Sorry, but golf writing really isn't that good. Here's why?

[Tony_Muldoon]

I know brilliant writers.  I went to school with a few, I've worked with a few, I'm friends with a few and I regularly read the rest that are out there in the world.  There are none in golf, except maybe Dan Jenkins when he's on.  It's hard to do with a topic that simply isn't that intellectually challenging.

Stoln from another thread.

Compared to what I've read about other subjects, golf literature is second rate. There’s only one golf book I can imagine wanting to keep when I can no longer play and lose interest. (Dickenson)

Have you ever told someone who doesn't get golf they must read book "A" because it will clue them into something special?  We love Darwin etc because we're golf junkies, not because he has great things to tell us.

To me what's interesting is how golf operates in both the physical and the intellect at the same time. Hence we can be fascinated, while accepting that we can never know (master?) golf in its entirety.  I'm now going to contradict Dave and ask why there isn't more great golf writers/writing?

[Kyle Harris]

Tony,

If we really, really look into it. Golf rarely has the kind of "character" that makes for a good story. Sure, Tillinghast had his problems, but he was still a man of means - and if anything - his character was one of waster opportunities elsewhere than one of triumph or the rise of the every man.

It's difficult to write about people or ideas that are bred out of the lack of something better to do. The idea is for a good writer to find someone who has a real legitimate passion for the game or a certain aspect of the game, and frankly, those people are sorely lacking.

I have a story concept, but little to no characters to drive it yet.

[Robert Thompson]

Quite an extraordinary thing to say. There are plenty of fine, even outstanding golf writers whose work transcends the ordinary. I'd argue that was the case with Wind, and that I found the early work of Feinstein really dug into the subjects and the material. Michael Bamberger is a writer who offers insights, and I think James Dodson, both in his first person material (The Dewsweepers, Final Rounds) and his biography of Hogan demonstrated his ability to tell a compelling story.

I'd also argue that the two golf books by Mark Frost are exceptional, though not necessarily for their historical fact. More for their readability and ability to link a variety of story lines.

To say, however, that golf writing, "isn't that good," is surely speaking in hyperbole.

[Robert Thompson]

I think our opinions on this are quite a ways apart. However, I'd argue that Frost's books have crossed over outside of the golf market, which makes them a significant success for a sport that has a lot of navel-gazing.

Out of interest, what would you characterize as a truly "good" book? Perhaps throw out a sports book and a work of fiction. At least then I'd have a sense of where you're coming from.

I'd suggest, for example, that Friday Night Lights is the best sports book ever written.

[Mike_Cirba]

Maybe Barney can write a scathing, gonzo expose of online architectural discussion groups?

I'd buy it, even if it didn't reach Hunter Thompson-like levels of.notoriety and intrigue. 

[George Pazin]

Have you ever told someone who doesn't get golf they must read book "A" because it will clue them into something special?  We love Darwin etc because we're golf junkies, not because he has great things to tell us.

I guess I'm weird. I don't think I've ever told anyone they must read ANY book because it will clue them into something special. I certainly wouldn't use a book to explain golf to someone who doesn't get golf. I think you only get golf by actually playing golf.

When you get right down to it, you only get out of something what you put into it. There's plenty of folks who could use a good read of Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell, but the only way they're getting anything out of it is if they actually think about what he writes. Most won't, most prefer to continue to believe their own beliefs.

It's the same reason that Huck Finn gets banned. Many see only the N word, not the literature.

I've found reason to enjoy the writing of many golf writers. I guess if you're looking for Joyce, you may go unfulfilled. I say may because I don't really get Joyce. Does that make me stupid? Maybe. Or maybe I'm just not willing to put in the effort to really think about what he wrote, understand and appreciate him.

[Kyle Harris]

Maybe Barney can write a scathing, gonzo expose of online architectural discussion groups?

I'd buy it, even if it didn't reach Hunter Thompson-like levels of.notoriety and intrigue. 

Barney is merely the online persona of the real John Kavanaugh.

As was stated last night: Kavanaugh online is merely his Kilgore Trout.

The whole problem is that John never got to the point where he had to insert his own form of Deus Ex:

"This isn't a very good book you're writing," I said.
"I know," I said.
"You're afraid of killing yourself like your mother," I told myself.
"I know," I said.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Wind is as unreadable as Faulkner and the Frost books are wonderful in lieu of dangerously addictive sleeping pills.

Maybe that's hyperbole; maybe it isn't ... but didn't you say something recently about defending the indefensible?

 

Gotcha

[George Pazin]

Even with the few replies in thus far, I'd have to say taste in the written word is right up there with taste in food and taste in music for subjectivity.

