newport struggles to cross that Fine Green Line--the infinitely subtle yet critical difference between the top golf professionals and those who never quite make it--he realizes that life, like golf, doesn't let you get away with anything. This is a story about letting go of fear, facing challenges, and embracing risks--a compelling personal journey that captures many of the frustrations and elations of midlife both on and off the course.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Some stories regularly refresh themselves. The Walter Mittyesque tale of the dreamer chasing the dream is one of them. In The Fine Green Line, John Paul Newport's dream is a golf dream, and he relates it with good grace and humor, quite willing to analyze its inherent improbability and interpret the mysteries at its core. In his mid-30s, recently remarried, a new father, and playing to a handicap of less than 3, he sets out to focus on his game for a year, take his lumps on the minor-league tours, see how much he can improve, and finally test how he and his game stand up by trying to qualify for the PGA Tour via the murderous Q School tournament in the fall.

Like all worthwhile journeys, the destination is of less consequence than the trip itself. Newport's is a long and strange one, filled with small successes, big humiliations, reality checks, the kindness of strangers, and a colorful cast of wannabes on the golfing fringe, guys who live from week to week out of the back of their cars. Ultimately, Newport must come to terms with his own obsession with the game as he tries to figure out exactly where the fine green line of his title falls. He searches on and off the course for this abstract and invisible--and, he finally accepts, insurmountable--barrier that keeps the game's aristocracy on one side and those who can post the occasional 69 on the other. It's a search that takes him within himself and to anyone--such as Golf in the Kingdom's Michael Murphy, respected teaching pro Michael Hebron, swing doctors, and psychologists--who might be able to shed enlightenment, improve his swing, or focus his mind with laserlike intensity. It also sets off on some pretty memorable rounds of golf and the kind of grip-it-and-rip-it soul-searching that every hacker who's ever hit a ball with purpose--and shanked it anyway--is bound to understand. --Jeff Silverman --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Reminiscent of Harry Hurt III's Chasing the Dream, journalist Newport's chronicle of a year of golf is the latest, but not the greatest, of the Q-School sagas. Newport's narrative is driven by two objectives: to see how much better he can get at golf in 12 months' time (he starts with a 2.7 handicap) and to test himself at the end of the year by entering the PGA Tour's qualifying school. He tackles the first objective by taking lessons from respected teacher Michael Hebron, who points out plenty of flaws in Newport's swing, as well as the fundamental flaw in his objective: there's just no way he's going to improve his game all that much inside a yearAno one could. But Newport won't be dissuaded, so he embarks on a long series of mini-Tour events to get a sense of playing under pressure. Many of the people the author meets at these tournaments are interesting, but it grows tiresome to read his nearly shot-by-shot accounts of dozens of butchered rounds and holes, all lashed together with doses of desperate wisdom, self-pity, disgust and anger. By the time he finally reaches Q-School, the reader knows Newport is going to self-destruct, which he does, denying the book a satisfying resolution. Newport's objectives are compelling. It's unfortunate that his experiences weren't commensurate. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Broadway (May 8, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767901177
• ISBN-13: 978-0767901178
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,313,002 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, amusing book, May 16, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Fine Green Line: My Year of Adventure on the Pro-Golf Mini-Tours (Hardcover)

It's an entertaining, easy, fun to read book. Funny parts, poignant parts, interesting and insightful parts on the nature of golf and the professionals who dream to play the game well. The author writes skillfully, hinting that he writes better than indicated in the book. He falls into that trap of many a golf writer, writing down to an imagined audience of dumb golf nuts. Give the numbskull run of the mill non-literate golfer the quick easy non-challenging golf book they want...after all that's what'll sell. For this reason, I'd have to say that while JP Newport is a great mass-market golf writer, he's unlikely to generate a prose style within the category of a GREAT one. Fun book!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling, witty, and soulful, June 14, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Fine Green Line: My Year of Adventure on the Pro-Golf Mini-Tours (Hardcover)

The book is wonderful on two levels. First, it is fun and thoroughly enjoyable. Secondly, it presents an interesting philosophical viewpoint on golf and life in general.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For all those who have tried, July 30, 2000

By 

Greg Bell (Anderson Indiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fine Green Line: My Year of Adventure on the Pro-Golf Mini-Tours (Hardcover)

I found the book to be enormously entertaining. As others, I found myself laughing out loud as Mr. Newport writes of his journey. For all those who have played golf competitively at any level, this is a must read. For us weekend warriors who find ourselves choking under the pressure of $2 putt at our favorite golf course, the author lives our fantasy. Read this book, you'll love the game alittle more because of it!