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Raising the Bar
The Championship Years of Tiger Woods
by Tim Rosaforte
Thomas Dunne Books, 2000
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Keeping up is a challenge for those on the Tiger beat. It hasn't stopped them, of course - we're at some 72 books, and counting. As in all celebrity books, the difficulty here is in getting inside the fishbowl. Tiger's maintained privacy is perhaps his greatest achievement to date on a par with Garbo or Lindbergh, never mind three straight majors and records dating back to Old Tom Morris.
The army public information officer's son was taught early on to be cagey with the media. Shields in place, early forays, even gentle jokes from the golf press, which after all is anything but cutthroat, were met with cold angry stares. His responses routinely revealed little more than name, rank and club selection.
The smile would come but first were the sorts of hurdles that consume mere mortals, in Tiger's case: the consummation of landmark deals, a near Beatlesque ascension, shrapnel from the father's overbearance, and a few minor but notable public scrapes, followed by reminders that the prodigy was still at an impressionable age and deserving of a break. His golf, it's easy to say in hindsight, was never really a concern.
Senior writer for Golf World, Rosaforte acknowledges the inherent difficulties trailing in Tiger's wake, but until Tiger himself tells us, we're left with a warehouse of superlatives from others trying to provide some perspective without overdoing it. Reading these one after the other is
a bit like having four desserts.
Ultimately, it all comes down to the steak, not the sizzle, as the Anna Kournikova's of the world eventually learn. Jim Thorpe put it this way: "From the No. 1 player in the world to the guy who finishes rock bottom if you can play, they're going to pay you. If you're colorful, they're going to pay you more." Tiger's played superlatively but, remarkably, he's also kept everything in his personal life neat and tidy.
There are no shortage of folks willing to express their opinions, even if Tiger was busy. Byron Nelson says he reads greens better than anyone he's seen in 75 years. Tiger's not done, of course, far from it, and while this book provides a useful point of reference, and some good stories from a man on the beat (Tiger's so worked up with fly fishing, he practices casting in the shower!), the best is still to come. And unless he relinquishes control - highly unlikely - the last word will be his and his alone.
Rating: Cat-Stroker * * *
The morning after the Millenium Open spectators returned to the Old Course to have their photos taken standing inside the Road Hole bunker. How many other bunkers anywhere in the world merit that kind of celebrity?
This is a lovely book, perhaps more so for those who have their own stories to tell. Having stood in the bunker on the Monday, with the cavity in the wall showing where the BBC camera was inserted, one could vicariously feel the terror. Where better to consider the fate of Doug Sanders, who got up and down beautifully with a pitching wedge in the final round in 1970, but no one remembers that.
So many disasters, both famous and forgotten. In "Card Wrecker," we learn that Bob Jones once missed a two-footer on 17, after playing a superlative pitch over the bunker. He could've been the first to play the Old Course without a five on his card but an R&A official happened to mention the possibility on the first tee. The comment stuck in Jones's craw and apparently
ate him up.
On Saturday of the 2000 Open, Eduard Romero get up and down from the road, the best shot I've ever seen. There was Mr. Duval's imbroglio - and Notah Begay's dramatic play from the Swilcan Burn back to the 17th green on Friday. New chapters for the next edition!
They paved the road, for some reason, in 1998. One journalist described this as "an act of vandalism which those with any understanding of the place could scarcely believe." There have been other changes. The course has turned around some over the centuries. Seventeen was once a par five. The train that provided even more character to the hole is gone, a victim of budget cuts. Where once you aimed for the small 'd' in "D. Anderson & Sons" painted on a black shed used for drying shafts, now you shoot over the 'O' in "St. Andrews Old Course & Hotel" sign painted on an ersatz shed.
After reading about the hole, one could conclude that maybe it's best enjoyed from a distance. There was once a shot, described by the author, as akin to landing a 757 with "full reverse thrusters down a children' slide," over the bunker. Vinny Giles, playing in a Walker Cup match, did his best but he couldn't keep his ball from trickling over the other side of the green onto the road. As it happened, he then skulled his sand wedge. The ball flew towards the pin, hit it, and dropped in for four. His opponent, future R&A secretary Michael Bonallack had a three-footer to tie. But this was the Road Hole and his knee-knocker to halve the hole was missed. This could've happened on another hole, just like Jones's putt, or Joyce Wethered putting through an engineer's whistle and never hearing it. But it didn't. It happened here. Call it whatever you wish.
Rating: Whip-Cracker * * * *.