[Bob_Huntley]

Peripheral to the subject of golf but one of the most interesting reads connecting to the game, is Henry Longhurst's "My Life and Soft Times."

Like an old friend, it can be called upon years from its first reading to cherish and entertain.

Bob

[Bill Gayne]

I've always enjoyed Feinstein, Jenkins, and Updike writings on golf and they write to a broader audience beyond the golf junkie.

[Ken Moum]

I have to say that comparing golf writing to "literature" is hardly fair. Compared to the writing about other sports, it stands up very well, if you ask me.

It was Plimpton who said that the quality of writing about a sport was inversely proportional to the size of the ball.

Now, I may be crass, but I prefer the penultimate chapter of Dogged Victims.

K

[Kyle Harris]

I have to say that comparing golf writing to "literature" is hardly fair. Compared to the writing about other sports, it stands up very well, if you ask me.

It was Plimpton who said that the quality of writing about a sport was inversely proportional to the size of the ball.

Now, I may be crass, but I prefer the penultimate chapter of Dogged Victims.

K

There must be some fantastic Marbles writing then... 

[Mark Bourgeois]

To say golf has a literature is not to say golf writing is literature.  The quality of any such literature is more to do with the writers and not the sport; however, in the U.S. only baseball in quantity and boxing in quality can compete with golf as a sport for its attraction to top-flight writers.

Grantland Rice, Rick Reilly, Herbert Warren Wind, Tom Boswell, Leigh Montville, Frank Deford (a non-golfer whose 1998 diatribe against golf is a personal favorite -- we take what we can get from the greatest sportwriter who ever lived, or lives), these are but a few.  You will know of more.

Furthermore, it's important to remember that so much of the writing is done on deadline, and this includes even Wind, although the old New Yorker "deadlines" give the lie to the term.

As far as writings I think non-golfers would enjoy -- for I enjoyed many of these before I became a golfer -- a short list:

Rick Reilly's game stories on the 1986 Masters and on the 1995 Open Championship, written on deadline, have held up very well, as have Tom Boswell's pieces on the mental and physical architecture of ANGC -- held up as an evocation of a lost architecture, that is.

As far as essays, those published by John Updike (who wrote the best sports essay in U.S. history), David Owen (especially the first essay in "My Usual Game"), and George Peper.  All share the sublime and too-rare character of self-effacing humor.

George Plimpton did as well on golf, which is to say very good, as he did on other sports.  Impossible not to hear "Japanese admirals" and not smile.  I confess to hot-soaking my hands before a big match, too!  In the category of participative journalism, John Paul Newport's entry is another funny read.

Dan Jenkins deserves to be called the father of deadline golf writing -- and his novels will confuse no one with literature, least of all him, yet they are equal in quality to, say, the works of top-tier crime fiction writers.  (Let's remember that like the best sportswriters, he was drawn to golf but not only to golf -- "Semi-Tough" to offer the best example.)

And speaking of novelists, let's not forget Wodehouse, who still finds an audience of non-golfers.

There's a ton of dross out there, but that's true of everything, not just writing.

Mark

[Will MacEwen]

I think our opinions on this are quite a ways apart. However, I'd argue that Frost's books have crossed over outside of the golf market, which makes them a significant success for a sport that has a lot of navel-gazing.

Out of interest, what would you characterize as a truly "good" book? Perhaps throw out a sports book and a work of fiction. At least then I'd have a sense of where you're coming from.

I'd suggest, for example, that Friday Night Lights is the best sports book ever written.

FNL is strong, so was A Season on The Brink and The Game.

I really enjoyed A Good Walk Spoiled, but every Feinstein golf book since then has been less compelling.

I am less and less impressed by most of the offerings in GD and GM.  Perhaps there isn't much demand for good writing in the mainstream...

[Peter Pallotta]

Kelly - that was good post, thank you.

Peter

[Robert Thompson]

Kelly -- a thoughtful response. I recognize the book angered many.

Much of what you mentioned was addressed in the epilogue of the paperback edition of the book. You were a local? I can understand why locals didn't like the book -- it cast them in a less than flattering light.

It did, however, win the Pulitzer Prize, and last I looked, there isn't a higher award for a book, let alone a sports book.

I thought the book did much more than simply criticize the football team -- it talked about the political reality of high school football in Texas and how the sport became far more important than education within the school in question. Hard to say he exaggerated too much when the book opens with a high school football team flying by chartered jet to play in the Astrodome.

I think our opinions on this are quite a ways apart. However, I'd argue that Frost's books have crossed over outside of the golf market, which makes them a significant success for a sport that has a lot of navel-gazing.

