Book Review: “The Murder of Marion Miley”, by Beverly Bell ⭐️⭐️⭐️☆☆

Given that The Murder of Marion Miley is about the murder of a talented and in her time, well-known, American amateur golfer, I debated whether to place this review in my golf-related blog, Will o'the Glen on Golf, or my book-review blog, Will o'the Glen on Books. Solomon-like, I decided to have it both ways and post it in both.

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Though this book reads like fiction, Marion Miley was a real person, and the broader outline of events described in the book actually happened: 27-year-old Marion and her mother, Elsie, were shot and killed during a late-night break-in and robbery at the Lexington, Kentucky, country club where they shared an upstairs apartment. Marion’s father, Fred Miley, formerly employed at the Lexington Country Club, was still married to her mother, but had taken a job at another golf club, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and lived apart from his wife and daughter.

Marion was a well known amateur golfer who competed against, and often defeated, such legends of the women’s game as Glenna Collett Vare, Babe Didrikson, and Patty Berg. Amateur golf being a much more glamorous and high-profile game at the time, Marion was a well-known name, and rubbed elbows with such famous personalities as Bing Crosby, and the former British king, Edward VIII, and his wife, the twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson.

The timing of the events recounted in the book, just over two months before America’s entry into the Second World War on December 7, 1941, meant that this story has largely been relegated to a footnote in history. Beverly Bell’s efforts to bring the story of Marion’s death to the attention of the public 80 years after the fact are well intentioned, but, in my assessment, fall short of the mark.

The novelization of true events is a problematic task, even when preceded, as was done in this case, with an author’s note disclaimer that “(a)ll dialogue and journal writings are imagined.” Given the amount of the text that is given over to such imagined entities, the imaginary content seriously overtakes the factual, and I couldn’t help but think, after closing the cover on the final pages of the book, that this was a case of a strong magazine article being teased out to book length, and doing a disservice to the story in the process.

I found the book’s structure problematic, opening as it did with a clinical—and not for the squeamish—description of Marion’s injuries from the two bullets that took her life; even more problematic were the subsequent random meanderings of the narrative voice between a variety of points-of-view: the police investigating the crime; Marion’s father, as he attempts to deal with the loss of both his wife and daughter at one stroke; Marion’s best friend, Frances “Fritz” Laval; and the perpetrators of the murders. The constantly changing voice was confusing, and made it difficult to keep track of both events and characters—some of whom, it turns out, were fabricated from the whole cloth by the author.

Given the fact that the publisher, South Limestone Books, is an imprint of the University of Kentucky Press, I was also surprised by instances of clumsy phrasing and sentence structure which an attentive and competent copy editor would have caught and corrected. Such matters detract from the overall impression of a book, more so perhaps for technically savvy readers than for others, but they can be like little trip-stones that interrupt one’s reading by interjecting a jarring sense of discord into the flow of the story.

I will stop short of a full dismissal of this book, but I cannot, in conscience, give it a strong recommendation. Marion Miley’s life and tragic death is a story that was worth the telling, and it’s unfortunate that this effort falls so far short of what the story of her life deserved, because given its relatively minor status in the larger scheme of the events of the time, even within the confines of the game of golf, it is unlikely that there will be another attempt.

Book Review: “Palm Springs Golf”, by Larry Bohannan – Local history book with widespread appeal ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Local histories are often charming, well-written – and only of interest to residents of the local area about which they are written. But when the local area being written about is a world-renowned golf destination, not to mention a well-known playground of stars from the worlds of entertainment and politics, and the book is authored by a longtime area newsman possessed of a deep knowledge of the game of golf and a keen interest in local history, the book takes on a wider appeal.

The 2015 release Palm Springs Golf – A History of Coachella Valley Legends and Fairways is just such a book. Authored by Larry Bohannan, the award-winning golf writer and columnist for the Coachella Valley region’s Desert Sun newspaper, Palm Springs Golf is a complete history of the evolution of the Palm Springs, California, region from sleepy desert hideaway to dynamic vacation destination – all through the power of the game of golf.

