OUR REGULAR GAME NO. 5

               As we approach the end of the year, it’s a good time to take stock of our favorite game.  After all, this is a game in which our bad shots far outnumber our good ones, making us unhappy much more often than happy, yet we still love it with a passion normally reserved for God, country, and family. 

        The noted author, George Plimpton — or maybe it was Woody Allen, I really don’t remember which — said that, when it came to sports literature, the smaller the ball, the better the writing.  And it must be true, because the two sports that have generated the best body of literature are baseball and golf.

           I’m prejudiced, of course, but I really think golf edges out baseball when it comes to literature.  I’ll admit there has been some great baseball writing, particularly by Roger Angell and Heywood Hale Broun, but the great golf writers far outnumber the baseballers.

           First of all, we have a real heavyweight in John Updike, whose passion for golf has turned him from his general fiction to waxing eloquent about the mysteries of the game.  Then there’s Dan Jenkins, whose novel, Dead Solid Perfect, should be required reading for anyone who ever put a tee in the ground.  And, certainly, my friend Curt Sampson’s books on the British Open and on Ben Hogan qualify as terrific nonfiction contributions to the literature.

           But I digress.  Any examination of the great literature in golf must begin no later than the Bobby Jones era, when his friend O.B. Keeler chronicled the dapper Atlanta lawyer’s conquest of the world of golf during the Roaring Twenties, capped by winning the four major championships of his day all in one year, 1930.  Keeler was there when Jones determined that he had no worlds left to conquer and thereupon retired, at the age of twenty-eight, with God knows how many more major championships left in him.

           And, of course, there was Jones himself, an able writer who penned several books, including his autobiography, Down the Fairway.  He was one of those rare athletes, equally at home in other pursuits as he was on the golf course, a real Renaissance man, as it were.

           For pure quality, it’s tough to beat the serious writing of Herbert Warren Wind, whose articles on golf appeared in The New Yorker and other high class magazines.  He repeatedly found new ways to talk about an old game.

           For pure fun, golf lovers can turn to the light-hearted and comic writing of P. G. Wodehouse, the great British writer whose many stories about a cranky member of an old British golf club who was known only as “the oldest member,” as he called him, provided wonderful entertainment for British and American readers alike.

           And I certainly can’t leave out my dear friend, Bo Links, whose two golf novels, Follow the Wind and Riverbank Tweed and Roadmap Jenkins: Tales from the Caddie Yard, contain wonderful stories that all golfers should love. 

           In fact, it was Bo Links who enabled me to become a member of golf’s writing fraternity, encouraging me to commit my own golf stories to paper.  As a result, we came out with The Greatest Player Who Never Lived a couple of years back and were amazed when the critics called it a golfing version of To Kill a Mockingbird and no less than The New York Times called it “golf’s literary rookie of the year.”  I’d like to brag that USA Today also called me “a master of fiction,” but opposing lawyers have said that about me for years.  At any rate, the success of that book around the country prompted us to publish The Greatest Course That Never Was, which was also warmly received, and we’ll be bringing out our third golf novel, The Caddie, next year.

          I’m sure I’ve left out some great golf writers.  We are blessed to have so many of them.  Perhaps on another edition of the regular game, we can talk about them as well. Until then, though, this is Mike Veron, hoping you answer every bogey with a birdie.

   About the Author

J. Michael Veron is the acclaimed author of The Greatest Player Who Never Lived and The Greatest Course That Never Was. His third novel, tentatively titled The Caddie, is scheduled for release in the spring of 2002.

Mike's work has earned him the title of "master of fiction" from USA Today, and Travel and Leisure Golf Magazine has called him "The John Grisham of Golf." In addition, the New York Times hailed The Greatest Player as "Golf's Literary Rookie of the Year," and the Seattle Times ranked The Greatest Player as second on its all-time list of "Five Wonderful Golf Books." At one time, The Greatest Player and The Greatest Course were the first and third best-selling sports fiction in the country.

Please contact us for more information on Mike and his work.