Lady Be Good by Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Avon)

Kenny Traveler is a famous golfer who was on a hot streak winning PGA titles when the acting commisionner, Dallie Beaudine hero of another SEP book "Fancy Pants", suspends him from the tour after a scandal involving Kenny's accountant embezzling lots of money and sending it to South American drug dealers or something and then Kenny getting into a fight with a newscaster and accidentally hitting his ex-girlfriend in the process.  Dallie was the guy that got Kenny into golf in the first place, turning him around after a lifetime of being spoiled rotten by his mother and ignored by his business tycoon father, so this hurts even more, but Dallie's wife Francesca has promised Kenny that if he helps her out by showing her British friend Lady Emma Wells-Finch around while she does some research and has a mini-vacation in Texas. 

Emma however has an ulterior motive in coming to Texas: she needs to do something scandalous as she's being pressured to marry the Duke of Beddington as she's got a good reputation, is titled, well-educated and a virgin.  The Duke is threatening to sell off St. Gert's, the school where she was raised and educated (her parents sort of ditched her there while they pursued archeology) and where she is now headmistress, if she doesn't marry him, so she accepted the proposal and hopes to make him call it off.  Not realizing this, Kenny pretends to be a "male escort" and not just her local escort, which entices Emma until she realizes he's actually a pro golfer.  They end up going to Kenny's small hometown Wynette where Emma tries to act out to scare off the Duke (whose spies she thinks are following her)...

This is a very amusing book really.  There's not too much sports since Kenny is suspended from the tour, but what is there feels pretty realistic to me, and I always find the sports angle interesting.  Emma is unfortunately not my favorite as a thiry-something virgin, but still the banter between her and Kenny is quite fun to read.  And I liked the secondary romance between Kenny's sister Torie (who has been divorced twice and bought emus to help make herself financially solvent before the second divorce but then couldn't see them killed for meat as they should've been) and the son of her father's business rival, Dex O'Conner, even more.