Out of interest, what would you characterize as a truly "good" book? Perhaps throw out a sports book and a work of fiction. At least then I'd have a sense of where you're coming from.

I'd suggest, for example, that Friday Night Lights is the best sports book ever written.

There're a few people in Odessa who would disagree.  Word from there is that Bissinger misrepresented the type of book he would write, and this didn't sit well with some there he consulted.  I read it a long time ago then threw it away so I forget some of the detail, but do remember him making the pepette squad at Permian sound like some sort of slave trade for football players.  It wasn't that way when I was there, I doubt that many girls would subject themselves to such abuses he seemed to insinuate.  Bissinger came off as some sort of northeast intellectual that wanted to find a story of abuses that really didn't exist and he found the perfect spot where people are open and honest and pretty simple folk.  I think he took advantage of them, wrote the story he had already written before he got there, and basically made the town look really bad.  Permian football suffered for many years after that and only recently has begun to recover.  Bissinger tried to destroy a way of life for many of us...yes there are some abuses, crazy parents, but I see that type of behaviour with my own eyes and with all sports.  Some people just don't understand the meaning of playing sports for fun.  They think it means fun in the sense of entertainment, when actually fun is derived from hard work, self sacrifice and winning.  We lived and died with Friday night Permian football and we lived a great life doing it...not the life some northeast intellectual thought was a worthy life, but there are a heck of a lot more hardworking, honest people out there than Bissinger could ever hope to emulate.  You didn't see the west Texas oil industry looking for bail outs when it collapsed in the 80's and I think that says a lot about the type of people out there.  I don't think a book conceived by dishonest means is considered great.

[Carl Nichols]

John Feinstein's recent books rival the Merion threads for predictability. 

[Lloyd_Cole]

Hmmm.
A corner of my Library is full of the stuff. What was I thinking?
Upon gentle reflection I'd say that the genre has produced some excellent essayists. And that's about the best we can ask of Sportwriters. I don't see that comment as being in any way damning. If you don't enjoy Darwin's 'The Group Ahead' or Dobereiner's collections 'Well I'll be deemed' and 'Golf A La Cart' then, there is nothing here for you. It's light fodder, but deftly constructed and frankly I think there is a place for it. Shack's tone on his blog is the closest we have to this type of thing today.
And while he may not be a great writer, Bobby Jones  could put words together pretty nicely and his insight into his own sport was valuable for some time after his retirement.
What I don't understand is why anyone would want to read a novel to help them realise that golf has a substantial Zen factor. Duh.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Tony,
I think there's a bunch of good 'golf' writing and it can be found in some of the collections of short stories. Along with Dickinson you can find tales by Ring Lardner, F. Scott fitzgerald, P.G.Wodehouse, John Updike, Ethan Canin, Walker Percy, etc.,etc.,etc..

One of my favorites is Lardner's "A Caddies Diary".
An excerpt, as it was written:
 
"But first will put down how I come to be writeing this diary, we have got a member named Mr Colby who writes articles in the newspapers and I hope for his sakes that he is a better writer then he plays golf but any way I caddied for him a good many times last yr and today he was out for the first time this yr and I caddied for him and we got talking about this in that and something was mentioned in regard to the golf articles by Alex Laird that comes out every Sun in the paper Mr Colby writes his articles for so I asked Mr Colby did he know how much Laird got paid for the articles and he said he did not know but supposed Laird had to split 50-50 with who ever wrote the articles for him. So I said he don't write the articles himself and Mr Colby said why no he guessed not. Laird may be a mastermind in regards to golf he said, but this is no sign he can write about it as very few men can write decent let alone a pro, Writeing is a nag".

[John Burzynski]

Kelly -- a thoughtful response. I recognize the book angered many.

Much of what you mentioned was addressed in the epilogue of the paperback edition of the book. You were a local? I can understand why locals didn't like the book -- it cast them in a less than flattering light.

It did, however, win the Pulitzer Prize, and last I looked, there isn't a higher award for a book, let alone a sports book.

I thought the book did much more than simply criticize the football team -- it talked about the political reality of high school football in Texas and how the sport became far more important than education within the school in question. Hard to say he exaggerated too much when the book opens with a high school football team flying by chartered jet to play in the Astrodome.

I think our opinions on this are quite a ways apart. However, I'd argue that Frost's books have crossed over outside of the golf market, which makes them a significant success for a sport that has a lot of navel-gazing.

Out of interest, what would you characterize as a truly "good" book? Perhaps throw out a sports book and a work of fiction. At least then I'd have a sense of where you're coming from.

I'd suggest, for example, that Friday Night Lights is the best sports book ever written.

