The Money-Whipped Steer-Job Three-Jack Give-Up Artist: A Novel [Hardcover]

Dan Jenkins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 7, 2001

Dan Jenkins virtually invented the golf novel with the classic Dead Solid Perfect, his rollicking account of the life and times of PGA touring pro Kenny Lee Puckett. For thirty years his fans have waited for the follow-up; in The Money-Whipped Steer-Job Three-Jack Give-Up Artist, Jenkins has surpassed himself.

Bobby Joe Grooves is a sixteen-year tour veteran trying to turn his one annual tournament win and considerable Texas charm into his first appointment to the Ryder Cup team. Standing between Bobby Joe and his little piece of golf heaven are two ex-wives and a girlfriend, all of whom know to a penny his spot on the money list; Swedish sensation Knut Thorssun, known to his fans as “Nuke” and to his fellow pros as “Cheater”; a completely rational fear of reptiles; tempting but dangerous groupies; and his embarrassing lack of a career major.

As we follow Bobby Joe’s quest for a spot on the Ryder Cup team, we learn more about golf history than you’ll find in any weepy sunset-over-the-18th green retrospective, and more about how to actually get the damn ball into the cup than in any of the thousands of instructional books none of us can understand.
The Money-Whipped Steer-Job Three-Jack Give-Up Artist is an uproarious portrait of what it’s really like to play on the PGA Tour. It’s vintage Dan Jenkins.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Unforgettable for his howlingly funny sendup of pro football in Semi-Tough and his equally droll spoof of the PGA Tour Dead Solid Perfect, columnist Jenkins (Golf Digest) is as irreverent and hip a sports satirist as ever tarred and feathered a poor unwary and overpaid former Muni-caddy from Fort Worth, Tex., without benefit of anesthetic. In this latest blasphemous roasting of the PGA, Jenkins's first novel in 25 years, he offers up nonhero Bobby Joe Grooves, aka "Spin" to his friends, a latter-day self-styled golf historian who resigned to his role as a "light-running money-whipped, steer-job, three-jack, give-up artist" (read: journeyman touring pro) has made a "separate peace." Bobby Joe has become disenchanted with the cheating ways (on and off the course) of the European darling superstar, Knut Thorssun, aka Knut the Nuke, who, largely thanks to his cavalier disregard for rules, has two majors to his credit. Twice-divorced, Bobby Joe is keeping his libido in bounds with Cheryl Haney, a Hooters-class Fort Worth real estate agent. Struggling to make the Ryder Cup team for the first time in his 16-year career, Bobby Joe is having a hard time pacifying his main squeeze and exes, and fighting off a self-styled wannabe golf hack who insists on calling him "Spin" and wants to pen his memoir. To make matters worse, when Cheryl learns he strayed with his amateur partner's horny wife at Pebble Beach, she goes into knee-lock. Hawaiian Open to Ryder Cup, the tour (and thereby the tale) comes down to crossed-putters mano a mano with Knut. A sort of "Saturday Night Live does Harvey Penick's Little Red Book," this goofy encyclopedia of golf shines with rays of simple truth. (Aug.)Forecast: This book will be catnip for golf lovers, and the upcoming Ryder Cup matches should feed into the pre-pub hype.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

