I Remember Payne Stewart By Michael Arkush Cumberland House, 2000

There's a nice photo in Mark James's potboiler about the Ryder Cup. Payne Stewart and Jose Maria Olazabal are cheek to cheek (this from the '93 matches), arms around each other, smiling and looking slightly bleary. One can't help but think who else on the American side would so casually let down his guard and fraternize with the "enemy." Tom Lehman? Curtis Strange? Tom Kite? Frankly, who else but Payne?

Another Ryder Cup tale: Tony Jacklin got up to say a few words as captain at the '87 matches. Going down the line, for some reason he went blank, "deaf as a post," he said, when he got to Stewart. Jacklin finally recovered but only after a loud stage prompt. Later that night, when he returned to his hotel room, a photo had been slipped under his door. Written over it: "Best wishes, Payne Stewart." By then the instincts of the prankster in knickers were well developed, and Jacklin never forgot the good-natured needle.

Ideal for those who want one remembrance rather than several, this oral history is a trove of insight. We learn, for instance, from an assistant back at Stewart's club in Missouri, that "From the time Payne was five years old, he was going to be nothing but a PGA Tour player. He never considered doing something else." There's some borderline unsporting behavior on the part of his father, the inherited cockiness of the prodigy that would manifest itself on several unfortunate occasions, and details of the inevitable slings and arrows challenging those who follow the sun.

His apparent transformation, newfound religious faith, and the untimeliness of his death are, to the author's credit, not milked to excess. Each is presented as facets of his character, part of the bigger picture, along with the blemishes.

Rating: Cat-Stroker * * *

Why Golf? By Bob Cullen Simon & Schuster, 2000

"Free drop from ground confiscated by the Republican Guards?"

"Of course."

The setting for this congenial exchange is wonderfully improbable: a goat ranch of a golf course in the process of being usurped by Iran's elite corps. We are in, of all places, present-day Tehran, where it is perhaps his good fortune that the infidel has an Arnold Palmer travel cover in Islamic-green.

The author, who serves as Dr. Bob Rotella's Boswell, is a splendid guide to examining the game played between the ears. He has what so many of those mining the skull orchard, and instruction generally, lack: a sophisticated sense of humor and the awareness and appreciation of a good story.

There's visits with Bob Toski, enigmatic Hogan slayer Jack Fleck, writer turned architect Tom Doak, the timeless turn of the century writing of Arnold Haultain, whose The Mystery of Golf provides the spark, and mention of several other books perhaps less familiar to Golf Digest subscribers: among them The Moral Animal and The Biophilia Hypothesis, the latter of which proffers an intriguing theory linking the pleasures of golf with the survival skills of early Man.

Whether these issues ever make it to the 19th hole, Cullen keeps things moving. He doesn't miss much. Watching Tiger Woods turn down autographing an unauthorized biography, he writes: "I felt a stab of sympathy for a kid who, at the age of twenty-two, had become part of an operation whose rules and mores required him on occasion to be rude to elderly men."

Deep in field research, he lobs this doozy during a press conference: "Uh, Tiger, I was wondering if you ever read Plato and the analogy of the caves and, if you did, whether you see the golf game you play as analogous to breaking out of the cave and seeing things in their ideal form?"

"Whoosh," replies the mystified pro. "Right over my head."

Fortunately, sometimes even a whiff can have edifying and entertaining results.

Rating: Whip-Cracker * * * *

Driving Myself Crazy By Jessica Maxwell Bantam Books, 2000

The schedule conflict dooming this year's women's open and the LPGA's routine sponsorship fires remind us that women's golf remains socked in with karmic cloud cover. Woefully underserved, things can hardly be said to be better at the amateur level. The statistics bear out a revolving door of enthusiastic aspirants who just as quickly depart rather than struggle with a bewildering set of chauvinistic entrance exams.

