Paper Tiger: An Obsessed Golfer's Quest to Play with the Pros [Hardcover]

Tom Coyne (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2006

The riotously funny story of one weekend golfer who lived the dream—devoting a full year to nothing but the quixotic quest to qualify at the PGA Q-School

A lifelong golfer and former caddy, Tom Coyne could drive the ball 300 yards but always struggled against stiff competition; he had often wondered whether the pros won because they were more innately talented or just because they were more obsessed. On the cusp of turning thirty, overweight, and saddled with a 14 handicap, Coyne embarked on a yearlong quest to do everything he could to lift his game—and find out if he could make it through the PGA Tour Qualifying School.

Paper Tiger takes you on a rollicking ride into the beer-gutted underbelly of semipro golf, into a world of crash diets, punishing workout regimens, high-flying sports shrinks, cutting-edge club technology, and obscure tournaments. With his girlfriend as caddy, Coyne traverses from Miami to Chicago to Toronto to see how he stacks up against the competition. Ultimately he takes his game to a new level—or at least a new continent—on the links of Australian Q-School, where amidst forty-mile-an-hour winds he must choose between the love of a fickle game and the love of the long-suffering woman who has stood by him throughout all the shanks, hooks, yips, and chili dips.

Brimming with humor and insight about the world’s most beautiful and maddening game, Paper Tiger will delight golfers and the sane people who love them. BACKCOVER: Praise for Paper Tiger:

“For anyone who's ever suffered the delusion they have enough game to go up against the professional killers who play golf for a living, here's the cold, hard, hilarious truth.”
—MARK FROST, AUTHOR OF THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED AND THE GRAND SLAM

"Tom Coyne is a standout among the next generation of talented young golf writers. His personal quest to make it in the brave new world of tournament golf with the help of Dr. Jim Suttie (one of golf's great unheralded teachers) is refreshingly candid and heartbreakingly funny—a brilliant new take on the secret ambition of millions. The unexpected payoff makes the pain of his journey all the more special, this memoir of golf obsession nigh unforgettable.”
—JAMES DODSON, AUTHOR OF FINAL ROUNDS, THE DEWSWEEPERS, AND BEN HOGAN: AN AMERICAN LIFE

“In the tradition of George Plimpton, Tom Coyne takes us through the tiers and tears of competitive golf, with all the laughs and gaffes that accompany it. But he’s no dilettante—Coyne commits, strives, and gets damn good. He emerges from the journey as one of our best golf writers. Astute and funny, Paper Tiger casts a critical eye at the golfer’s Grail. This book is a double fist pump.”
—BRIAN DOYLE-MURRAY, CO-CREATOR OF “CADDYSHACK”

“Paper Tiger races along with humor, suspense, and behind-the-scenes stories that will grab any golfer's heart.”
—BUD SHRAKE, COAUTHOR OF HARVEY PENICK’S LITTLE RED BOOK

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The title is a sly acknowledgment on Coyne's part of the karmic debt his memoir owes to George Plimpton, but while Plimpton merely finagled his way onto the PGA Tour, Coyne (A Gentleman's Game) sets himself a higher goal: by dedicating a solid year to improving his golf game, he hopes to actually pass the qualifying school tournament that would allow him to compete as a professional. Believing that the difference between good and great golfers is consistency, Coyne moves to Florida for the winter for intensive training with swing doctors and sports psychologists, staying out on the course until his hands bleed. He faces the inevitable (and sometimes unexpected) setbacks with resigned humor, as he comes to realize that his year's age difference with Tiger Woods is the only thing he'll have in common with the champ. (In fact, it takes all the skill he can muster not to wind up DFL—"Dead [F---ing] Last.") Coyne treads a fine line between sarcasm and sympathy in his observations of his competitors, and though he occasionally gets lost in big-picture ruminations, his quest should resonate with weekend golfers who dream of going all the way. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

For all the low-handicap golfers who have ever wondered if they were good enough to play with the pros, here's the book to prove, once and for all, that, no, you're not good enough. Coyne, a freelance writer and onetime junior golf star, decided to see just how good he could be. Leaving his longtime girlfriend behind in Minnesota, he moved to Florida, aiming to work for a year at lowering his handicap to the sub-scratch range and then enter the notoriously grueling PGA Tour Qualifying School. This painfully funny, self-deprecating chronicle follows Coyne's odyssey: 75,000 range balls hit in one year, 15 shots shaved from his handicap, $52,000 amassed in credit-card bills. The result: not nearly good enough to compete with the pros but more than good enough to tell the story of why. Every golfer who has ever set a personal goal and failed to reach it (and that's every golfer who has ever touched a club) will identify with Coyne's odyssey, laughing and crying all the while at the absurd complexity of this confounding game. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Gotham (June 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592402097
• ISBN-13: 978-1592402090
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #297,197 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tom Coyne has written for Golf Magazine and Golfweek magazine. He is the author of Paper Tiger and the novel A Gentleman's Game, which was adapted into a movie starring Gary Sinise.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious! Great book., June 5, 2006

By 

I. Gaffney "Sean G." (Westmont, NJ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Paper Tiger: An Obsessed Golfer's Quest to Play with the Pros (Hardcover)

I am a casual golfer who enjoys the time spent on the course with friends, and more comfortably, in the club house over a few beers. Often times when discussing the round just played, the converstaion comes around to how much better we would all be if we could quit our jobs and just focus on golf.

Paper Tiger puts that theory to the test. Tom Coyne's tale is one we could all only hope to one day (or one year) experience. The hilarious ups and downs Tom faces kept me turning the pages and often reading passages aloud to my wife.

I'm not the biggest reader, so the fact that I finished this book in 3 weeks will tell you that it was great. I recommend this to all golf lovers, and golf "widows" alike.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars USGA ads say "These guys are good"... THIS BOOK IS GREAT., July 6, 2006

By 

J. Hill - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Paper Tiger: An Obsessed Golfer's Quest to Play with the Pros (Hardcover)

Intrigued by the books premise and impressed by the esteemed critical acclaim on the cover, I picked up this book on a recent trip to the United States. I laughed, I cried, and I cried laughing as I read the book cover to cover on the 7 hour plane ride back to England. My only regret is that I didn't buy more than one copy, as my friends and the the friends of my friends are now waiting eagerly to read the book which (as yet) doesn't have a UK relese date!

Tom's self disciplined, determined quest to fulfil his dream, is the keystone of the book. However, it is the obstacles he encountered and his responses to them that provide the comedy, the tragedy and ultimately a love story about golf and a girl.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who has ever tried to play golf; the husbands, wives, boyfriends and girlfriends of anyone who plays golf; and to anyone who had a dream and motivated themselves to do something about it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you golf and think "Could I go pro", read this book., June 15, 2006

By 

JJK "JJK" (Vestal, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Paper Tiger: An Obsessed Golfer's Quest to Play with the Pros (Hardcover)

If you golf and entertain fantasies of going pro, read this book. It will plant you firmly in reality, yet give you enough instruction incidentally to improve your game.

The book will give you hope -- if you survive the bare-fisted reality-check. (You probably will not.)

This is also the story about how professional golf works -- and how many ways there are to do professional golf -- but mostly it's about how really hard it is and how very, very good you have to be.

This is a very well-written book, well paced, fun to read, full of memorable characters, salted with the vernacular, and full of food for thought about the game and about going for it.