HumanGolf.com

Vintage HumanGolf Article

By Martin Vousden

PREV: Part 1

Strokes of Genius, Thomas Boswell

Thoughtful, beautifully-written essays on the enduring and eternal appeal of golf, the landscapes over which it is played and the people who play it at the highest level. What more do you want? “I liked the bit where the big shark ate all the tourists.” – Sandy Lyle

Fairways and Greens, Dan Jenkins

An anthology (that means “collection” Lee) by the best golf journalist still working. Jenkins is American, old, irascible, bad-tempered and very funny. He cut his teeth writing about Ben Hogan for a local Texas newspaper and followed the miserable bastard for the rest of his glorious career, taking in every Major and big star since. No respecter of reputation, he tells the truth and can be forgiven anything — including his love of playing golf from a motorized buggy. “It’s got a lot of words, hasn’t it?” – Robbie Williams

The Modern Fundamentals of Golf, Ben Hogan

Okay, we’ll break our own rules on “no instruction books” because this is, simply, the best ever written, by one of the greatest players to squint into the sun trying to decide if it’s a 6 or 7-iron to the green. Hogan was plagued in his early years by a vicious hook and learned almost all he knew about golf by hitting balls and thinking about the results before hitting some more — his practice routine made Vijay Singh look like a layabout. Larry Nelson was one of many to learn the game entirely from this book and went on to win three Majors and his first nine Ryder Cup matches on the bounce. And even if you never read the thing, you should have a copy on your bookshelves…

1. to suggest you know something about the game
2. in homage to the great man.

“I wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole.” – Randy Huckenputz, 53 handicap

The Search for the Perfect Golf Club, Tom Wishon (with Tom Grundner)

Let’s face it, golf equipment is too technical, we’re all baffled by bulls**t and manufacturers shovel it towards us by the bucketful. The net result is that we spend far too much money on clubs that are ill-suited to our swing and game, persisting in the delusional belief that we can buy better scores. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you can improve with the right equipment (but rarely with “off the shelf” clubs), and this book tells you exactly how to find it. The author has credentials and inside knowledge up to here but most importantly, never forgets that he’s talking to technical morons, and therefore makes the study of equipment easy and understandable. You should never spend more than $10 on a piece of golf equipment without first reading this book. “My coefficient of restitution has never been better.” – Tiger Woods

Decisions on the Rules of Golf, The R&A and USGA

No, really, this is truly an excellent book and one that will give you hours of harmless fun. We all find the Rules incomprehensible but this at least helps understand not only the laws themselves but the rationale behind some of the dafter things we can and cannot do on the golf course. It is astonishing the sort of questions that people ask our legislators. For example, someone enquired: “If an opponent or fellow competitor is asked to attend the flagstick and refuses, do I have any redress?” (which we interpret to mean: “Can I thump him?”) and was told “No.” It conjures up all sorts of images of feuding golfers having a bad tempered match to the point where one rejects the suggestion that he should hold the flag and the other gets so het up about it that he asks his club secretary to write to the R&A. “Doh!” – Homer Simpson

The Golf Omnibus, P.G. Wodehouse

The master of all humorous golf writers, Wodehouse has been oft imitated but never bettered. He has introduced us all to the idea of a golfer being disturbed by the uproar of butterflies in an adjoining meadow; that a man can hold in contempt only three things — slugs, poets and caddies with hiccups; and of another folding his beloved into his arms, using an interlocking grip. The language is a delight and this is a rarity among golf books in that it can be dipped into and re-read time and again with no loss of pleasure, to be reminded, among other things, of the group of golfing rabbits who held another player in high esteem because he once broke 90. “it ws nt rlly my srt of thng if u no wot I mean” – Michelle Wie (via text)

Gettin’ to the Dance Floor, Al Barkow

The past is a different country and they did things differently there, as this enjoyable book so vividly tells us. It describes the earliest days of the US PGA Tour, where it was a struggle for even the best to simply survive, by the simple expedient of talking to them. Many — such as Sam Snead, Byron Nelson and Gene Sarazen — will be familiar but many others — Bill Spiller, Ernie Ball and Leo Fraser — less so. Nevertheless, they all have fascinating stories to tell about life on Tour before endorsements, sponsorship deals, courtesy cars and golf groupies had been invented. “Grrr.” – Tommy ‘Thunder’ Bolt

Martin Vousden is a freelance golf writer, a former editor of Today’s Golfer and launch editor of Golf Buyer and Swing magazines. His book, With Friends Like These; A Selective History of the Ryder Cup, was published in 2006 by Time Warner. He edits the RareBirdie.com website.