There're a few people in Odessa who would disagree.  Word from there is that Bissinger misrepresented the type of book he would write, and this didn't sit well with some there he consulted.  I read it a long time ago then threw it away so I forget some of the detail, but do remember him making the pepette squad at Permian sound like some sort of slave trade for football players.  It wasn't that way when I was there, I doubt that many girls would subject themselves to such abuses he seemed to insinuate.  Bissinger came off as some sort of northeast intellectual that wanted to find a story of abuses that really didn't exist and he found the perfect spot where people are open and honest and pretty simple folk.  I think he took advantage of them, wrote the story he had already written before he got there, and basically made the town look really bad.  Permian football suffered for many years after that and only recently has begun to recover.  Bissinger tried to destroy a way of life for many of us...yes there are some abuses, crazy parents, but I see that type of behaviour with my own eyes and with all sports.  Some people just don't understand the meaning of playing sports for fun.  They think it means fun in the sense of entertainment, when actually fun is derived from hard work, self sacrifice and winning.  We lived and died with Friday night Permian football and we lived a great life doing it...not the life some northeast intellectual thought was a worthy life, but there are a heck of a lot more hardworking, honest people out there than Bissinger could ever hope to emulate.  You didn't see the west Texas oil industry looking for bail outs when it collapsed in the 80's and I think that says a lot about the type of people out there.  I don't think a book conceived by dishonest means is considered great.

What political reality?  Whose reality?  Football more important than education...there are a lot of very bright people who did not get along in the educational system, but who had interests that drove them, they were much more interested in other things than the education system they were in and did okay for themselves late.  If you mean the administration thought football was more important I don't see how you can administer a school district based upon football, you can't do it, further the kids have to meet state requirements to play each week, sure there may be abuses, individual cases, but he made it seem like it was a systematic problem...not true...There are a lot of us that went through that system and we received a pretty decent education I think.

Houston is probably a 10 to 11 hour drive by car, probably much longer by bus...it makes sense to fly for a 2.5 hour game.  I suspect some boosters helped pay for it too, just like boosters just paid for their new indoor practice facility which the golf team gets to use as well.

I thought that the books was as much about education and football as it was about Bissinger's view of Western Texas, the up and down oil market of the time, and some general views on the economy, poverty and society.    The story at the end about the legal battle  over the grades for the player to be eligible, and whether a missed assignment was a 0 or F, and how it all got tangled into the legal system is an indictment not just of Texas football but of how sports have gotten out of hand at the high school level.    Most of the stories could be true of most states, including basketball and football here in Indiana.

[Peter Pallotta]

Tony, I think you might appreciate this -

Woody Allen wrote a line for a movie that went: "The difference between love and sex is that love causes tension and sex alleviates it".

When a critic told him he thought it was good line, Allen said: "No, it isn't - it's a pithy line. I could've written the exact opposite - 'The difference between sex and love is that sex causes tension and love alleviates it' - and it wouldn't have made any difference." 

Which is to say, most writing (golf writing included) I read seems to me pithy -- at best. It isn't true or false - it isn't anything. It's rhetoric. That's why I thought this line from Kelly particularly good..

"We lived and died with Friday night Permian football and we lived a great life doing it...not the life some northeast intellectual thought was a worthy life, but there are a heck of a lot more hardworking, honest people out there than Bissinger could ever hope to emulate."

...Because he meant it.

Peter

PS - Jim K - good call on Ring Lardner. He really knew how to string together an entertaining sports story. I think his son wrote M.A.S.H. 

[Tim Bert]

I have to say that comparing golf writing to "literature" is hardly fair. Compared to the writing about other sports, it stands up very well, if you ask me.

It was Plimpton who said that the quality of writing about a sport was inversely proportional to the size of the ball.

Now, I may be crass, but I prefer the penultimate chapter of Dogged Victims.

K

There must be some fantastic Marbles writing then... 

...not to mention weightlifting!

[Tim_Cronin]

In fiction, I could read Wodehouse or Jenkins all day, and sometimes have.
In non-fiction, you can go right down the line and find great writing that was meant for its time and has stood up for all time: Hutchinson, Darwin, Rice, Wind, Jenkins, Verdi to name the internationally known. And there are many known in their cities as sages.
As for "Friday Night Lights," now I have to read it. Kelly's defense makes me think Bissinger, whatever his motives, was describing those hangers-on at high school events who live through the lives of their town's children, caring for the result on the scoreboard rather than the development of the young people playing the game. I see them often in my work.

[Norbert P]

 Wodehouse's "Oldest Member" is still alive. I know, I met him a few months back.  He still has a lot to say but he says the core values of golf have disappeared with a changing culture.