Book review: "The Downhill Lie," by Carl Hiaasen

Some golfers hate to review their round after hacking their way around the course. It's just too painful to recall, and those duffers are content to sit at the clubhouse bar and muse about shots that could have been.

Not Carl Hiaasen. 

 "Like a true masochist, I kept notes," the longtime Miami Herald columnist and author of 14 novels writes in his latest work. This is a guy who observes life from a humorous angle, and the result is a wise-cracking, funny, and at times laugh-out-loud diary of golf.

In "The Downhill Lie: A Hacker's Return to a Ruinous Sport" (Alfred A. Knopf, $22), Hiaasen does more than keep a diary about his midlife return to the game. It's a cleverly written, witty and sometimes wistful look at golf, marriage, human nature and life.

During his preparation (more than 500 days) for a country club tournament, Hiassen sinks a golf cart into a lake. He uses his golf clubs as a weapon against aggressive rats and takes "focus inducing" Mind Drive capsules. He sees an alligator sunning himself near a fairway as a good omen, but has a less-than-cosmic experience with a Q-Link, a pendant "that was said to hold marvelous powers."

He brags about in his good scores, frets about the upcoming member-guest tournament at a Vero Beach, Fla., course, and amuses his golf instructors during lessons. He remembers his time playing golf with his father, and revels in his son's interest -- and talent -- in golf. But more often than not, Hiaasen turns his wit on himself, endearing himself to hackers young and old.

Golf can be addictive, and Hiaasen finds himself enjoying it again - sometimes.

"A good shot is a total rush, possibly the second-most pleasurable sensation in the human experience," Hiassen writes. "It will mess with your head in wild and delusive ways."

His "notes" prove it.