“I don’t know how to put this but I’m kind of a big deal. People know me. I’m very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.”

There aren’t any heroes named Ron. There are foils (Ron Weasely) and pratfalls (Ron Burgundy). There are lovable goofballs (Ron Stoppable) and animated supporters (Ron Cadillac). The closest we have to a legendary Ron is Ron Swanson, and that’s only because he has the spoofed pyramid of greatness (thank you, John Wooden.) Actually, I’ll take those five Rons, and ron run with them. That’s one heck of a way to introduce a quote from the fictional Ron Burgundy, about books, which is what this rich essay pretends to profile.

2021 offered the opportunity for me to acquire a number of books to add to my collection. Not all are leather-bound, but how many really are these days? Some are old, while others are new. Some came as review copies from publishing companies, while others tumbled down from dusty shelves of book nooks. Below you’ll find my rundown of 14 volumes related to golf if not outright dedicated to the subject.

1. A wee nip at the 19th hole

Richard Mackzenzie, 1997 (Sleeping Bear Press) 1998 (Bantam Books). Mine is the later edition; I suspect the first is in massive demand. SBP was the godsend of publishing in the decade of 1995 to 2005. The best golf books came out of Michigan. This tome treats the lore of the caddie.

2. Mr. Punch on the links

E.V. Knox, editor 1929 (Henkle). My brother has taken to finding absolutely ridiculous books for the collection. This one has a 1935 Xmas dedication from Helen Dwight Reid to someone special in her life. To put things in perspective, my dad was 15 months old when she wrote that dedication. It’s a collection of stories, and I’ll gingerly turn the pages this year.

3. The Country Club of Buffalo: The first hundred years

Austin Fox 1989 (published by the club). I grew up on the second CCB layout, which came after the first hosted the 1912 U.S. Open and predates the current Ross routing. The first layout is occupied by elegant housing. The second (my stomping grounds) is a municipal course. I’m on the lookout always for photos from the U.S. Open course. I’m not certain that they exist, outside the archives of the club. I’ll have a read of this volume and let you know.

4. Bringing the monster to its knees

Edward Gruver 2021 (Lyons Press). Speaking of U.S. Open championships, the 1951 edition set the stage for what I consider to be decades of missteps by the USGA. The trajectory had to happen, what with the Cold War, the Space Race, and all that overworld competition between political superpowers. It only stood to reason that golf course architecture would embrace bigger + badder + brutal equates with better. And Robert Trent Jones, Sr. was there to oblige. I feel bad for Trent. His early stuff was playable and great, and some of his later courses were of the same, strategic ilk. It’s just that middle period when everything inflated. This book examines the events, locales, and figures that culminated in one of the most famous quotes from Ben Hogan.

5. The sport of Prince’s: Reflections of a golfer

Laddie Lucas 1980 (Stanley Paul) If you know Hamilton, you know that it opens like this:

How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore
and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a
forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence,
impoverished, in squalor,
grow up to be a hero and a scholar?

Here’s the Percy Belgrave Lucas version:

How does a child, born in a clubhouse
along the Kent coastline, swinging from the port side
join the Royal Air Force, returning from a battle
land his broken plane on the fairways he was nurtured on,
grow up to be a champion golfer and a writer?

Laddie Lucas, legend.

6. Lines of charm

Geoff Shackleford 2005 (Sports Media Group) Another collection of essays, by one of the golf world’s most humble figures, this agglomeration of perspectives gathers the insights of golf course architects from way back then to the turn of the millennium.

7. Cracking the code

Paul Azinger and Ron Braund 2010 (Looking Glass Books) In 2008, Paul Azinger and his diminutive staff of assistant coaches crafted a strategy on how to group team members and win back the Ryder Cup. They did so, and the PGA of America honored them by ignoring their work and abandoning their precepts. If you coach, or teach, or parent, you should read this volume.

