Final Round

Rating:
Summary: Avoid This Book!!
Review: Author Bernhardt is one of my favorite writers when he is writing legal thrillers. In this novel, however, he is out of his millieu. The "hero" is a golfer/crime-solver. This character and others in the book are irritating. Bernhardt is no humorist and his attempts at humor are pathetic. This novel is so sophmoric that it is difficult to believe that the same man wrote this book AND his many other novels that I admire. Please, Mr Bernhardt, stick to what you're good at. This book is a disaster in so many ways that that this limited space is insufficient to innumerate.

Rating:
Summary: Golf rules and so does this book
Review: Death came so suddenley he didn't even have a chance to scream, All at once, the lights were out-as if someone had thrown a switch inside his brain. Blood and bits of flesh burst from the side of his head. He was dead before he hit the ground. The man standing over him had swung his golf clubin the darkness. This is one of the exiting part in Final Round. This is about a man named Conner Cross who tries to find out who killed his best friend John Mcree. As Coner looks he has been playing in the Masters Tournament at the Agusta National. He finds help along the way with his caddy Fitz and John Mcree's wife Jodie Mcree. This book is filled with mystery, and suspense throughout the whole book. Read more to find outwho the murderer is and how he does in the Masters Tornament.
I found this book very well written. I also reccomend this book for older youth and up and especially to people who love the game of golf. I also reccomend it because it is very easy to read and so is the style of writing. This book was a real page-turner, I could not stop reading it, and it talked about the men playing golf and choosing their clubsunlike other golf books do. This book was also filled with many suprises, when you thought who the murderer was it wasn't. The plot was un belivable to people who like golf, this is a book that you could read over and over again. The plot was just so easy to read and to understand. The plot also mixed mystery, suspense and the sport of golf into one and that's what made it such a great book.

Rating:
Summary: This is a Wonderful Book!!!!
Review: Final Round is a dreadful book - the author would have benefited from reading "Golf for Dummy's" prior to writing a single word. The story requires a casual knowledge of golf, the Master's tournament, and to some extent the mystery surrounding murder (it is, after all, a murder mystery). However, there is little knowledge in this book of any of these three points. For example a golf pro plays two rounds at the Masters and does not realize he's playing with another person's 9-iron, the player does not know whether to tee off with a 9 iron or a 3 wood (on a 400+ yard par 4), the player must decide to "lay up" on his drive on a par-4, and lateral water hazards are termed "water traps." There is also little knowledge of the Masters. For example the book assumes the tournament is all about money, which is ridiculous; see John Feinstein's "The Majors" where he states "the (National's) members would rather retain complete control over their tournament, over the telecast and ...their privacy than rake in more money." The Final Round's players also don't seem to know who's in the lead of the tournament at any given time and must wait until the tournament director posts the scores on a sheet of paper tacked up in the bar (which is apparently where the players spend nearly all their time between rounds). Unknown to the writer is the fact that the National installed Leader Boards in the late 1940's or that the tournament is broadcast on network TV (not just "closed circuit" as suggested in the book). Finally, the book should have some air of mystery in the murders that take place. The book jacket stated the murder weapon was a golf club (I'm not giving anything away here) but it was traced to the owner through its serial number. Hello, serial numbers? - it is a golf club, not a Smith & Wesson .357 magnum. Luckily I listened to this in book on tape format on a boring drive; don't waste precious brain cells on the print version.

Rating:
Summary: If you love golf , skip this mess
Review: First off, I have to admit my relative ignorance of golf, so many of the golf terms Mr. Bernhardt messed up on went right over my head. Suffice it to say it was believable enough for someone who didn't know better--except for having to wait in the bar for the posting of the scores. In the electronic age, that was a howler. That and serial numbers on golf clubs. Wouldn't it have made more sense for golfers to simply have their initials engraved on the shaft or something?

Overall, the book was readable, the plot moved along well, and Conner Cross was a hero/anti-hero worth cheering for. I like reading about a guy who tweaks his nose at the stuffy establishment, especially when he sees the hypocrisy. However, when the killer was revealed, I was disappointed. Like other reviewers suggested, it seemed drawn out of thin air. I should be able to look back at a book, find a clue and say, "Ah-ha, I missed that," or "Oh, yes, I saw that." Not this time. It was still an enjoyable read, but you are probably better off checking this one out from the library, or at most buying the paperback version.

