Golf Books!

For our sins we all own them! Instructional books! Quick fix guides, biography or auto-biography, or even golfing psychology books!

Just wondered what everyone has in their collections, what they've come across that they think is pure gold or pure fools gold!

I'm a bit of a collector, I buy them for fun half the time just to see what some of these top guys who endorse them class as the next big thing in instruction or how they try to teach the same thing in a so called different and simpler way!

Of those I own I'm currently reading "Way of the Shark" Greg Normans Auto Bio. So far a compelling read but I'm biased as he's a personal hero.

Of the instructional books I've read through the worst I've come across and is in my collection for pure reason of wanting to see why it was the so called "next big thing" and trying to work out why so many pro's were converting is. Bennett and Plummers Book "the stack and tilt golf swing" absolute guff not an easy read and for what they call the simplest method to play its the most in-depth and ill explained method/book I've come across.

Another garbage one is a Leadbetter book far to complex for the average once a week golfer to apply to his/her game.

The best books and simplest I've come across are just 2 books.
1. Ray Floyds Elements of scoring! Not complex not overly explanatory of the swing sequence but common sense ways to play golfs important shots and how to build a score no matter what you swing like.

2.Colin Montgomery's Thinking Mans Guide to Golf: Again everything is explained in simplistic terms for all to understand and the focus is on keeping it simple so as not to get bogged down, more importantly the lion share of it is aimed at how to play everything in a simple manner with a full section devoted to course management and how this done simply can knock shots off your game.

The only other books I class as a must haves are Bob Rotellas golf is not a game of perfect. But the best and most enjoyable read even if you take nothing from it instructionally is Harvey Pennicks little red book, superbly and simply written you can't help but picture every word he writes in your own minds eye and it to gives an insight into how such a simple approach produced to many good tour players and major champions.

So what do you own? What do you think of it how useful is it?

What should we look out to buy.

What do I have........
A Good walk spoiled - John Feinstein - forgettable
A Golfers Life - Arnold Palmer - very forgettable
A Peter Alliss book and a Jimmy Tarbuck book - once again forgettable.

Mainly gave up on them then until I heard about the little red book and I often reread that!

Best golf book I have ever read is actually a comedy but true life book - How to become a scratch golfer by Patrick Campbell. Laugh out loud funny at times, at others you will see your own frailties reflected in it. Well worth digging out, although most of you will not know the bulk of the characters.

Oh - by the way, I do not own a single instructional book about golf. I believe them all to be a complete waste of time and money. If I use an instructional book at all, it will be of a generic style, something like 'The power of a Positive mental attitude' - Clem Stone

Golf instruction comes from within for me and also from my long dead Dad. I can still hear him at least once on every round I play.

'Backswing left shoulder under the chin - follow through right shoulder under the chin.'
'Sweep the clubhead away on the backswing, don't pick it up'
'Both 'v's on hands point to the right shoulder'
'Hands too late again!'
'Stop loosening your grip at the top of your backswing'
'Hit through the ball, don't die on it'
'What the f*** do you call that'

I learned what little I know about the swing from John Jacobs' book 'The Golf Doctor'. It explains how the clubhead's path and position at impact affect th flight of the ball, and how swing path in turn affects the clubhead. Then the rest of the book consists of different chapters each offering diagnosis and fix for swing faults based on the description of the ball flight. It is not exactly up to date, and as far as I recall Jacobs insists that anything starting left or right can only be down to swing path, though that may well have been my misinterpretation. But it certainly helped me improve when I was young. Jacobs used to teach Olazabal among others, so must have had half an idea! Supposedly he used to watch only the ball flight of a new pupil, and not their swing, in order to determine what they were doing wrong.

Aside from that, I have too many golf books to mention, including just about all of Dr Bob's. My favourite has to be my PG Wodehouse compendium of golfing stories.

I have a few, two I've read and two I haven't.

The Short Game Bible by Dave Pelz. Had this a while now, getting on 10 years I suppose. Some of the basic principles I have taken in board such as building a swing distance table for my wedges based off of swing distance. Some of the other stuff seems a little complicated and I don't really have the time to work on my game.

Golf is Not a Game of Perfect and the 15th Club both by Bob Rotella. I read the first but not the second. I always seem to read in the off season and not during the season so I forget what I've read.

I have another Pelz book, can't remember the title and can't be arsed to go look for it, which I got towards the end of the season last year. It's the one on hazard shots with funky photography that shows a golfer's view over the ball. Will read it at some point but didn't see much point in doing so last year.

I've also read some others; The Match by Mark Frost, Tales from Q School by John Feinstein and most recently Who's your Caddy by Rick Reilly. All were interesting stories in their own right.

The Match described a better ball match between top amateurs and top tour pros. The amateurs were car salesmen but included a young Ken Venturi and the pros were Hogan and Nelson.

Tales from Q School was an interesting look at what happens, can I remember some of the players he touches upon; in a word no. Still a good read but get it out of the library rather than paying cash for it.

Who's your Caddy is a collection of short stories from one guy who caddied for several different players and people who like their golf. He's not a proper caddy and at times replaces a pro's caddy for a tournament or acts as a caddy for a round or two. It's quite funny in places and also touched upon some stuff that doesn't get much press such as Casey Martin and his Supreme Court win allowing him to use a buggy on tour and who's sleeping with who on the LPGA tour.

