Rating: 
Summary: More for golf fanatic amateur sleuths
Review: Long before they joined the tour, PGA players Conner Cross and John McCree have been close friends from their Oklahoma childhood days, but their respective careers are going in different directions. While both enjoy the off course camaraderie and wacky bets, John is a steady player earning a living while the more talented Connor struggles to make the cuts. However, this year both have been invited to the most prestigious of the Grand Slam events, the Augusta National tournament better known as the Masters.
However, a killer mars this year's tournament in Augusta, Georgia with John being one of the victims. The death of his friend shocks Conner who though distracted tries to play up to his potential in respect to his buddy. As Augusta police officer Nikki O'Brien investigates the killings, she offers Conner an additional distraction as he too tries to solve the case of who murdered his friend with one of his clubs.
FINAL ROUND does not include William Bernhardt's usual protagonist Ben Kincaid, but still has a wonderful eccentric lead protagonist who is the opposite of the conservative lawyer. The story line crosses several sub-genres lines to include sports mysteries, police procedural, and amateur sleuth tales. Though the who-done-it is simplistic yet engaging, it still feels like a bogey next to the hole in one homage paid by the author to golf especially the Masters. Though more for golf fanatics, overall FINAL ROUND is a birdie. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: unsatisfying
Review: My overall impression is that this book was dashed off in a big hurry. The plot and characters are unconvincing --just sketches. the solution to the mystery did not seem credible to me. and the hero was so obnoxious in the first 50 pages that his shift in attitude was itself not very believable. Maybe it's one of those "girl" things, but i am not enamored of characters who seem to think their mission in life is to alienate the maximum number of people by boorish behavior. Nevertheless it was a pleasant afternoon read, and i think would have been more if the author had put more effort into it.
Rating: 
Summary: Golf novel at it's worst
Review: Terrible! To call this book terrible is an insult to all bad golf novels ever written. The author has no clue about his subject what-so-ever. How the publisher let this tripe get by is beyond me. The book lost me when the author mentioned "water
traps" and "pros' wearing shorts" at Augusta National. Silly putty golf ball centers, please. Anyone who has ever spent any time around golf knows that golf ball centers are made from Chinese herbs and goat eyes.
I have read hundreds of golf books over the years, and this book ranks last by a long shot. Do not waste your time and energy on this poor excuse for a golf novel.
Rating:
Summary: Pleasant read.
Review: This book is a pleasant read, and fun at times, but it
just never measures up to the usual Bernhardt standard
of excitement and fast-paced action.
The characters don't ring quite as true as in his prior
works, so it is difficult to get involved with them and
this mystery.
I look forward to his next entries in the mystery category.
Rating:
Summary: The worst book I've ever read
Review: This is it first time I've reviewed a book on amazon and I'm only doing it because this is the most poorly written book I've ever read. Or attempted to read, I couldn't make it past page 31.
I'm an infrequent golfer that rarely breaks 100 but even I know that the errors in this book are as bad as writing a book based in the United States and having car drivers drive on the wrong side of the road. Nearly every "fact" regarding golf and in particularly professional golf is wrong in the first 30 pages. By page 30 when there were so many errors I couldn't finish the book, I decided to write this review. And I was stuck on a plane with several hours to go with nothing to read, and I still couldn't continue the book.
Page 30...
The progessional golfer only has ONE ball that he FOUND the day before in a sand trap on the Masters course that apparently someone had left there for him to find, yet his caddie told him he had just BOUGHT some balls for him. The golfer with the one ball is said to be in the ROUGH at the Masters and needed a machete to get out.
No professional golfer would lose a ball in a sand trap so none could have been found.
Pro don't buy balls, they receive them as part of endorsement deals.
There is no real rough at the Masters, anything off the fairway that could be called the rough is lower than your front lawn, and certainly not junglelike.
etc. etc. I could go on but why bother.
In addition to be totally wrong with every golf fact, quite frankly, the book is just poorly written. Every attempt at humor is flat and there is just nothing to suggest it will get better in any way.
Rating:
Summary: No stars for this book!
Review: This is my second attempt to review this book. The first was too critical of the author to publish the review, or so they advised me. Let's start with what this book is not. It is not an attempt by the author to be funny. It is not a novel which displays the least understanding of the Master's golf tournament. It is not a novel which displays the least understanding of the game of golf - it's rules - it's nomenclature or it's history. It is - in short - the worst novel by a successful author that I have ever read and I have enjoyed Mr. Bernhardt's other efforts. It deserves no stars. It should be avoided at all costs. Fair warning!
Rating: 
Summary: Another Hole-in-One for Bernhardt!
