PERFECT LIES
A Century of Great Golf Stories
Edited, with an introduction by William Hallberg
New York: Doubleday, 1989
397 pp. $18.95
Golf gnaws at the mind. There are those pristine moments when the swing is simply perfect, when with no effort the ball just jumps off the clubface on a beeline for the green. You're standing there, fidgeting slightly, preparing to begin the swing, and then in little over a second it's over--the follow-through completed, the body in perfect balance, and the ball hurtling skyward on the loveliest line of flight. It's the most inspiring sight in all of sports, and it makes all those painful hours on the practice tee worthwhile.
But there are other times when an all-out effort is required and when nothing you do suffices. An alien neurosis occupies the body. You have no idea how to grip the club or how to begin the swing. Everything is contrived, all equanimity lost. One thousand lessons acquired through vast expenditure of time and money are all gone to waste. A hopelessly complex internal discourse threatens to overwhelm the brain. You try to block the rush of remembered swing keys, as they are called, little slogans to be played and replayed as you prepare to strike your next shot. "The v formed by the proper placement of the right thumb and forefinger upon the grip should point directly to the right shoulder." "At the top of the swing, the club should be pointing at the intended target." "As you begin the downswing, keep the right elbow tucked tight to the body." Private clues, threatening to break out beyond control in the middle of a round. Golfing great Byron Nelson once said that the toughest thing about golf was trying not to try.
Don't ask Ferdinand Dibble. He is P.G. Wodehouse's classic golfing obsessive; a nominally fictional character portrayed in "The Heart of a Goof" (1926), the likes of whom are unfortunately all too commonly found on the golf course. There is something of Ferdinand Dibble in all of us. He was a "deep student of the works of the masters, and whenever he prepared to play a stroke he had a complete mental list of all the mistakes which it was possible to make." Of course, he often made them. Nor was he the only one to suffer for his game. His sense of self-worth was so tied up with the (parlous) state of his golf that his love life paid a price as well. His would-be sweetheart, Barbara Medway, finally laments to a friend about poor Ferdinand: "Do you mean to say that he is waiting till he is good at golf before he asks me to marry him?" Thank heavens; it's a happy ending. "He folded her in his arms, using the interlocking grip."
A history of golf writing
To a non-golfer, the game looks strange, awkward, forced. But to an avid golfer, the game is beautiful because it is about so many things, about life and death, about your soul and your deliverance. There's a saying about the game, that you can learn everything you need to know about someone by playing three holes of golf with him or her. Temperament, ingenuity, athletic skill, aplomb under pressure: They all come out during a few holes of golf. It is, therefore, the most susceptible to thoughtful writing, because it is the truest test of human
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