Toonamint of Champions
How LaJuanita Mumps Got to Join August National Golf Club Real Easy
If it’s wacky you want it’s wacky you’ll get with Toonamint of Champions Georgia humorist Todd Sentell’s spoof about a golf nut’s lifelong dream to putt around the Augusta National Golf Course and as a bonus have his non-golfing hairdresser girlfriend LaJuanita Mumps pinned as “the first ever” female member of the Club.
Where else but in Sentell’s bubbly imagination could a kooky hero like Waymon Poodle from Mullet Luv Georgia rise to the top? A constant daydreamer with one blue eye and one green his office is located “right by the condom and genital lubricant counter” of a busy supermarket. He’s so addicted to golf he rents only apartments numbered 1931 to commemorate the year Bobby Jones debuted at the Augusta Masters. His bedroom replicates the course and believe it or not he prefers golfing to giving up his virginity to LaJuanita despite her come-ons. To complicate the comedy Waymon’s duffer of a supervisor is also named Waymon which leads to several convoluted conversations reminiscent of Abbottt and Costello routines. Toss in Poodle’s paranoia about Giant Cicada Killer Wasps and their impending take over of Augusta’s famous twelfth hole—despite the attempts of entomology professor Jeevpil Biswapati and his flamethrower—and you end up with a “toonamint” even the Marx brothers would roll their eyes at.
Sentell’s nine years as “the director of sales and marketing for an ootsie-tootsie private golf club” gives him the background material for carving up golf’s sacred rituals and icons of the greens. His expertise as an established humorist has him operating with wit and polish. The problem with humour though is that what tickles one man’s funny bone may aggravate another’s. Some readers may find the raunchy fondling between Augusta’s 79-year-old receptionist Betty Simpson and 42-year-old head accountant Frank Johnson (aka Emiglio Rafsooliwicki) not as hilarious as the author had hoped. Others may shy away from our hero’s abortive attempts to cover up Betty’s Bermuda Grass when she hikes her skirt to give Chi Chi Rodriguez a peek at her private turf. On the other hand Waymon’s volunteer position—position number 1931 by the way—as “Manager of the Rope at the Practice Facility Invitee Entrance and Exit” and his round of golf with The Golden Bear lead to moments of universal fun. His initial telephone conversation with Rafsooliwicki is true classic comedy while the episode of his orange jacket among all the green jackets in the Augusta Club’s dining room is Mastersful satire.
Regardless of which way your funny bone swings Sentell’s Toonamint of Champions will give a brand new meaning to “par for the course.”
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
