Best-selling sportswriter Feinstein (Running Mates, 1992, etc.)
turns his attention to a new sport, golf, with this chronicle of a
year on the men's pro tour. Golf is, by its very nature, a brutally
winnowing game (as Tom Boswell once observed), a mental test as
well as a physical one. At the professional level, as practiced on
the PGA Tour, it is the last bastion of true athletic
individualism; you win or lose because of your own efforts, with no
teammates or coaches to blame. Moreover, in order to make any money
at all on the pro tour, you have to play well. Unlike tennis, there
are no appearance fees, and you have to survive the cut after two
days of a tournament to collect a check. Therefore, there is a
certain amount of inherent drama in the lives and games of the
pros. Feinstein has chosen wisely in his subjects, a wide range of
successful and not-so-successful players, from Davis Love III, who
overcame memories of his father's death in a plane crash to score
the decisive victory for the US in the Ryder Cup, to Paul Azinger
fighting cancer. Some of the best moments in the book, however, are
provided by lesser-known golfers like Brian Henninger and Paul
Goydos, who are struggling just to stay on the Tour. Feinstein
isn't the best prose stylist or the most poetic or humorous
sportswriter in America; what he does better than anybody else is
to make you understand the complex mix of psychology, group
dynamics, and political pressures that make athletes tick. Although
too much of the second half of the book turns into a monotonous
replaying of individual rounds of golf, for the most part A Good
Walk Spoiled (Twain's description of golf) is an insightful look at
one of our best games. It's not A Season on the Brink, but even
baseball stalwarts languishing for a sports fix might find this
compulsively readable. (Kirkus Reviews)
A GOOD WALK SPOILED is John Feinstein's acclaimed behind-the-scenes
account of an unusually turbulent year in the punishingly
competitive world of the US professional golf circuit. Beginning
with the tense American victory at the Belfry in the 1993 Ryder
Cup, Feinstein gives close-up insights of the players' minds and
privates lives - including superstars like Nick Faldo, Tom Watson
and Greg Norman - and captures the nonstop pressures of a sport
with virtually no off-season, the intense competition to stay on
the 'money list' and the psychological dangers inherent in a game
where your true opponent is yourself.
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