Rating:
Summary: Lots of Laughs
Review: In the acknowledgments for Final Round, novelist William Bernhardt thanks his "golf experts, Richard T. McNeil and Frank Hurka" for their help and "priceless suggestions."

Obviously Richard and Frank have played a terrific practical joke on Mr. Bernhardt and the results are hilarious. I won't repeat all the golf errors and Masters Tournament idiocies that occur - just go to all the other one-star reviews below. But let me just cite one example of how Richard and Frank must have said, "Let's see just how much we can get away with."

At the start of the 4th round, with the protagonist Conner Cross in 4th place, Conner shoots the round of his life (an eagle on both the 17th and 18th hole being the highlights), then gives a half hour interview to the press while waiting for everyone else (14 players!) to finish, and then (wait, this is really good, ha-ha), goes to the locker room. And what did he do there? Hold on to your hats. "He changed into his street clothes and ambled upstairs to the bar."

I can hear Richard and Frank right now whispering to each other..."You think he ever heard about a tie? Or a playoff? Shhh, nah, don't tell him. See if he knows on his own..." And then, of course, is the rip-snorter of having all the pros waiting for one of the scoring officials to come in with a large white posterboard with the final scores so that everyone can find out where they finished. Whoo! That was the best yuck of all. I had to wipe the tears from my eyes. Rich and Frank, thumbs way up!!

I read one of Mr. Bernhardt's books before this one. Pretty good writing but concluded illogically. Same thing here with the murderer - straight out of left-field and about as satisfying as 4-putting a green. Fool me twice, shame on me. I won't be reading Mr. Bernhardt any more.

Rating:
Summary: Lots of Laughs
Review: In the acknowledgments for Final Round, novelist William Bernhardt thanks his "golf experts, Richard T. McNeil and Frank Hurka" for their help and "priceless suggestions."

Obviously Richard and Frank have played a terrific practical joke on Mr. Bernhardt and the results are hilarious. I won't repeat all the golf errors and Masters Tournament idiocies that occur - just go to all the other one-star reviews below. But let me just cite one example of how Richard and Frank must have said, "Let's see just how much we can get away with."

At the start of the 4th round, with the protagonist Conner Cross in 4th place, Conner shoots the round of his life (an eagle on both the 17th and 18th hole being the highlights), then gives a half hour interview to the press while waiting for everyone else (14 players!) to finish, and then (wait, this is really good, ha-ha), goes to the locker room. And what did he do there? Hold on to your hats. "He changed into his street clothes and ambled upstairs to the bar."

I can hear Richard and Frank right now whispering to each other..."You think he ever heard about a tie? Or a playoff? Shhh, nah, don't tell him. See if he knows on his own..." And then, of course, is the rip-snorter of having all the pros waiting for one of the scoring officials to come in with a large white posterboard with the final scores so that everyone can find out where they finished. Whoo! That was the best yuck of all. I had to wipe the tears from my eyes. Rich and Frank, thumbs way up!!

I read one of Mr. Bernhardt's books before this one. Pretty good writing but concluded illogically. Same thing here with the murderer - straight out of left-field and about as satisfying as 4-putting a green. Fool me twice, shame on me. I won't be reading Mr. Bernhardt any more.

Rating:
Summary: Dead is Pretty Final
Review: John McCree and Conner Cross have been friends and golf pros for years and they're both playing in the Masters. Conner finds John's dead body in the sand trap at the eighteen hole. Grisly as the murder was, the game goes on. John's wife asks Conner to investigate, since the police don't seem to be getting anywhere, and then another body shows up.

This is a great five star story with nice humor. That said, it always bothers me when an author's fans get upset because the writer tried something new. I don't know why readers expect writers to keep churning out the same book again and again. So what if this one's a little different than Bernhardt's previous books. To that I say "Bravo," because anybody can steer along the safe road, it takes courage to take a different path.

Reviewed by Vesta Irene

Rating:
Summary: If you're a golfer -- stay away from this book!
Review: Let me make this quick. I really like Ben Kincaid and have no intention of discontinuing buying and reading Mr. Bernhardt's books. However, I wish I had read the reviews posted on Amazon before picking this book off the bargain table at a not-to-be-disclosed local bookseller. It was below average as mystery and just plain awful as a golf story. STAY AWAY!

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.