This humorous golf-centered caper is the third in McAllister's series featuring the unflappable hustler Eddie Caminetti (The Green; The Foursome). Now the owner of the fabulously cool Swithen Bairn golf course on an idyllic, unnamed "island in some ocean," Caminetti crosses paths with a reclusive Caltech physicist who stumbles upon the formula for the ultimate golf ball. Setting up a company called Scratch to deal with the sudden voracious demand for the miracle ball, Caminetti goes head-to-head with Tommy Trevillian, the monomaniacal head of the Medalist corporation, for control of the golf ball business. The story moves sluggishly from the course to the courtroom as Medalist sues Scratch for predatory pricing. The strength of the book is in the hilarious sendup of the professional golf industry (with staged events like the "Nissan Prudential Fruit-of-the-Loom Texaco Waste Management (formerly the Valley View) Open" and the "Verizon Aetna Hairstyles-by-Steffen Bob's-Quickie-Lube (formerly the Enron Worldcom Tyco Byron Nelson Classic)") and the sycophantic sports media that caters to it ("That was one of [sports talk show host] Fitztipton's gifts, a style so relentlessly ingratiating that anybody watching would feel guilty for even thinking anything negative about television's number one Nice Guy"). Golf enthusiasts may eat this up, but overall the plot falls a bit short of the green. (Apr.)
