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Another effort on behalf of the weary subjects for whom the rules are directed, this attractive volume has much to commend it. One who intimately knows the rules, a member of the elite who regularly ace the Golf Digest quiz, tells me: "You don't have to be a lawyer to understand the rules, but it doesn't hurt." It also doesn't hurt that the unnamed authors offer up a cartoon guide, a proud terrier named Scottie. (Where have you gone, Mac Divot?)
Scottie will surely go further in his endeavor than the erstwhile Snoopy did in a byzantine paperback issued several years ago by your U.S.G.A. A codebook to deciphering slope, course ratings and handicaps, it was replete with tables that might've been drawn up by your friends at Internal Revenue.
In real life, of course, the rules needn't be the bureaucratic shackles the majority of serfs believe them to be. Thankfully, Scottie steers clear of the Perils of Pauline-esque morass of "What if?" questions. What if Ed, in his match with Bill, in an attempt to deter a swarm of killer bees, happens to make contact with a pomegranate in a bunker (when there are no pomegranates growing in the vicinity . . . ?
Whether it's Snoopy, Scottie, or a team of happy dinosaurs, the legalese is inescapable. Sooner or later we must approach the bench and attempt to interpret and apply the law. Fortunately, we're offered a more holistic, even proactive, tack to improving our mindfulness. We're given context and explanations. These can only help create awareness of our plight on those occasions when we can't play the ball down or the course as we find it.
Rating: Cat-Stroker * * *
Surprising, really, given its importance that the tour's fraternal pledge drive hardly registers on the big screen. Not to the players, of course. They know it as an Everest of emotional and physical challenge ideally best avoided. (Tell that to Phil McGleno nee Mac O'Grady, a 17-time! repeat offender.)
The final stage of qualifying inflicts a special kind of torment. In the eyes of a keen observer, it is the P.G.A. Tour's "thinning of the herd," "a 170-man police lineup," a "dance marathon" conducted over "an ocean of strokes and holes."
How it came to be, especially the journey, provides a rich vein of stories from pathetic to jubilant. There is the shot that ricochets out of the cup into light rough; three to get down and a missed card by a stroke. And the guy who "chokes his guts out on the last day," bogeying six of the last nine. Hello (real) world.
Peter Jacobson recalls having to keep a cheater's scorecard for two rounds. But few stories can top Jim McLean's experience, or its happy ending. On the cusp of securing his card, a disastrous (perhaps, in the long run, fortuitous) scrap with a North Carolina sheriff leads to a sleepless night in jail. He finished 77 and 73, missing by three shots. "My teaching career began that day," he said.
Less than 30 percent of all Q School alumni play well enough to keep their diplomas, a discouraging stat. One has to wonder just how much is sapped from the karmic well by the experience. After all, a card only gets you in the door, a (long) shot at the marquee stars. There is hope. Loren Roberts survived it five times.
The author wisely avoids airing out the violins and sticks to hitting his fairways and greens. He also presents detailed records of the 35-year old event, an intriguing statistical travelogue. We also get a walk-through on the evolution of the P.G.A. Tour, which will be of service to anyone who doesn't recognize the distinction with the P.G.A. of America.
Low thirty-five and ties. That's the bottom line. There may be other more equitable ways to determine who makes the grade but none more excruciating. Those without any pretension of hitting the big time will enjoy the book. Those harboring a dream should proceed with caution.
Rating: Cat-Stroker * * *
Karsten Solheim can take his place in a long line of tough immigrant industrialists. He was a hard case, uncommunicative, difficult, driven, impossible to please as a husband and father, but a benevolent dictator in the best tradition of the Old School. There was Karsten's way and the wrong way. Yet, he remains the best friend the L.P.G.A. ever had, unquestionably one of the game's true innovators.
Sadly, this company-approved spin badly misses
the mark. A torturous read, it's neither incisive nor inspirational (subtitle: The Life-Changing Story of Karsten Solheim - Pioneer in Golf Club Design and the Founder of PING). It succeeds only in recounting wife Louise's family history. Given the company's success and influence, to find the author's scope the size of an Eye2 iron sweet spot comes as a major disappointment.
Sweeping generalizations flit by. Perhaps no one wanted to speak on the record as no reflections of pro golfers are included. Too much is sloughed off, too much glossed over giving us only glimpses of the ferocity that drove Solheim, whether he was selling Miracle Maid cookware or making the best irons in history. (While an engineer with GE, he also invented "rabbit ears" for the first portable televisions.)
Finally, at book's end, we get something to sink our teeth into, his business precepts, among them:
Manage by walking around.
Never ignore a ringing phone.
Never abide shortcuts, shoddy work, or bargain buying
at the expense of the final product.
Always do your best on every piece your work on.
But without the big picture, even the occasional passing glimpse comes up dry and hollow. Solheim inevitably remains an enigma. No doubt he would never have approved of the kind of penetrating outside scrutiny that would make compelling reading.
Rating: Rodney Spelvin *
Well, not exactly light reading. My wife's Odhams and Blackwell Complete Works of Shakespeare is only marginally larger.
Here the affable scientist who has parlayed his enthusiasm, curiosity and analytical training into a successful cottage industry focuses on the aspect of the game for which surely the worlds of Art, Mystery, Fate and Alchemy collide.
For those with a more creationist outlook (What, after all, is feel?), Professor Putt's scope and even his methodology may be more than a bit overwhelming. Our increasing faith in the power of technology notwithstanding, golf - Tiger included - remains more than the sum of engineered parts. Pelz certainly realizes this and he is not an evolutionary locomotive out to inveigh golf's Bunyanesque mystery. Rather, he stresses that his efforts are meant to help those who struggle to enjoy the game by improving their understanding. Breaking the game down and reassembling it is an arduous process. And change doesn't come cheap either; to his credit the pros have to ante up to attend his schools just like everybody else.
Iconoclasts needn't worry. Despite his best efforts, he knows that as long as humans are pulling it back, the result remains uncertain. His own research confirms that, aside from Perfy the putting robot, there is the matter of the subconscious, and it always wins.
Many will be more inclined to turn to his regular Golf magazine articles. His new testament (there's the Short Game Bible and still in print, the seminal Putt Like the Pros), bears unfortunate textbook trappings. The reader is continually buffeted, and has to stop reading to keep up with a dizzying array of photos and graphics illustrating an avalanche of intriguing data.
On a breaking putt, for instance, we're asked to mull over: slope, wind, green speed, grain, moisture content, soil humidity, the lumpy doughnut (an invaluable Pelz discovery) and a golf ball's balance. Mercy!
As many have noted, including Mr. Updike who delightfully described pouring a cup of tea in the manner of golf instruction, were we to consciously deal with all the points of interest in, say, walking, we'd never make a step.
"I've probably thought more about putting than most golfers," he concludes, "but I never think about putting when I putt." These words should be highlighted. His popularity attests that his students take it to heart. They thus avoid ending up like the friend whose system at the track was so complicated that he often couldn't finish his calculations in time to get a bet down.
Rating: Cat-Stroker * * *
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Golf Gadgets
By Dale Ratermann & Steve Greenberg
Sports Publishing Inc. 1999
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A hundred and forty-eight pages of golf jokes, tips,
and cheery plugs for companies peddling products destined for garage sale tables: Slick Willie golf balls (Might there be a special on these?), seat belts for golf cars ($23.10), stroke counters, etc.
Golfer: Would you mind wading into the pond
and retrieving my ball?
Caddie: Why?
Golfer: It's my lucky ball.
Rating: Scooper * *
Light Reading - Edition I
Light Reading - Edition II
Light Reading - Edition III
Light Reading - Edition IV
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