Michael Croley is a writer and a teacher. Without too much trouble, you can find his collection of yarns, Any Other Place: Stories or his magazine-published essays. What he teaches, is writing. When you interview a writer, you resist being the child of impulse, who tosses out the simplest, mundane inquiries. Instead, you do your level best to come up with questions that compel the subject to sit back and ponder their intricacy, if only for a while. I suspect I’ve done the later here, but you’ll be the arbiter.

Mr. Croley hails from Corbin, Kentucky, but that’s simply an opening for a layered, nuanced story that we won’t come close to completing today. He grew up in the southeastern portion of the commonwealth with an older brother, now deceased, who he adored. In a piece that he wrote for Golf Magazine, Mr. Croley reveals that he would tell folks his favorite basketball player was Larry Bird, because it was his brother’s favorite. In truth, it was older brother Tim who always would be his favorite baller.

While doing a bit of research on Corbin, I came across two items of interest. The first is the geographic location of the burg on interstate 75, smack dab between Lexington and Knoxville. If you want to get from UK to UT, you have to pass through Corbin. The second was a bit funnier. Listed among the most famous people to emerge from the home rule-class city was one Jerry Bird. Also a basketball player, but not nearly as famous as Larry. JBird played at UK, but he would have been no higher than third on Michael Croley’s list of favorite basketball dribblers.

Tim Croley (left) and Michael Croley (right)

Golf prose is the better when great writers choose to write about golf. Not great golf writer, mind you, but great writers. Folks like John Updike, Billy Collins, P.G. Wodehouse, Bernard Darwin, and their ilk. Fortunately for golf and for us, Michael Croley writes about golf. His connection with our game, of course, is connected to his brother and their bond.

RM: Is there more poetry, or more prose, in golf?

MC: A little of both, right? But I guess I’d lean more towards poetry in the best architecture, which leads to better stories and debates (prose) post-round.

RM: Was golf a part of your life while growing up in Corbin, Kentucky? If so, elaborate. If not, when/how did you find the game?

MC: Not at all. We only had one course, a nine-holer at the country club and we weren’t members. Golf definitely seemed like a game for “them” when I was growing up. I found the game in my early twenties when my older brother took it up. It was a way for us to spend time together.

RM: In one of your articles on golf, you reveal the pride you felt in watching your brother hit golf shots high in the air, straight at the target. My brother and I do not share golf, so we don’t have that connection. How did the sharing of golf enhance your relationship with your brother?

MC: It was just a way for us to continue playing and competing with each other as we did when we were boys. As we got older and had families, the golf trip was a way for us to turn out some noise and we built our year around it. I don’t know that golf made us closer–we were always really close–but it gave us a lot of great memories.

Pinehurst by day

RM: Is there a golf club in your bag that you rarely use? If so, which one, what do you fear, and why is it still there?

MC: I rarely keep the 4-iron in the bag. I’ve only hit well, seriously, twice in my life. Also, hybrids don’t treat me well, either. They’re supposed to be miracle clubs for regular golfers but they just baffle me.

RM: As a sometimes-writer on golf, do these story proposals find you, or do you begin with a notion, then seek an outlet or venue?

MC: More often than not, I’m pitching the stories to editors. I try to think of which venues will best support the story.

RM: What type of golf characters would populate your theoretical volume of stories on the game?

MC: The same ones that populate the fiction I write now, I suppose. Folks struggling to figure out who they are. Don’t what all suffer existential crisis on the golf course?

RM: There are at least two general sorts of golf writers: those whose dedication has been to tell the story of golf over the years, and others who are creative writers first, but cannot resist the siren call of golf. Do you have any to recommend, from either camp?

MC: I don’t, really. I’ve tried to read Updike’s essays and don’t enjoy them. I came to golf writing because I wanted, in part, to tell some stories about architecture and learn more about how golf courses are designed and built. Golf is a contemplative game for me, but I’m not contemplating golf when I play but my other writing and my life.

RM: In one of your articles, you mention the sect of golfers that studies the architecture of great courses. Talk a bit about this, about your entry into the coven, and the impact it had on how you played and enjoyed golf.

MC: That was due in part to my brother. He was really enamored with the work of Tom Doak as as I started playing golf I started paying more attention to how courses are built. I read Tom’s book The Anatomy of a Golf Course and that’s when I knew I wanted to write about him. I learned a lot from just talking to Tom and watching him walk the land of a golf course, which I’ve been fortunate to do twice.

RM: You have researched and profiled Anthony Ravielli, the artist who created Ben Hogan’s hands in the famous Five Lessons golf book. Select for us a historical figure from golf’s past, and why you might share 18 holes and a dram or two with that person. For bonus points, where would you play?

MC: Well, I’ll cheat and pick two. The first would be my late brother who passed away in May of 2021. I would play anywhere with him but we’d probably head to Pinehurst No. 2, where I scattered some of his ashes in September and wrote about that for Esquire. A historical figure is a tougher ask because I’m not that enamored of a good number of golfing characters but Donald Ross might be fun because I think he’s the most influential architect in the American game. Might be fun to pick his brain for a round.

Pinehurst by night