Making the Cut
By Ray Routhier, Portland Press Herald (March 21, 2004)
John Corrigan always loved mystery novels. He loved the idea of the lone detective, on the fringes of society, working toward uncovering the truth.
Most of us wouldn't take that description and apply it to the life of a professional golfer. But Corrigan, a Readfield native who has been golfing since high school, thought the two fit together perfectly.
So Corrigan, who teaches English at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics in Limestone, decided to meld the two. he created a fictional golfer/sleuth, Jack Austin, a Maine native who plays on the PGA tour circuit.
His first Jack Austin novel, "Cut Shot," came out in October 2001. His most recent novel, "Snap Hook" (University Press of New England, $24.95), came out this month. His third Jack Austin book, "Center Cut," is scheduled to be published next year.
As a child, Corrigan was broadly diagnosed as "learning disabled, presumed dyslexic." But the condition has never diminished his love of writing.
Corrigan, 34, lives in Presque Isle with his wife and two children.
Q: How did you come up with the idea of a golf pro who solves mysteries?
A: It was a complete creation of my imagination. I had grown up reading mysteries, and I teach mystery literature. One of the running themes is autonomy, the man on his own. I found a PGA golfer to be a perfect metaphor for that: no teammate, no minimum salary. Golf had become one of my real passions, so I tried to take the (mystery genre) where no one else had taken it.
Q: How much of the character is you?
A: A lot of the dyslexia stuff comes from my past. That's allowed me to develop Jack Austin and look at dyslexia in terms of how our educational system treats it. But Jack Austin's golf game is much better than mine.
Q: To us non-golfers, golf doesn't sound like a sport fraught with crime and mystery. How do you overcome that?
I think any time you have large sums of money, crime is always possible. In no way am I saying the PGA is a corrupt environment. "Snap Hook" starts with the daughter of one of Jack Austin's friends being kidnapped, and that lets me explore other topics.
Q: How much research do you do to make the golf parts realistic?
A: Tons. I talk to (PGA tour pro and friend) J.P. Hayes regularly. I send him parts of the manuscripts. I also made a great contact in the director of competition for the PGA tour, Andy Pazder. I get unbelievable information from him, like the kind of golf balls they hit on the driving range. I had Jack Austin at the Buick Classic, facing a 20-foot putt. But Andy read that, and told me at that part of the green it's not big enough for him to have a 20-foot putt. If you're writing for a mystery audience and a golf audience, you have to be accurate for both.
Q: How good a golfer are you?
A: I'm so-so, a nine handicap. I can shoot in the high 70's and low 80's.
Q: How does your dyslexia affect your writing?
A: For me, dyslexia has given me problems taking information in, not putting it out. I knew I couldn't be a math major. Writing papers was always the thing I did best in school.
Q: If you weren't a golfer, what other sort of setting might you have picked for your books?
A: Journalism. I was a stringer for a paper in college and worked at a paper right out of college. Originally, I had written a book with a character like Jack set in small-town journalism.
Go to the Snap Hook synopsis.
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