Match Play

Book excerpt: Have a quirky multi-millionaire build a quirky golf course in the hills of western Pennsylvania. Then mix in a variety of normal and not-so-normal folks to play golf on that course, and you have the setting for Match Play, a novel about bitter rivalries in golf and romance. Shallow Creek Country Club is a course with several deliberately odd designs by its owner and architect, a man who made enough money in ball-bearings during World War II to indulge his fantasies about a golf course that includes one large sand green in honor of his father’s memory, a pipe through a fairway hillside for those who want to play a little putt-putt golf, a green with a huge maple in the middle, and an underground cavern that was originally built as a bomb shelter but later turned into a cool stopping-off spot in the middle of a round. The cavern sits beneath one high hill overlooking most of the holes on the course and has a long tunnel leading back to the clubhouse. The story takes place in the late spring and summer of 1986 and is told from the point of view of a young English teacher and low-handicap golfer named Tom MacKenzie. He is romantically involved with his co-worker-counselor, Pat Thompson, as well as one of his graduating seniors, Amy Forrest, and he’s not sure how he should handle the situation. Both Pat and Amy are good golfers, Pat about a twelve handicap and Amy a single-digit and getting better all the while. To further complicate things, Pat Thompson is also involved with Roger Burdis, a newly wealthy Floridian who has inherited money from an aunt and returned to Porter, Pennsylvania, to live. Roger Burdis is a borderline psychotic with an almost instant hatred for Tom, or Mac as all his friends call him. They encounter each other in several matches on the golf course, in a poker game in the club house, and in a variety of social situations, all leading up to one final confrontation on the golf course, but not for a golf match—a middle-of-the-night match of wits with lives at stake. The plot includes several dashes of humor, a slice or two of sex, several layers of suspense, and enough golf to satisfy any club golfer in the country. And a conclusion as exciting as any Kentucky Derby photo finish.