Bad Lies: A Field Guide to Lost Balls, Missing Links, and Other Golf Mishaps [Hardcover]

from Hachette Book Group / Little Brown

If I may quote from myself, and I do, I will say that duffers are very rarely looking for trouble, but find themselves in trouble often, anyway . . . if you know what I mean . . . so a little book that tells the endlessly interesting story of trouble on the golf course would be welcome . . . from the harmless untruths and exaggerations about such trouble told in the 19th hole to the ribald raconteurterie of the locker room, we, the duffers commiserate with the well told encounter.

And one imagined, starting off with the amusing FOREword from Gary McCord, that the pictures in this book would each relate a 1000 words worth of merriment, but either the author's imagination failed him, or his experience is limited by an over-abundance of skill that inhibits the kinds of adventures that duffers such as myself find interesting.

AIA (apologies in advance), I am going to quote from myself again . . . unpardonable, but I have spent all my vitriol on duffers that don't rake traps, fill divots, repair ballmarks, or hit into the group ahead of them, and since I don't do any of those things, by the time I get to my own sins, I find I must be forgiving instead, so lookit:

So my 3wood wasn't gonna reach the green, I knew that, but I never figgered for trouble like this. Maybe I'll link this to my review of the book Bad Lies, and vice versa . . . 8^) . . .

I chipped it with a 7iron one handed, my left hand holding the tree like a lady . . . I hadn't practiced that . . . it came out ok, but long, and it took 3 more to get down. Bogey, to make 5 6s in a row. Ouch.

SO

Maybe it's not Shakespear, nor Wind nor Darwin nor Updike, nor Jenkins, neither -- but here is my point, it IS a bad lie, and not

• 
  
  a picture of the backsides of some gallery at a golf tournament, nor
• 
  
  some stagey, fakey looking picture, nor
• 
  
  a apparently unrelated picture of Paula Creamer in the fairway or Natalie Gulbis on a green (and don't get me wrong . . . I am fully in favor of as many pictures of the beautiful and talented ladies of the LPGA being made as widely available as possible -- just -- this is where I am questioning the judgement? what is being said about these good young woment in a book about trouble where they're not in Golf Trouble? Pictures of puchritudinous young women in a book called Bad Lies is just asking for a locker room joist, if you see what I mean.)

I had oughtta say that the picture of the duffer looking for his ball in the fescue was a good 'un. A book of those would have been good . . . but dude -- Drop a Ball and move on!

Well, one last carp and then I'll sum up: I can't believe the best picture of a golf ball in a saguaro available is the one he published . . . any duffer that's played in AZ has seen better examples, and me and Mr Science played every course in the valley of the sun we could get on . . . from the early days on the Kokopelli Golf Stance you might find a better picture, but I know after a while it just wudn't funny no more.

Bottom line, if you're thinking of buying this for the duffer in your  family, don't do it . . . 5 minutes and onto the shelf for good . . . if you're thinking of buying it for yourself, back off and restart your pre-purchase routine again . . . look at it again from both sides of the hole, if you see what I mean, Before . . . .