Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #100513 in Books
• Brand: Booklegger
• Published on: 2006-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

Features

• Humorous
• Hard Cover

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

Review
Abreezy, poignant read. . . . Hilarious. -- Philadelphia Inquirer

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, hilarious truth. -- Mark Frost, author of The Greatest Game Ever Played and The Grand Slam

From his commitment to the curious cause to his single-minded focus, Coyne weaves an insightful and entertaining tale. . . .[H]is self-deprecating writing style and impeccable comedic timing make Paper Tiger a tale worth reading. -- Golfweek

Superb. . . . Coyne has a lot to say about golf, and he says it well. -- The Seattle Times

Customer Reviews

Hilarious! Great book.
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.

This Book Has It ALL
From Reid Sheftall, author of "Striking It Rich: Golf in the Kingdom with Generals, Patients and Pros"


I can't begin to express how much I enjoyed this book. It works on every level. It is very, very funny. It is instructional. It is enlightening. It is honest. The main character (Tom Coyne, the author) is so very likable.
The book is rich with love of game and girl. Perspective abounds at the end.

Am I making myself clear?

Fantastic, well written, very funny book
As a 2 handicap and former college golfer, I likewise had thoughts of sometime playing with the "big boys." Coyne's book is at once insightful, funny, and very "real." At times, I felt as if I was going through what he went through. If you play golf (or any sport, for that matter, where you think you're good enough to make it to the "show"), you must read this book.

And Tom -- if you're ever in need of a fourth, drop me a line.