When Tim Dobel is not busy running Mocha Mott’s, the coffee shop co-owner is a songwriter, a traveler and a golfer.

In May, he added another trade: author. Mr. Dobel’s mustached smile beams on the cover of his self-published debut book, Bogey IS Par: The Revised Rules of Golf.

In his lighthearted manual, Mr. Dobel proposes a new set of rules for golf that he hopes will remind readers to maintain a sense of humor about the game.

“Golf is really hard to be good at, but it’s a really fun game to play,” Mr. Dobel said in a recent interview. “Too many guys take it too seriously — I was taking it way too seriously.”

The book’s 90 pages follow a basic structure: 18 rules for 18 holes. The first and most important rule is “always have fun.” Other guidelines suggest that “There Is No Out of Bounds” (Hole #3) and that it is perfectly okay to start over at the ninth hole.

In the book, Mr. Dobel shares anecdotes from the links that range from countless balls lost to the trees to heckling President Bill Clinton, whose laissez-faire attitude toward the game is reminiscent of Mr. Dobel’s own, he said.

President Barack Obama’s game on the other hand, according to Mr. Dobel, is a bit more traditional.

“Number 44 didn’t need the Revised Rules of Golf to card a decent number,” Mr. Dobel writes.

Mr. Dobel moved to the Island in 1979 and worked as a chef until purchasing Mocha Mott’s with his business partner, Meredith Aldrich, in 2001. It was around the same time that he came up with the idea for his book.

“I was playing with the same guys that I had for a long time, and they’re all funny as the devil,” Mr. Dobel said. “I started just writing stuff down, the stuff they say and the things they do.”

Bogey IS Par is filled with witty wordplay and tongue-in-cheek jabs at golf culture and its evolution on the Vineyard since Mr. Dobel washed ashore almost 50 years ago. Farm Neck Golf Club, he said, once cost just $40 to join. While the club continues to maintain a public/private status, there is a long waitlist and hefty initiation fee to join.

“The book is about the way golf on the Island was and will never be again,” Mr. Dobel said.

For 20 years, Mr. Dobel bought his golf balls from Mike Amaral, who played with many of the same characters as Mr. Dobel. Mr. Amaral was born and raised on the Island and spent his afternoons teeing up with friends. He suffered a stroke in 2002 that cost him his mobility. Mr. Amaral said that reading Mr. Dobel’s book brought him a welcome feeling of nostalgia.

“It’s about us, the old Vineyard dogs,” Mr. Amaral said. “It’s just terrific.”

Mr. Dobel calls himself a semi-Buddhist and encourages his readers and his customers at Mocha Mott’s — golfers and otherwise — to slow down and go with the flow.

“In golf and in life, you have to be relaxed and present in the moment,” Mr. Dobel said, pausing to take a sip of steaming tea. “If you get to live long enough, you realize that if you’re going to spend your whole life all anxious and twisted up about things, you’re not going to enjoy yourself very much.”

“We try to infuse that same spirit of life into Mocha Mott’s,” he continued. “It is a light-hearted place that welcomes everybody — left, right, center, whatever. Just leave your stuff outside and come in and enjoy yourself.”

The book ends at the 19th hole, with a poem Mr. Dobel believes synthesizes his message: “The winning and the losing/They say is much the same/’Cause those old boys/Just love that old game.”

Bogey IS Par is available at Island bookstores and online.