Dead Solid Perfect

The novel "Dead Solid Perfect", by esteemed sportswriter Dan Jenkins, created and perfected the golf novel in one fell swoop. This movie version will feel familiar if you've read the book; there are lots of situations and specific lines in the movie that are straight out of the book - but they are generally switched around to different spots in the story, or spoken by different characters. Even the names of characters from the book are changed, or in some cases, used for completely different characters in the movie - even the name of the main character is changed, from Kenny Lee Puckett to just Kenny Lee.

The movie also completely cuts out the backstory reminiscences about Kenny's youth in Fort Worth, though they might have been too much to include in a TV movie.

The movie is a pretty good '80s golf time capsule, and golfers who are old enough to remember this era will recognize the names of real-life pros whose names come up in conversation or appear on scoreboards in the film. On that basis alone the movie might be enjoyable - IF you haven't read the book.

It's hard to believe that Jenkins, even though he co-wrote the screenplay, could have been happy about the mess that was made of his book in its translation to the screen - I know I wasn't. I've read the book at least a dozen times; it's the reason I got interested in playing golf and eventually writing about golf myself, and it's disorienting and more than a little disappointing to see the story so scrambled up and watered down.