Steve Carell will tee off in Boston-based golf comedy "Missing Links"

October 27, 8:54 AMBoston Golf ExaminerEmily Kay

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Steve Carell to star in golf comedy "Missing Links"

(Jacket illustration: Bob Larkin)

Boston native Steve Carell of The Office fame will take aim at Boston golf courses in a new comedy based on Rick Reilly’s hilarious golf novel, Missing Links.

Ponkapoag Golf Course in Canton, MA, thinly disguised as “Ponkaquogue Municipal Golf Links and Deli,” is the star of Reilly’s 1996 story about a gang of “chops” (Ponky for “hackers”) who grow tired of playing at what Golf Illustrated dubs “possibly the worst golf course in America.” Led by Raymond Lee Hart, a “lame” book reviewer, the Ponky boys scheme about ways to crash the snooty, ultra-private “The Mayflower Club.” The “Protestant Paradise” is just next door but separated by “a 12-foot brick wall that divided Us from Them.”

In true life, Brookline’s The Country Club is nowhere near the actual Ponky, which is not really a “pitiful, dog-meat, kennel run of a golf course,” but you get the picture.

Must-read. You’ll also enjoy the suspense and mystery in “Missing Links,” which is a must-read for any golfer. But beware: If swinging through your own shadow distracts you now, you’ll never view your hazy image on the tee again without cursing Hart and the boys.

For your edification, Boston Golf Examiner offers a glossary of some other Ponky-isms:

• Golf clubs -- “Hickories” or “bats,” as in, “Hoover just made a 13. I don’t think he’s gettin’ along with his new bats.”
• Playing golf -- “Chasing some balata.”
• Shooting a bad round -- Putting up a “radio station,” as in, “Damn, I’m on my way to a serious radio station today.” “Magic 103?” “Worse. Zoo 105.”
• Reversals -- A betting game in which your opponent can tee up your ball and drill it as far as possible inbounds in the opposite direction. For example, “You have not lived until you’ve played a 674-yard par-4 from the edge of some lake, lying two.”

Reilly penned the book while writing for Sports Illustrated. Now a columnist for ESPN the Magazine and ESPN.com, Reilly also wrote the screenplay for the 2008 George Clooney football comedy, Leatherheads.

All Boston all the time. As for the film, Boston native Carell’s Carousel Productions will produce the Warner Bros. Pictures movie. Carousel’s Vance DeGeneres (Ellen’s brother) and Charlie Hartsock will tee it up as executive producers, Bobby Cohen will produce, and Jay Lavender will write the screenplay.

Carell was born in Concord, MA, in 1962. With the Hub the new East Coast Hollywood, look for Carell, et al, to film Missing Links in and around Boston golf courses.

It sounds as if Ponky may have something in common (grit and gravel) with the new longest golf course in the world. Check out World’s longest golf course opens in Australia.

Watch Steve Carell's Michael Scott declare bankruptcy in this short clip from The Office: