Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture Discussion Group => Topic started by: Brad Klein on June 19, 2003, 05:37:10 PM
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In light of all the discussion here of the U.S. Open, I thought GCAers might enjoy my review of Feinstein's book about the 2002 Open. You can read it on the lead page of today's Golfweek.com.
If I were more web-capable, I could set up the direct hyperlink. Perhap someone else can.
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http://www.golfweek.com/articles/2003/features/reviews/books/33813.asp
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Brad,
Remind me not to ever send any of my work to you to read. Talk about laying the smack down.
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Mr. Klein --
I humbly suggest that you change the headline to "A Good Book Spoiled."
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I enjoyed the book. If you're looking for a blow-by-blow account of the U.S. Open, then you'll certainly be disappointed. Nevertheless, I found all the background information very entertaining. Particularly amusing is the dialog with Rees Jones regarding his "fee."
I thought the cited errors in the book were superficial. (I noted one error in the review--and it was only ONE page!)
I've really enjoyed Feinstein's books over the years. This is NOT his best work. It's likely not in his top five. Regardless, I'd still recommend it. Borrowing from Siskel and the deceased Ebert, I'd have to give it a thumbs up.
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Sigh :-/ This one is already in the big brown truck on its way from Amazon to my front door. Oh well.
Cheers,
Brad Swanson
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Nothing personal to Brad, but I thought the book was a decent read, like most of Feinstein's stuff. I don't worry about nits too much. Every movie has 'em, and guys on the internet go nuts trying to find everything wrong in popular movies. The printed media has nits as well....for example, in the 7th paragraph of the review, "principles" should have been "principals." That didn't bother me...I was able to enjoy the review as well. :D
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Brad,
I am just now starting to read it.
The most difficult thing for a good reviewer to do, despite what many readers may believe, is write an honest opinion that takes what he is reviewing to task.
A good writer must learn to accept that negative reviews of his work can be among the best of things. They are something to be learned from and used as a means of inspiration to grow in the craft. I hope John learns from your words.
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Kevin, all authors make mistakes here and there. I don't worry too much about that, though it's the job of proof readers and fact checkers to reduce those. Feinstein's book is overwhelmed by them - though not quite to the extent of "A Good Walk Spoiled," which is filled with dozens of mistakes about the game he covers. There's a point at which occasional mistakes add up to sloppy journalism. If all writers took a cavalier attitude, then readers would be in trouble, even if they didn't know it.
In a political world today in which lying is seen as acceptable if it gets you ahead, there still seems a place for adherence to the truth.
I don't think Feinstein's mistakes are politically dangerous, and I certainly don't think they are as consequential. This is, all, only golf. But the point of any serious writer or critic - which is not the same as a causal reader - is to point these out. Maybe it's my training as an academic, though I think it's my regard for journalism. His books might make for a good read, but I think it's a good read spoiled. Obviously you are free to dismiss this is as overdone on my part. I just think it's appropriate to put it out there for consideration.
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Brad is right. I have heard about photographers who have been fired for misspelling peoples' names in captions.
Petty as it may seem to nit pick these errors, it does make one wonder whether major factual mistakes were made.
For instance, Feinstein uses Hannigan as his source for information regarding Harry Easterly's departure from the USGA, and he presents Hannigan's version as undisputed fact.
Many people that I know dispute his version.
I read bits and pieces at a friend's house, and I must say that Feinstein sugarcoats ALL of the people that HE deals with in the book, and he did the same in a good walked spoiled. This gets old.
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I love Feinstein's books, so I'm sure I'll read it. His best in my opinion is Last Amateurs. Anyway, "turnabout is fair play", so can we expect a Feinstein review of Rough Meditations sometime soon? ;)
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If one reviewer found all those mistakes in one read how can you trust anything Feinstein states as fact? You can't. How can you assume he gets the big stuff right when the small stuff is wrong?
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None of the cited errors materially changes the story.
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How can you assume he gets the big stuff right when the small stuff is wrong?
Here's my advice:
Don't "assume" that any writer ever gets the big stuff right.
Some do most of the time. Some do some of the time. Some do none of the time.
Some are smarter than others. Some are more careful than others.
Make your own judgments.
Over time, writers tend to reveal themselves -- as smart or not, careful or not.
I'm more or less with Brad Klein (and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe) on this one: "God is in the details." I find it very disturbing -- but not at all surprising, based on my experience with publishing-house so-called "editors" -- when I find a bunch of small errors in a book.
Even if Feinstein gets all of the big stuff right (and I haven't read the book, so I don't know -- and I'm not sure I'd know even if I did read it!), and even if none of the plethora of little errors changes the story "materially," the little errors are legitimately criticized, because they tend to undermine the whole effort ... the same way one bad hole, or a couple of Stupid Trees, or a few misplaced bunkers undermine an otherwise-admirable golf course.
Luckily for Feinstein, his errors are more easily (and much less expensively!) remedied than those of a golf-course architect.
It'll be interesting to see if the next printing, or the paperback edition, contains the same mistakes.
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I agree with Robert Walker about Feinstein's portraits of golfers in both A Good Walk Spoiled and The Majors. They are monotonous applications of "The Whig Interpretation of History" i.e., everyone (except John Daly) is decent, honorable, reaching high, overcoming life's challenges, advancing foward........and totally blah.
The interesting parts of his books are the "inside baseball," and it appears from Mr. Klein's review that it may be worth reading for that, albeit with grains of salt. (is this a record for mixed metaphors?)
Jeff Goldman
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Carlyle Rood.
Siskel is dead, Ebert alive and well!
Dan Kelly.
Like you I hate mistakes in books that I have spent good money buying.
I bought a rather expensive golf book a few years ago and found an error, called the publisher(SBP), who in turn called the author. We had a chat and a correction was made and since that time we have become good friends. I did some proof reading of a well known writer for a couple of his books and found a few niggling mistakes, which although minor in nature, would be annoying to a knowledgeable reader.
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Errors aside, I haven't found this on all that compelling thus far (maybe 70 pages in).
My way of rating books is as follows: I start reading 4 or 5, picking up & putting down as interest waxes & wanes. If I finish a book, especially without putting it down for another, it's a darn good book.
I've already put this one down numerous times - don't know when I'll pick it up again. I made it through The Majors & A Good Walk Spoiled relatively quickly.
Smooth sailing through Rough Meditations & Brad's Ross book as well. :)
This rating method does not work well with fiction (or golf courses).
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I just don't find Feinstein's books to be very interesting no matter what the subject. As Brad wrote, he churns out his books very quickly (at least 13 since 1990) and he relies on a formula that becomes tiresome after a while. I question how much research, as opposed to interviews, that he really does for these things.
He is known by his colleagues as someone who is always chasing the buck but I wish that he would slow down and put his narrative skills to work on a substantial, well-researched book.
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David:
Last Amateurs is such a great subject, I presume you didn't read that. The fact that he devoted time to such an obscure collegiate conference was enough for me. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. You will look at March Madness with a whole new outlook and realize - once again - what a joke big-time college sports have become.
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Brad:
I just finished the book, and will probably review it for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. I noticed a few of the mistakes you pointed out; most went right past me, and wouldn't have made much difference in my appreciation of the book. I agree with your assertion that most of the cast were not well developed personalities. I think had Feinstein winnowed down the list to perhaps Fay, Catalano, Currier and Meeks, he could have told the same story in a more interesting way. As it was, he seemed to be trying to fit too many people into a story that gets better the more narrowly you focus it.
For me the most interesting part was Feinstein's account of how NBC went from off the radar screen to a broadcast golf dynasty, surpassing the smug ABC -- and how it never would have happened had they not been able to convince Johnny Miller to move into the booth. (Now, I'm taking Feinstein's word that this is the way it happened; some on this board may know better. But the account of ABC being stunned at losing the Open to upstart NBC certainly has the ring of truth.)
To those who have already ordered or bought the book, I suggest reading it anyway; despite the errors and the lack of focus, there are bound to be details and quick character studies that you find to be worth your while. I concur with Brad's overall assessment, however: If Feinstein is going to crank them out this fast, he's got to improve on the story-telling and the accuracy.
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Rick, a very fair assessment. Had I been writing for Golfweek instead of Superintendent News, I might have covered more of the media component. It does make for interesting reading, and it's obvious in his account that Feinstein has little regard for Hannigan's (curmudgeonly) role in all of this. He does have good material on the behid the scenes negotiations; it is certainly more interesting than the minute details of toilets and security guards.
By the way, we all make mistakes - in Golfweek we make them, but we also agonize over them, kick ourselves, and make sure we figure out how they could have happened. It's an embarassment that any journalist should learn from.
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Brad Klein
Did you review "the evangelist of golf"? I recall more than a few errors...did you point these out? I found the macdonald book very interesting...but the writing was not quite up to par with the material.
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I did not do a formal review of "The Evangelist of Golf" because it was published in the same series by the same publisher as my Ross book, and so it's best to avoid what might look like a conflict of sympathies. I did note on this website the use of duplicate photos - a very poor decision by my way of thinking. - as well as some other issues that disappointed me somewhat. But the fact that Bahto gets the Crimean War three decades later than it actually happened (p. 90) doesn't affect his account of The Redan or my appeciation of his knowledge.
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Brad Klein
I understand.
Is it awkward for an author to also be a critic? I would think it might be....personally I like the idea.....who has greater insight and knowledge....plus I imagine it makes your own work better. I agree with your take on the book and Feinstein....his greatest strength in my opinion...promotional genius.
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please don't misunderstand me....I like the idea of golf writers critiquing other golf writers...I also love Bahto's work...I just thought he might have used a ghost writer.
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Ghost writer? Now there's a cop-out.
The NYTimes won't let people review a book if they are friends with the writer, have published with the same press, or have been involved in any way in that book's production. Those are pretty good rules.
As much time as I spend on golf courses, I am really above all else an editor. One thing I've learned is that you really cannot fairly evaluate a book in terms of a public, published review unless you have actually written a book yourself. The process of doing a book - the writing is the easy part - involves years of research, editing, collating, leaving things. That what makes it a truly different experience from merely writing.
I have a lot of experience with books, having published three of them, contributed to 20 others, and have served as a paid consulting editor on several dozen, half of them golf related, the other academic. So somewhere along the way you learn to be fair. You learn to judge and appraise a book in terms of what it sets out to do, how well it achieves it, and whether after reading the book you found something worthwhile during your four hours or four days that you would not have otherwise acquired.
You can tell pretty quickly if a book is really a serious book and what its tone, texture and basis are. It doesn't take long reading or redaing his work to see that Feinstein is your basic lightweight sports journalist with an impressive knack for self-promotion. He types quickly, does some research, relies exclusively on interviews, and the
result is your typical decent sports book. Some of his topics are better than others, but too often you read him (on golf, baseball, tennis) and what you realize is that he's trying real hard to write a book. His college basketball stuff is very different. There he knows what he's talking about. But on golf, he's on unsteady ground. He mkes up for it, however, on radio and TV by being forceful and eloquent in his pronouncemnet. Not to be mistaken for sound journalism, however.
My point is that reviewing requires making a series of jugements and then finding out how best to say that. Sometimes you say it directly, other times indirectly. I think what is important is that a review is just not a series of observations about a book; it is, itself, a piece of writing with a theme, argument, tone and direction. That's why writing reviews is not a simple matter and why there's always a bit of judgment, insider-ness and decision-making involved.
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As a person who has one book out there, another that is waiting for my publisher to just set the release date, and two more on the way, I have a view of this subject that is from a different perspective.
Most writers are thrilled to be receive a good review by GolfWeek and refer to it that way with pride. When it turns out to be a bad review, then its that son-of-a-gun Brad Klein at GolfWeek. He has no idea what he is talking about. The review process is a highly personal one for both reviewer and reviewee.
What reviewer wants to be known as someone who pans or rips apart everything? That type of reputation will only sell the journal he writes in; but for the reviewer, it labels him in ways that can not be good for him professionally or personally. If he or she wants to be accepted as a person whose opinions are to be valued, then he must be honest and balanced in his approach to and review of those works he will be writing about.
Brad is right, researching a book is a long and tedious process, one that can take years of a life from the writer. For those who find joy in what they write, it is a very sweet wait.
I have just started research for a book I dearly want to write. In order to do it properly, I have to travel to California, Florida, Minnesota, Virginia. New Jersey Long Island and upstate New York. Thatis a tremendous amount of traveling to do research and conduct interviews. It also involves a tremendous outlay of funds. These come from the writer. It is the extremely rare writer aho sells a book based on an idea.
With that in mind, only someone who has been through the research process And has written a book, can understand what goes into producing a published work. When it is obvious that the research was either incomplete or shoddy, then the end result may be a pleasant read, but it doesn't bring about agood book.
For a reviewer to do his job well, and he is writing to advise people on a purchase, he must be aware of what was needed to create the book that was written, and judge the work on how well that was done.
A good writer recognizes the difference between a bad review and a review that is bad.
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I'll admit up front that I haven't read the book, though I did read the review. The review is as far as I will get, though.
I swore off Feinstein after "A March to Madness", which was about one of the things most dear to my heart, ACC basketball. The author, who was the sports editor of the Duke Chronicle while a student, took the opportunity in that book to absolutely trash Dean Smith. His comments were the cheapest of cheap shots, and reportedly had to do with the fact that Coach Smith would not give him free access to his practices. It forever called in to question both his objectivity, and with it, the accuracy of what I was reading.
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Shivas,
I think something needs to be clarified. You can't write a review and a publication won't let you if there's an overt conflict such as friendship, a shared publisher or some rivarly.
Otherwise, you just go and do your best to be fair. I don't know how else to say it.
