Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

Okay, I promised a review of the latest golf book, A Golfer’s Education.

Darren Kilfara, an avid golfer and member of Harvard’s golf team, had a terrific idea I wish I’d thought of: Spend a year as an exchange student studying his senior thesis at the University of St. Andrews. He had just spent a semester as an intern at Golf Digest, and had the opportunity to help fund this education by writing several articles for them while in Scotland.

I had read a review on the book after I started into it, and the review derided it as a compilation of shot-by-shot descriptions of Darren’s rounds. It isn’t. Not even close. I can only think that the reviewer isn’t a golfer, and he expected far more culture shock. Much of the book is devoted to course descriptions, from a course architecture perspective, and maybe that was the reviewer’s complaint.

Actually, the book covers Darren’s full range of experiences in Scotland. His social and student life, the relationship with other golfers and Scottish courses, and meeting Heather. He involved himself as totally as he could in student life and the St Andrews culture, playing in a brass band, and on the soccer team.

But, yes, most of it related back to golf and the Old Course at St. Andrews. One thing that struck me was his self-assessment after almost a year. He dreaded being paired with fellow Americans:

Unfortunately, in my quest to disassociate myself from my more obnoxious countrymen, I became something worse: a cultural snob. I came to believe that most Americans were beneath me, and that Scottish simplicity was in all aspects superior to American brashness.

Wow. Does that not define many people, those we simply declare to be America haters?

The book describes golf as a pasttime in Scotland, with course access considered a birthright. Courses, including the Old Course, are treated as public parks with people on picnics and kids throwing balls competing for space with golfers. And yet, there are many Scots who have never played the game, nor care to. Kilfara covers it all. I didn’t come away with a great respect for the author, but a respect for his topic. Worth reading.