WorldGolf com`s must-read summer golf books - Old Tom Morris, Feinstein, short game tips, more
Released on = July 3, 2007, 1:49 pm
Press Release Author = GolfPublisher Syndications
Industry = Media
Press Release Summary = A summer reading list for golfers. Feature stories at WorldGolf.com
Press Release Body = By Kiel Christianson, Senior Writer, Golf Publisher Syndications
Golfers are always learning something about the game - or at least they should be. On second thought, maybe the reason the sport is so hard is that we don\'t put forth the energy, physical or mental, to learn enough. How many golfers do you know who swear they can drive the pond on the 16th hole, only to splash into it again and again and again?
This summer\'s reading list is devoted to golf books about learning: learning about the game, learning about each person\'s own game and maybe even learning something new about ourselves.
Tommy\'s Honor by Kevin Cook (Gotham, $27.50)
Old Tom Morris has grown, lamentably, into an almost unbearable cliché to many golfers. This book chronicles all that is not cliché: how Old Tom outlived his son, Young Tom (who died at his playing peak, at just 24), by almost 30 years, and how Old Tom was finally done in by a blind hazard. Such is the stuff of tragic a hero, not gimmicky NXT commercials.
This wonderful book about the founding father of golf and his immensely gifted son is more than parable and more than history - or rather it is all of these spun in prose that flows as smoothly as Old Tom swung his legendary swing. Most of all, it is a father-son story that captures the essence of so many filial relationships:
\"At home the old man was kind, even tender. ... But there was no kindness on the links, where Tommy was beaten again and again, leaving him to dream of the day he would win at last.\"
Tales From the Q School by John Feinstein (Little, Brown, $27) Several years ago, I penned the aphorism \"If dreams can come true, then logically so can nightmares.\" Feinstein\'s similarly titled first chapter, \"Dreams (and Nightmares) Come True,\" foreshadows the manic highs and lows of professional golf\'s cruelest test: Qualifying (Q) School.
The competitors Feinstein profiles throughout this intensely personal, brutally honest and deeply empathetic book battle themselves and one another to make it to the PGA Tour. But this is a world where not even playing well can assure you a tour card. Poor Jaxon Brigman accidentally signed for a score one stroke higher than what he actually shot and missed graduating to the tour by that single, misbegotten stroke.
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July 3, 2007 Any opinions expressed above are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the management.