nongolfer

The truth be told, it was hard for a nongolfer to work up much energy for this cause, at first.

That's not enough for a nongolfer like me.

"Yes, I came to see Tiger," said Colin Provine, a 21-year-old nongolfer from Chattanooga who is a senior at Yale University.

More important, his writing is so vivid that even a nongolfer will be swept up for this breathless ride through the strip malls, night life and sleazy resorts of American schlock culture run amok.

"I think it's an interesting rationalization to justify being there to those they work with, their spouses and their controllers," said Patrick S. Flood, a nongolfer who is chief executive of the HomeBanc Mortgage Corporation in Atlanta.

But what a nongolfer could have been doing in the vicinity of the ninth green - and still not have aroused Mr Lai's suspicions - was at least for the moment quite beyond the imaginative powers of Inspector Dhar's creator.

A nongolfer, I picked the Old Hickory course, listed in Deaver Dam (it turned out to be Beaver Dam), because I liked the name, and was given its address, phone number, size and the name of the pro.

"My definition of a great golf course is one that a nongolfer will have as much fun walking as a golfer," said Mike Keiser, 58, the self-described "thoroughly mediocre golfer" who owns Pacific Dunes and its sister course, Bandon Dunes.