Brad
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A. G. Crockett: I also read "A March to Madness", and I must disagree with your assessment.
You say that Feinstein "took the opportunity in that book to absolutely trash Dean Smith." You say that Feinstein was the sports editor of the Duke Chronicle when he attended Duke, and the implication is that he is therefore biased against Smith.
Assuming that you attended UNC, I think you would be just as biased about Dean Smith as you imply that Feinstein is.
As someone who attended neither Duke nor UNC , I would say that Smith got treated fairly in the book. I went to the University of Virginia, and therefore hated both schools.
There were good things about Smith in the book bad things. It seems clear that since Smith didn't grant Feinstein the access that others in the book did, he suffered a little. I think it has been pointed out in this thread that Feinstein tends to gush over people who were friendly to him, and I agree with that.
But there's no way Dean Smith got trashed in that book! Smith is a surly curmudgeon to those on the outside of his world, and a wonderful coach, leader, and civil libertarian to those on the inside of his world (which includes just about every UNC graduate I have ever met).
Kind of like Bobby Knight, who got "trashed" in Feinstein's first big book, "A Season on the Brink." That's his best book ever, I think. All of Bobby Knight's supporters went ape-$#!t when it came out, but I think it showed the good and bad of the man.
Please note that I am NOT comparing Smith's behavior with Knight's; just their cult-like followings.
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As someone who attended neither Duke nor UNC , I would say that Smith got treated fairly in the book. I went to the University of Virginia, and therefore hated both schools.
Exactly what Thomas Jefferson had in mind, I'm sure! 8)
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To me, there is a difference in a typo and something that is factually wrong. A typo is annoying in a magazine but tolerable given tight production schedules. A typo in a $25 book is not acceptable.
Also, when you read something that you know to be false but said in an authoratative manner that Feinstein conveys (i.e. Tim Moraghan's wife is Karen not Nancy), this casts a negative light on anything else you read that you might not know.
Finally, while this book goes into a subject I find fascinating, Feinstein's choppy writing style gets very trite. There are way too many sentences that begin with conjunctions, and far too many paranthetical statements to show the reader how much Feinstein knows. In "The Majors", my favorite example of this is when he told us in paranthesis that the Stimpmeter was invented by a man names Stimp. Unnecessary and wrong.
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:o
I appreciate seeing reviews such as Brad Kein's, I won't pay for the book, but maybe I'll read it for free some day and certainly not dwell in it.. Having not seen Feinstein's face ever, then seeing him on countless times before and during this year's Open makes me think its all Marketing.. get a product to sale at the right time, in front of the popular undiscerning media needing lead-ins and talking heads etc.. and voila, exposure pushes sales!
maybe the things exposed will be corrected in the second printing
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I agree that the book should be more factually accurate, but I did find it an enjoyable read. That is probably because I know quite a few people that are key players for the USGA.
Just as there are two types of novels, literature and summer reading, there are two types of non-fiction, real studies of issues and history and quick hits that entertain. Feinstein's books seem to be of the later type. They should be factually accurate though because someone else might use them as a source for a real history in the future and it would be nice if the mistakes didn't get perpetuated.
Whenever I hear Feinstein on NPR's Morning Edition talking about golf, I do get the feeling that he really doesn't get it, but he can tell an interesting story. Just don't assume that it is all true.
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Intermurph
I am a UNC graduate. I'm also a Duke graduate, for what that's worth, as is my sister. I also have the advantage of knowing Coach Smith. It also happens that my father, a U.Va. alum and former sports editor of the Durham paper, is friends with Coach Smith. I assure you (and My-Dad-From- The University who is no fan of UNC wholeheartedly agrees) that Feinstein used that book as a pulpit to trash, relatively speaking, Coach Smith. You're welcome to disagree.
By chance, did you see Rick Reilly's recent column about Smith in SI? Reilly isn't a UNC grad, and seems to have a reasonably high opinion of the man.
My only point here is that Feinstein has in the past used really strong "literary license" and seems willing to play awfully fast and loose with facts. It robs me of interest in reading his work because I don't know what I'm reading.
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AG, I read both "A March to Madness" and Rick Reilly's column. I hope you can accept two things: 1) I am slightly less biased than you, and 2) I disagree with you about Feinstein trashing Dean Smith.
I really appreciated Reilly's article; that's why I put "civil libertarian" in my list of Dean Smith attributes. In addition to that, he is an intimidator of referees, and opposing players and coaches. Also, he is an extermely loyal man. Plus he's a whiner. He's also just the kind of person you would trust with your son. And he's vindictive.
Etc.
PS Since you capitalized both "The" and "University", I know that your father attended UVA.