Customer Reviews

The Fine Green Line: My Year of Adventure on the Pro-Golf Mini-Tours

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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!

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.

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!

I am the author of Striking It Rich: Golf in the Kingdom with Generals, Patients and Pros, a similar but different take on the game of golf in general and the approach to Qualifying School in particular.
The Fine Green Line is a very well-written look at one low-handicapper's attempt to play professional golf on the mini-tour level. It is very funny because the author understands the problems he is having but despite many attempts, cannot solve them. It makes you want to work as his caddy in an event or two to set him straight. In this way, Newport draws you into his struggle by letting you know something the protagonist (Newport himself) does not.
I learned something about tournament golf from reading this book; namely that thinking about what you are doing out there is the key to playing well- not the source of your troubles, as Newport would have you believe. In "Striking It Rich", I tried to make that clear.

If you are really into golf, you will love this book. It has a lot of insight into what makes golf so addictive, as well as many first hand accounts of what it's like on golf mini-tours. The author explores what it is that separates the very good golfer (under 5 handicap), from the tour player. In the process, he examines, in a way that most golf nuts can relate to, why golf has the attraction it does.

Reading this book was validating, fascinating, and entertaining. I highly recommend it.

In a genre of books that use the meme of golf as a placeholder for personal self-disovery, this one stands out for several reasons. First, the writer-cum-golfer is reasonably proficient to at least begin to play the first stage of professional golf (the mini-tours). Second, he is painfully honest, if not embarassingly so, in revealing his "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory" brand of self-immolation on the golf course, a rite all amateurs have experienced many times.

Finally, this book is distinguished by the fact that the writer is first, and foremost, a writer by profession and not a golfer who dearly wants to write for a living. Although I love golf dearly and play at every opportunity, so much of what passes for writing about golf is, quite frankly stultifyingly boring.

John Paul Newport is not a great golfer, at times he is less than good, but he is a good writer and my attention never lagged throughout this book. He is especially good when he reveals some of the characters and personalities of those "also rans" on the mini-tours, great golfers in their own right who will never see the light of day on network TV.

This is an honest book and well written, two things that rarely come in conjunction when the written word meets professional sports.

This book was a wonderful read -- it draws you into the author's world and his struggle the way good fiction does. I got this book as a gift and was a bit skeptical at first, thinking the premise sounded a bit self-indulgent. But Newport is anything but self-important -- he has a self-deprecating way and is brutally honest with himself and very funny, a good combination. A lot of the book, the best parts in my opinion, are the portraits of the people around him and the life they live in the trenches of golf. Anyone who loves golf will love this book and learn a lot.

The author, John Newport, a very good amateur (handicap 3) spent a year taking lessons, practicing, and competing on the mini tours, trying to improve enough to make it through PGA Q-School to the Nike/Hooters/Whatever Tour. The book is a good read for us amateur golfers, including those who are not as talented as the author but aspire to be. I could relate to the main character and his experiences more than I could relate to the PGA Tour heroes in other books about golfers. Newport tried hard. But it seemed that every step forward was followed by a step back, with occasional joyful exceptions. Ultimately, Newport was undone by his inability to play his best under the pressure of formal competition. And that is the fine green line that separates the best golfers from the rest of us: the ability to play well under pressure. The book was entertaining, with Newport's personal, sometimes hopeful, often agonizing reminiscences, and his descriptions of fellow mini-tour travelers and their exploits. Most of us amateurs like golf tips, and there are some good ones here as Newport passes on what he learned in his golf lessons. The book is a good read. And it reminds us that no matter how much we love golf, we should keep our day jobs.

Like John Newport I once shot a round under par but have never found it again. Since then I have searched for the mystical zone but nada. Even if not too many of us can afford to take a yr off to see how good we can get... this book gives us a brutal but honest glimpse into what our fate would most probably be if we tried. The secret maybe you have to be born with a little talent but we can never make ourselves believe that in this day and age of unlikely persons overcoming obstacles. I found the book very well written and an easy read. I would recommend it to any serious golfer.

I loved this an hilarious account of trying to justify one's passion for the game of golf so much that I have bought at least 10 copies for friends.
It's relevant for those of us who wish they were better at it but are meant to have another life, especially if you have a young family too.
John Paul writes in such an honest and accessible manner about his own feelings and failures that it's as if we have all suffered the same short-comings, as well as shared the same admiration (or is it envy?) of those easy-going, long-hitting pros with their graceful swings. We know and understand his emotions because I bet you have felt the very same thing yourself, whether at the driving range, on a golf course or, at the beach with a young family.
"JP" also has a wonderfully descriptive eye for the people and places to be found on the fringes of golf greatness but still stuck in the mini-tours.
Even my wife could see the funny side and relate to some of the spousal excuses and pressures that JP occasionally has to bend to! This book is great read and a great comfort to dip into anytime afterwards, even just for some light relief from one's own game and from life in general.