Ms. Maxwell, an accomplished fly-fisherwoman and professed "non-jockette," blithely dives in headfirst. Part Margaret Mead, part George Plimpton, with liberal dabs of Joan Rivers, our Jess whirls her transatlantic way on a lively golfing Perils of Pauline. There are cute instructors, trials by fire, a few brushes with greatness, the inevitable spiritual revelations and a smidgeon of Harlequin romantic intrigue.

En route she confuses the container of mulch on a cart as some sort of male urinary device and generally lays it on a little thick. In several agonizing stretches of "Who's on first?" like dialogue, she eventually "gets" the meaning of "carrying" a hazard and the Scottish word burn.

For a jaded white male, clearly not the intended audience, the girl gab is fairly numbing. ("Ralph Lauren makes golf clothes?!" chirps an excitable friend.) The book succeeds best when the focus is on something other than the author. We get a lovely rendering of Peggy Kirk Bell in her element, and enjoy an original tour of St. Andrews from several wise and tolerant female natives. There is common ground with the grass ceiling it seems, even in the old country.

" 'Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden,' " one tells her. "Use t' be so many signs sayin' that on courrses all over Scotland that many people think that's where the worrd 'golf' came from. It isn't but yoo know, it might as well 'a been."

Rating: Cat-Stroker * * *

You're Not Lifting Your Head By Charlie King UnCommon Golf, 2000

This self-published melodrama/infomercial suffers from stilted writing and plodding characterizations, but the underlying message, offering a methodology for improvement, is undoubtedly sound. Good teachers, as we should all recognize and be thankful for, are not confined to The Golf Channel and the magazines. Many dispense solace in relative obscurity. It's one of the injustices of the business that in the eyes of many an instructor's star is unfairly hitched to the prospects of this or that pro tourist. Harvey Penick helped an untold number of golfers. It just so happened that a handful of them proved to be truly special, or the world outside of Texas would likely never have known. It goes without saying that equally amiss is the public's perception of the value of a dollar when it comes to golf instruction. Our story follows the adventures of everyman duffer, J.B., a good father, husband and devoted Tennessee Volunteer fan. His world is inhabited by the good-natured friends who regularly pick his pocket on the weekend, his caring wife, his own misgivings, the sadistic local driving range pro, (Boo!), and the white knight who offers free clinics and helps J.B. turn things around, find sanity and redemption in his golf and shoot his best round. (Yay!) "We're going to learn golf the same way a person learns piano or martial arts," his mentor tells him: "one skill at a time, in a progression from simple to complex." The prescription is administered in palatable doses and, with application, J.B. sees results. Fortunately, for J.B., as with most of us, it's not nearly as bad as it seems.

Rating: Scooper * *

A Golfer's Day with the Master By Dorothy K. Ederer Doubleday, 2000

With all the world's problems one marvels that the Lord still can make time for birdies and bogeys. Even before Payne Stewart's tragic passing, the PGA Tour has been a bastion of belief in the power of prayer. Given the apparent interest in making golf something more than a compelling game played in attractive surroundings, the only surprise is that there aren't more books riding the devotional confluence of golf and Christianity.

Sister Dorothy, we learn, co-directs an organization "dedicated to making the Gospels a living part of today's world." She apparently also golfs and her series of prayers, psalms and reflections are aimed at diverting the golfer, if only momentarily, from his earthly pursuits to more spiritual fairways.

Whether the reader is willing to make this leap of faith is a matter between each of us and the "Great Forecaddie," or, as Sister Dorothy continually refers to him, the "Divine Master." There was that time Sister Dorothy carded an ace from the white tees, and no doubt all of us have seen or hit shots bordering on the miraculous, but Divine Intervention?

Psalm 23 The Lord is My Guide

"The Lord is my guide, I shall not worry.
In verdant courses He sets my feet.
From dangerous waters He leads me,
refreshing my spirit.

"He guides me on straight paths
for a clearer aim.
Even though at times I end up in rough places,
I have no fears, for the gentle Master
Is there to help me."

"With my woods and irons
I progress from tee to greens
With hope and exultation."