This is a portion of memoirs from a spirited yet often thoughtful bon vivant who travels the golf world at the behest of Delta Air Line's flight magazine. There is the luxurious barge trip through Scotland, a turn schlepping Jack Nicklaus's bag at a course opening and, inevitably, tours of duty through southern Spain and France (largely unrecognized for their golf, if not without reason).
He's not shy with his finds, which is often an occupational hazard of the grizzled travel writer. Paid to inform, they ironically become cagey, jaded, suspicious and ultimately reluctant to tell anybody anything much of value at all.
The author keeps his head, keeps it light and airy, without overdoing more than the occasional "Here I am, look at me tra la, tra lee." A personal favorite, he says, for those considering a stab at golf et gourmet is Jogny, in Burgundy. This is apparently the rural outpost of the three-star La Cote St. Jacques, run by the famous Lorain, a distinguished chef and confirmed golfer. "Golf in the morning, romance in the afternoon, sea scallops in a cappucino broth (seriously!) at night, a bottle of premier cru Chablis to send you off to bed." He can't help himself here but such is life in the trenches.
One can only imagine the great pleasure these reflections provide his audience, vicariously sharing the fun while pinned to their seats waiting out a second mechanical delay or savoring their bag of mixed nuts in the private hell of steerage that is modern-day air travel.
The player profiles are not quite as entertaining. Time has a way of taking the shine off any player's rise, and thus Corey Pavin, to pick one example, while once the cat's meow, has faded. And even the great Darwin would have difficulty finding something charming to say about Senior PGA Tour stalwart Jim Colbert. There are telling moments nonetheless, as when a mellowed Ray Floyd gives his pro golf aspirant sons some fatherly advice. "I have no goals for you," he says. "If I can instill one idea, please remember: It's a game. Play for fun. Enjoy the walk. Enjoy the surroundings. Even when it's your job." Words, also, for the intrepid golf travel writer to live by.
Rating: Cat-Stroker * * *
Sadly, other than longing glances from the
17 Mile Drive, this is likely as close as most of us will come to one of golf's masterworks. The course gets a classy and enduring tribute. Old black & white stills are augmented with quotes from MacKenzie and associate Robert Hunter. So unlike the often gussied and glossy coffee table slabs, filled with touched up photos and glorified ad copy, this works very nicely indeed.
We're provided several looks at each hole, which helps immeasurably in following along. The author provides concise comments with the aforementioned founder's notes and reflections. There are many shots of the solitary figure of MacKenzie admiring his work. Rightly so. Were there college courses taught on bunkering (perhaps there are), this would make an outstanding text. How pleased he must've been. The bunkering and subtle mounding, from the photos at least, is splendid. His use of depth and combining the artificial with the natural, a legacy of the good doctor's interest in camouflage, is evidenced to timeless effect. The backdrop of the Pacific, stoic cypress and Monterey pines doesn't hurt either.
Ego is something taken for granted in the artistic world. Sometimes it can be excused. With Cypress Point, MacKenzie deserves the last word. "For years," he wrote, "I have been contending that in our generation no other golf course could possibly compete with the strategic problems, the thrills, excitement, variety and lasting and increasing interest of the Old Course, but the completion of Cypress Point has made me change my mind."
Now, unless the good folks at Sleeping Bear Press sponsor a contest for a tee time . . .well, we'll just have to take Dr. MacKenzie's word on it.
Rating: Whip-Cracker * * * *
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The Golf Gods are Laughing
Lesions The Confessions, Obsessions
and Insights of a Golf Addict
by Robert Bruce Woodcox
Seven Locks Press, 1999
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About this book, actor Billy Barty (Yes, the Billy Barty; passed away recently, didn't he?) had this to say: "I got a lot more laughs out of this very funny book than I ever did on the course. Everyone always tells me, Billy, the golf gods have blessed you. You should automatically win closest to the hole all the time."
Golf with Billy Barty. Now there's a thought. Jacket quotes from B.B.? Awesome. This book, unfortunately, left me stymied. If you play the game at all few of these confessions, obsessions or insights will strike you as especially original, noteworthy or interesting. If you don't play golf, you'd hardly care. The author, a California ad man, once grievously injured himself attacking a ball washer. He does come out against plumb-bobbing, as "part showmanship, part surveying, and mostly wasting time." Points for that and for condemning the appalling disregard of those who scoop a ball from the hole with their putter. But here again the compass slips, at once from ill-advised instruction (practice swings into a tire) to the sorts of discoveries that seem novel and important
to all of us at the time but are, upon consideration, hardly revelatory.
Rating: Scooper * *
Light Reading - Edition I
Light Reading - Edition II
Light Reading - Edition III
Light Reading - Edition IV
Light Reading - Edition V
Light Reading - Edition VI
Light Reading - Edition VII
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