Rotella's 'Putting out of your mind' is the best golf book I have read. Most of his others are good too. Nothing sensational just stuff you already knew you should be doing but have forgotten about. Unless your name is Gael, who knows everything about psychology and never needs reminding then I think there is something useful for everyone in his books.

Like Maverick I am currently reading Greg Normans 'The Way of the Shark' which is a good read.

The golf book that I enjoyed the most was probably 'Four Iron in the Soul' by Lawrence Donegan. I am sure that most on here will have read it, but for those that haven't, it is the story of how Donegan spent a year on the European Tour caddying for Scottish golfer Ross Drummond. I found it highly interesting and entertaining.

Blue glad I'm not the only one currently enjoying the norman book.

Grumps: I too have Feinsteins tales from the Q School picked it up in a bargain bucket for 50p! Still not got round to reading it yet.

There are quite a few instructional books in the house, but I haven't ever read any of them as I prefer to watch DVDs to see how it should be done.

I am a fan of Bob Rotella, and am planning to do a re-read of a couple of these before the season gets into full swing.

I am a fan of bios/autobios - first one I read was "Bud, Sweat and Tees" - Rich Beem. Also enjoyed the Lawrence Donegan book, and "Golf on the Edge" by Ross Biddlecombe - which follows the heartache of players going through Q school. "Wild Thing" - John Daly is next on my tbr pile.

I've got 'Shark Attack' by Greg Norman 'Golf my Way' by Jack Nicklaus and 'Impact on Golf' by John Jacobs. All well worth a read. Apart from that have short versions like Harvey Pennicks 'Little Green Golf Book' which is good especially for short game.

Got another one today as a gift.

Called into the parents house today see how oldman Mav got on with his pre-op appointment for his upcoming hip replacement. When I got there he gave mesomething he bought for me in a shop in thehigh street called "the works"

The book itself comes complete with a DVD to and is called "Simply Golf - Back to basics" and is written and filmed by Stuart Applebys coach Steve Bann.

I"ll let you know what I think.

Maverick wrote:The book itself comes complete with a DVD to and is called "Simply Golf - Back to basics" and is written and filmed by Stuart Applebys coach Steve Bann.

But how many of us will read such a book and think, "Oh yeah, I remember that," but never really apply the lessons or suggestions due to the thousands of other articles and years of knowledge lingering in our brains saying, "But I'm ready to go to the next level."

Like all here, I have my share of golf books whether I needed them or not. I'll dig them out of storage later on but the one I still have on my book shelf is a copy of "Bernard Darwin on Golf." I like this book because it is also about short story literature and the English language as written and spoken from his world 60 to 80 years ago. They certainly used a lot of commas in his day. Here's a short paragraph from his 1936 short story, "The Ladies":

"I think I like watching women better than men because their golf is more interesting, and it is more interesting because of their wooden-club play; this is more accurate than that of men, and there is more of it. It may be that nothing can give quite so exquisite a thrill as the difficult iron shot perfectly executed, but day in and day out, that which excites the wildest hopes and the deadliest fears beforehand, the greatest relief and enthusiasm when it has been well played, is the brassy shot. And how well these modern ladies do play their brassies!"

Perhaps he's pulling on the ladies skirts or trying to win their favor, but his last sentence is a winner. Interesting to relate the brassie type clubs of yore to the rescue and fairway clubs of now and how they attempt to produce similar results due to club selection and purpose.

But how many of us will read such a book and think, "Oh yeah, I remember that," but never really apply the lessons or suggestions due to the thousands of other articles and years of knowledge lingering in our brains saying, "But I'm ready to go to the next level."

Thats the reason I cillect them but do not use them. I find it fascinating the amount of ways they are all finding to tell the same thing..

Much better are thebooks like Pennicks where theres no instruction or visuals to look at but merely stories of experiences far more to learn from those than anything else

Out of all the instructional golf books I've read, Jack's book, "Golf My Way" remains fresh. His thoughts on strategy and application are still vivid, especially his idea of eliminating half the course through left to right fades. Simple but tough to pull off without that particular shot in the bag.

I don't really pay too much attention to instructional books but I have read a few (auto)biographies which generally are quite entertaining.
I also have a couple of books that I couldn't be without, my favourite is 'Classic links of GB&I' which is a beautiful reference book. I also have another called 'True Links' which lists all the 254* links courses in the World.

*I actually don't agree that some of these courses should be classed as links, to me they are just seaside/coastal courses. A true links course is all about sandy soil, marram grasses etc.

venice1 wrote:Out of all the instructional golf books I've read, Jack's book, "Golf My Way" remains fresh. His thoughts on strategy and application are still vivid, especially his idea of eliminating half the course through left to right fades. Simple but tough to pull off without that particular shot in the bag.

Venice's comments on strategy made me realise that I had forgot to include a book on golf course design and strategy. I have Golf by Design by Robert Trent Jones. This was another off season purchase, read halfway and put down to be taken up closer to the season but ultimately forgotten. From what I can remember it was relatively interesting and written with the idea of educating a golfer to the tricks that an architect can implement in designing golf courses. It was bought in the hope of improving my course management skills and probably should be dusted off ready for the upcoming season.

I got Monty's book a few years ago. The read was very similar to the method he used to lose weight.

I read the first half and left the rest.

There's one called the swingers bible by Mary Whitehouse which is said to be excellent.

I found it under 'special interests' in my local Waterstones.