Review: William Bernhardt has a positive genius for creating iconoclastic heroes whose endearing quirks put the reader firmly on their side from the git-go. His latest thriller, FINAL ROUND, introduces maverick golf pro, Connor Cross, going head-to-head with the prestigious but ultra-stuffy Augusta National Golf Club after he has barely managed to qualify for the Masters tournament. Despite the best efforts of his long-time friend and mentor, fellow golfer John McCree, and his veteran caddie Fitz to get him to shape up and produce the kind of golf he's capable of playing, bull-in-the-china-shop Connor is within an inch of being bounced off the premises for outrageous behavior before the contest even begins until the competition takes a deadly turn. The night before the first tee-off, Connor finds John's body buried in a sandtrap. He's been bludgeoned to death with Connor's nine-iron, and the fun and games suddenly come to an abrupt halt. Not only course Management, but the Augusta cops are desperate for a quick conviction with no scandal attached to the Tournament, and Connor is their prime suspect. The only way he can change their minds and avenge his buddy is to find the killer himself. Although attractive policewoman Nikki O'Brien is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, convinced that one of his fellow golfers is the real culprit, Connor has to play the game of his life in order to stay on the scene long enough to ferret him out. As the field dwindles to the final cut, the body count mounts until Connor works out what's par for the corpse and gets his man in a delightfully appropriate denouement. Anyone who thinks that it will be easy to put this marvelous mixture of mirth and mayhem down before that point is reached should probably think again. Bernhardt's ability to combine fast-paced thrills with strong characterization and an intriguing, knowlegeable take on the lore and intricacies of professional golf made FINAL ROUND a one-sitting read for me...and one which I thoroughly enjoyed. Connor and Fitz! Bravo! Encore!
Rating: 
Summary: Questionable golf writing
Review: William Bernhardt has proven he can write good mysteries, but he needs to stay away from golf or at least do some research. The trials and tribulations of Conner Cross, a PGA pro who attempts to win the Masters in the midst of his best friend and the friend's wife being axed, was typical mystery stuff. But when Bernhardt gets on the course to write about Cross's tournament, he gets nutty. Bernhardt says in his acknowledgments that some of the yardage figures are incorrect. Why does he need to do that? There are many examples of unrealistic and flat out wrong information. For example, Cross wants to hit a driver off a tee but his caddie Fritz says to layup with a 7-iron. On a 450-yard hole? I doubt that. Hasn't Bernhardt heard of electronic scoring? Golfers no longer have to wait in the bar to see the scores posted. This isn't the Delco Thursday night league. There is real-time scoring all over the course and has been for a long time. Also, Cross was in fourth place heading into the final round, yet when he finishes, Bernhardt writes he must wait on 14 other golfers to finish. That's absurd, considering leaders are paired off last. In almost ho-hum delivery, Bernhardt writes that Cross eagles the 18th in the final round. That means he holed out from probably 165 yards, which would be a heck of a feat. This goes beyond creative license and creeps into the realm of pure laziness. The author does mix in accurate history here and there, but his grasp of Augusta National lacks perspective.
Rating:
Summary: I don't understand how this book could have been published
Review: With this book as an example, I'm anxiously awaiting Mr. Bernhardt's possible next novel about murder at the World Series where batters bunt homeruns, pitchers enter the game from the pig pen, and the home saucer referee calls 'ball 3, you're out" to a cheering crowd at the ol' ball arena. If that sounds interesting to you then read Final Round; otherwise, run away! Final Round should be an embarrassment to anyone associated with it. The incredible errors in the golf backdrop (the fabric of which is integral to plot development) notwithstanding, the characters are juvenile and the plot inane. With errors on those things that are easy to find and correct so astounding, what thought could possibly have been given to such abstract intellectual issues as content and story development? I am at a loss as to how this manuscript ever saw anything but the bottom of a birdcage. My biggest disappointment is the insight this book provides into the state of editorial judgment and manuscript editing in the publishing industry. Even if you grant that the writer, and his editors, and his publishers, were too indifferent to respect their readers' (their customers!!) intelligence, you are still faced with copy polish-editing that results in one of the characters being called a 'maroon'. Did we mean moron, maybe? In this book you can't be sure. I shudder to think...is Final Round an example of what happens to editorial standards and oversight once an author has established a successful track record? Shame on everyone involved in this mess!
Rating:
Summary: If you love golf , skip this mess
Review: Wow, where do I start. You might think that someone writing a book set at the Masters tournament might have a clue about what golf is all about. Not so. There are so many errors in this book, they're hard to list. Here's just a partial: on the twelfth hole (a 150 yd. par 3) our hero hits a tee shot that leaves him 125 yds. away. This is presented as a normal occurrence. On at least one occasion, the protagonist's caddy, a purported expert on the game, advises him not to go for the green in two on a par four hole, its too risky, lay up and take your four. Huh??? And just wait and see how our hero takes down the bad guy, truly unbeleivable. Aside from the egregious golf errors, the actions of the police are inexplicable as well. Reading this book is like watching a train wreck, its so bad you can't take your eyes away. A total mess. Poorly written, poorly edited, unlikeable characters, too. Save your money and your time, stay away from this groaner.
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