8. The Amen Corner

James Baldwin 1954   In 1958, Herbert Warren Wind christened a three-hole stretch of golf holes at the Augusta National Golf Club as Amen Corner. Historians have been quick to attribute the influence to an old spiritual Shouting in/at that Amen corner. It seems ridiculous to suspect that someone as well-read as Wind, would not be aware of a theatrical piece, published by one of the most important writers of the decade. I move that Baldwin’s play, beyond its importance to the wider world, be recognized as impactful on Wind’s naming of holes 11 through 13 at the home of the Masters

9. Cinderella Story

Bill Murray 1999 (Doubleday) The Bill Murray that we see on television today, is not the Bill Murray that we knew from the 1970s to the 1990s. There is something about youthful pratfall that is waaayyy funnier than elderly pratfall. Trust me; I’m approaching elderly. It reminds me of John Mulaney’s take on Bill Clinton: that is not the Bill Clinton that we all signed up for, twenty years ago. The Bill Murray that we signed up for, the one who made the greatest golf movie for once and all time, is older now. Best you read his words from the old millennium.

10. The confidential guide to golf courses: volume five

Tom Doak, et al 2018 (Renaissance Golf Publishing) Tom Doak became accessible to me. That’s kind of a murky statement, but murk inspires. It should inspire you to make your heroes accessible to you, provided that they are still alive and not in prison. Tom Doak is alive and is not in prison. Tom Doak designs great golf courses. Tom Doak writes about the history and the contemporary of golf course architecture. Tom Doak suffers no fools. His confidential guide has had two lives. This one is the second, and consists of five volumes. The first three came in chronological order, in 2014, 2015, and 2016. Volume five came out two years later. The fourth volume has yet to make an appearance. If you want to learn about what makes great golf courses, where those courses are on this planet, and what four people (Tom and his coterie) sincerely, honestly, and unabashedly think of them, you read this series of books.

11. The nine virtues of golf

Jay Revell 2020 (self-published) is a fine golf writer. He is a current golf writer. He is a southern golf writer, and that is a very different thing from a northern golf writer, a European golf writer, or a midwestern golf writer. His first book is an assemblage of nine delightful meditations, is self-published, and is an absolute steal, no matter the price.

12. Scotland’s Gift Golf

Charles Blair MacDonald 2020 (Coventry House) The original was published over a century ago; CBM has not returned from the angry dead. Someone had to be the father of American golf  because women were not considered equal to men, and so MacDonald fit the bill. He did his legwork, and he left us with the notion of template holes. These are slowly making their way into public golf courses. The day will come when a municipality takes the money and says Blow up the muni and replace it with the great golf holes. Until then, you’ll have to sneak onto the private clubs with me. And read what MacDonald considered to be important.

13. Dangerous Beauty

Samuel Ingwersen 2019 (Dangerous Beauty) The actual title of the book is Watercolor paintings and insights from the artist on the dangerous beauty of modern golf course design. Whoooooo. 27 syllables later, we’ve chopped it down to five and we’re running with it. Perhaps you know that I love to take photographs of golf courses. I can’t sing, I cannot draw, and I’ll never hold a brush and make it do the things I want it to, even on the broad side of a barn. I have a soft spot for those who can use the voice, pencil, and paint, to make beautiful things. I have a soft spot for this book.

14. The making of Pacific Dunes

Tom Doak 2021 (Renaissance Golf Publishing) Remember that name I dropped, a few books ago? Well, he has another book on my list. Can I help it if the books he produces are fit for mahogany coffee tables, especially ones that smell like new money, that 60 percent of the time, work all the time? These are wonderful books, about wonderful places, and they are worth the wonderful money that I collect from returning pop bottles. If only I lived in Michigan, where Doak lives. I could buy twice as many books, since bottles fetch 10 cents each in the Mitten state. Pacific Dunes is a magical place on the Oregon coast and is one of five, full-sized courses on the Bandon Dunes property. It is spectacular, as is this book.

Epilogue

I met a marketing genius for a golf resort and asked him if he had seen what a certain author had written about his resort, under a certain title. He indicated that it was on his desk. This meant that, along with forty other books, it was on his desk. This meant that he would get to it, probably, on the first of never, and then only for a quick scan. Why did I care? Because on page 104 or thereabouts, I was mentioned in the book. And I was trying to lead him to that fact, and cement my own importance alongside the resort and the book. Didn’t pan out.

What did pan out are these books. I’ll spend 2022 hunting for more, and I hope that you will, too. The playing of golf is a marvelous opportunity, but the reading of far-off adventures, alongside far-away courses, is a privilege.