Shanks for Nothing

By: Rick Reilly

Narrated by: Stephen Hoye

Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's Summary

The hilarious sequel to Rick Reilly's beloved best-selling golf novel Missing Links.

Life is going pretty well for Raymond "Stick" Hart. He's happily married to the former Ponkaquogue Municipal Golf Club assistant pro, the beauteous Cajun firecracker Dannie, raising his rambunctious son, Charlie, and getting by writing smart-mouthed greeting cards for 50 bucks a pop. Best of all, nothing has changed at Ponky, the worst golf course in America. You still have to hook it past the toxic waste dump on No. 1 and under the billboard on No. 8, the fried-egg sandwiches are terrible but cheap, and his pal Two Down is always up for a sucker bet.

Then, one disaster of a day, Stick's world does a 10-car pile-up. The cheapskate bastard owner of Ponky announces he's retiring to a nudist camp in Florida and selling the club to the Mayflower Club next door, a bastion of blue-blood snobbery that plans to pave Ponky over. And life only goes downhill from there.

Luckily, Stick has a solution to all his problems. He'll qualify for the British Open.

©2006 Rick Reilly (P)2006 Books on Tape

Critic Reviews

"The best golf novel in decades." (Boston Herald)
"You don't need to know your bogeys from your birdies to find at least three laughs per page in this novel." (The New York Times Book Review)

Better than Caddyshack

Rick Reilly’s Shanks for Nothing is a fast paced, uproariously funny masterpiece that will crack the staunchest funny bone. And Stephen Hoye is the perfect narrator to bring the main characters to life (Stick, Two-Down, Dom, Resource, Blind Bob, Hoover, the Stain, and the rest of the “chops”) as they plot to keep the snobby Mayflower from taking over their precious but dilapidated Ponky municipal golf course.

The meandering vignettes that steer the chops through high stakes golf bets with Mob gamblers, a prison golf course where inmate Resource Jones plans and executes the perfect escape, only to be foiled by his own golf passions, and the overseas trip to qualify for the British Open where Stick meets Sponge, and the Royal and Ancient aristocrats.

If Bill Murray ever read this book he would undoubtedly make it into a movie. Murray would be great at playing Stick’s caddy.

So funny

I laughed so hard. Great book!! I highly recommend this great book! Thank you Rick!

A juvenile collection of cliches.

This reads like something a junior high school drop out might have written. A crude collection of old jokes that were told by drunk high handicap hackers. I hope Reilly can regain his composure and go back to some of his good writing.

great for golfers

very funny, make you smile. golfers will understand the funny stuff. great followup to Missing Links

just a really funny book about the game of golf

great characters were all know them all.
can see myself in all of the situations
shows how a golfers mind works, a strange place at the best of times

The best!

This guy always gives you your money's worth. I wish he would write one of these every month.

Another Great Tale by Rick Reilly.

This is my third book now that I've listened to by Rick Reilly. I love his natural ability for storytelling, his prolific sense of humor, and his side-splitting similes.

Not bad

Not as good as first book. The narration is good but again the first book was just better. He could capture that Boston voice. All and all a good follow up to one of the greatest books ever.

Chestnut Hills GC in Ravenna Oh.

So much like the golf course in this book. Couldn't imagine that this sequel could be as good as his first but was. Great golf book. I wouldn't recommend it to any non-golfers - but then I don't know any.

I love this book!

Long time part time golfer here and I absolutely loved this book. I don't know how it has avoided me all these years. I laughed so hard at times and listened to to it straight through in one shot. If you love golf and better if you hack around like most golfers do you will have so much fun. Let's make the move.