Golf Stories [Hardcover]

Golf Storiesis a wonderful gathering of short fiction about the famously addictive pastime.

Here are literary classics by such golf-loving writers as P. G. Wodehouse, Ring Lardner, and John Updike, mixed with surprises like an appearance by Ian Fleming’s James Bond and a little crime on the links from mystery master Ian Rankin. Humorists and sportswriters ranging from E. C. Bentley to Dan Jenkins and Rick Reilly weigh in as well, alongside a tale of romance on the greens from F. Scott Fitzgerald, a little-known gem by famous golf architect A. W. Tillinghast, and a story by Rex Lardner (Ring’s nephew) that just may be the single funniest thing ever written about golf. The resulting anthology is as enticing, provocative, and entertaining as the game of golf itself. 
 
 

Charles McGrath is a writer at large atThe New York Times,and was formerly editor ofThe New York Times Book Reviewand deputy editor ofThe New Yorker.He is co-author ofThe Ultimate Golf Bookand a frequent contributor toGolf Digest.He lives in New Jersey.From the Forward by Charles McGrath

George Plimpton used to invoke what he called the small-ball theory of sportswriting — the idea that the quality of the literature about a game is inversely proportional to the size of the ball it employs. This notion was always a little sketchy. Where are the great ping-pong writers, the classic works on marbles? And yet when it comes to fiction about sports there may be some truth here, for the golf ball, whether dimpled, feathery or guttie, has probably inspired more good short stories than any of the larger rounder things. A great majority of these stories are humorous, which seems a little counter-intuitive at first, because golf when you play it — or what I play, anyway — is not particularly funny at all. Tragic is more like it.

The other form that golf fiction seems to gravitate towards lóˇ