If most golf novels sound like either Saturday Night Live sketches or Sunday-morning sermons, Jenkins definitely belongs in the late-night category. His Dead Solid Perfect (1974) virtually invented the comic golf novel. Now he returns to the PGA Tour for another attempt to disprove the notion that professional golfers (other than Tiger) are bland, charisma-deprived ciphers. His hero is a good ol' Fort Worth boy called Bobby Joe Grooves. Bobby may not be the best golfer on the tour (he's never won a major tournament), but he is definitely no cipher. We pick up Bobby Joe's story in Hawaii, where he has just "three-jacked" (three-putted) his way to a disappointing nineteenth-place finish in the Hawaiian Open, which is why he's sitting in a bar downing what he calls "Juniors" (J & B scotch). As Bobby Joe grinds his way through a year on the tour, trying to qualify for the Ryder Cup while dealing with two needy ex-wives and a jealous girlfriend off the course, Jenkins keeps the jokes coming, managing to offend just about everyone with any political ax to grind. Those who enjoy seeing feathers ruffled will enjoy the PC-bashing, but the jokes themselves tend to be a bit of a hit-and-miss affair. Better is the fascinating golf history, especially regarding course design, that Jenkins filters into the story, along with his uncanny ability to expose the pretensions of both golfers and their fans. Not the landmark its predecessor was, but still dead-solid entertainment for anyone who cares about professional golf. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (August 7, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385497237
• ISBN-13: 978-0385497237
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,679,171 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Maybe a little over par..., November 4, 2001

By 

Jeffrey Ellis "bored recluse" (Richardson, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Money-Whipped Steer-Job Three-Jack Give-Up Artist: A Novel (Hardcover)

One of the most gifted sport commentators out there, Texan Dan Jenkins practically invented the golf novel with Dead Solid Perfect. Now, a decade or two later, Jenkins returns to the genre with the episodic The Money-Whipped, Steer-Job, Three-Jack Give-Up Artist which, in its rambling way, basically details a year on tour with an outspoken, somewhat befuddled pro golfer who, though a veteran of the game, has never quite become a star. With most of his money going to his two ex-wives (who are both wonderfully entertaining characters), the narrator spends most of his time telling anecdote-filled stories of golf history, detailing his fear of lizards (a potentially humorous motif that never quite pays off), and telling us of his rivalry with a European, superstar golfer who spends most of his time cheating on his wife and speaking of himself in the third person. Though the European golfer is a character that most readers have seen a million times in the past, his character is still crudely funny and the passages detailing his buffoonish vanity are amongst the book's best. Jenkins shines with his characterization -- though the characters are all somewhat shallow, Jenkins still creates vivid portraits of them and his dialouge gleams with a razor's edge. The narrator is, like Jenkins, from Texas and he tells the book's story in a laid-back, rather self-effacing drawl that makes for entertaining reading. However, plot-wise, the book never comes together and seems to wander rather aimlessly over the PGA tour. As well, if you're not a fan of golf, this book won't change your mind and Jenkins makes little attempt to make the book, with its litany of technical detail, understandable to those who might not be familiar with the game. Still, if you enjoy golf (like myself), this book is a pleasant little diversion. It won't change your life but it'll keep you entertained for a day or two.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not Jenkins' Best, September 10, 2001

By A Customer

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This review is from: The Money-Whipped Steer-Job Three-Jack Give-Up Artist: A Novel (Hardcover)

I eagerly waited on the release of this book, but it turned out to be not very good. Jenkins had me laughing once or twice, but not near as much as in You Gotta Play Hurt and Dead Solid Perfect. The narrator was 40, yet always made references to movies that a person would have to be 60 to remember. It was like Jenkins was too lazy to properly date his lead character and instead used references that someone in Jenkins' generation would connect with. I agree with the reader who said Missing Links is much better. Someone looking for a good golf novel will also enjoy Troon McCallister's books.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wodehouse and Jenkins, August 17, 2001

By 

Edwin Shrake - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Money-Whipped Steer-Job Three-Jack Give-Up Artist: A Novel (Hardcover)

Between P.G. Wodehouse and Dan Jenkins comes nobody. Wodehouse helped explain golf to the ordinary person with his often silly short stories about the game among the upper class of society. Then Jenkins invented the comic golf novel with "Dead Solid Perfect,"which explains the game among the upper class of players---the touring pros. Jenkins inspired a mob of imitators but never a real competitor until now. That competitor is Jenkins himself with his hilarious new novel that starts off with two of Dan's favorite words---"Money Whipped."