Bohannan’s prose, fashioned by a writer who has been honing his craft since 1982, brings the history of the Coachella Valley alive for the reader. From the first chapter, in which the reader will learn a bit of the earliest history of the Coachella Valley; to the last, in which the state of the region’s world-famous golf resorts and renowned professional tournaments, in the present day and beyond, is detailed, the author faithfully chronicles the people, places, and events that made the region what it is today.

It is the presence of high-quality resort golf and top-level professional and amateur golf competition which has, in large part, forged the region’s identity as a wintertime resort destination. Television coverage of golf competitions being played under sunny skies in shirt-sleeve conditions while much of the rest of the country is shivering in frigid temperatures and shoveling snow off the doorstep has for decades been some of the best advertisement the business and development communities in the Palm Springs area could hope for. 

Even before the advent of televised sports coverage, the ability to play golf in sunny conditions in wintertime was a draw the Coachella Valley business leaders exploited. From nine-hole courses associated with the early resorts such as the Hotel La Quinta and the Desert Inn of the 1920s, to the full 18-hole courses of the 1950s built at the Thunderbird  Country Club (the first in the area, in 1951), Tamarisk, Indian Wells, and many, many others, golf and the beautiful winter weather brought everyone from movie stars to presidents to the desert.

Golf competitions are a big part of the Palm Springs story which Bohannan relates in the book. Early amateur competitions were draws for top golfers (and enthusiastic vacationing golf fans) and professional competitions followed. The Coachella Valley’s best-known pro tournament was for years the star-studded Bob Hope Desert Classic (known by different names over the years as sponsorship changed) and it was joined by a variety of smaller, shorter-lived made-for-TV events such as the CBS Matchplay Classic and The Skins Game.

And not only was golf good for the desert, the desert was good for golf—two visits to the Palm Springs area by the international Ryder Cup competition, in 1955 and 1959, were instrumental in raising the profile of that event from that of an obscure USA vs GBI trophy event to the important position in the international sporting calendar which it now enjoys.

Women’s golf has long been a part of the desert scene, and author Bohannan gives the distaff game its fair share of attention in the book. The Colgate Dinah Shore Classic, played at Mission Hills Country Club, became a major event on the LPGA schedule, and remains so to this day in its current incarnation as the ANA Inspiration.

From early settlers and quaint, practically home-made courses built alongside the early resort hotels to the present day’s numerous resort and country club courses carpeting the valley floor; from everyday folks looking for a respite from the crowding of the Los Angeles Basin or the frigid wintertime conditions of the East and Midwest to the movie stars and political figures (including presidents from Eisenhower to Obama) who added a tinge of glamour to Palm Springs, the story of the Coachella Valley golf scene is more than just a local success story. Larry Bohannan’s book lays out the fascinating history of this world-famous golf destination in a diligently researched, well-written account that every golf fan who has ever visited the area (or dreamed of it while shivering through a frigid East Coast winter) will want to read.

Palm Springs Golf is available online at Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions; at Barnes & Noble, also in paperback and an electronic ‘Nook’ edition; from your local independent bookseller (of course…)—and if you are lucky enough to be visiting the region already, at pro shops in the area.

Book Review: “Arnie, Seve, and a Fleck of Golf History”, by Bill Fields ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

If you have an interest in the history of the game of golf beyond the current headlines of the PGA Tour, one of the people whose work you should read is Bill Fields. Fields, a former senior writer at Golf World magazine, is a four-time winner of the Golf Writers Association of America’s annual writing contest whose work has also appeared in Golf Digest and the New York Times.

Fields’ 2014 book, Arnie, Seve, and a Fleck of Golf History, is a condensed master course in “How to write about golf”. Of course, the best golf writing isn’t about the score or who won, or what clubs they used—it’s about the people in the game, winners or also-rans, and their journeys to achievement. Fields is a master at identifying and illuminating the essence of the story he’s telling, with tremendous empathy for the people involved, and he has a poetic flair for a well-turned phrase that makes his prose a joy to read.

Drawn from his 30-year body of work, the individual articles which make up the book are segregated into sections on the greats of the game—individual men and women who stand tall in the annals of golf; great championships—competitions that defined turning points or significant moments in golf history; and underdogs—characters from the rich history of golf, some champions, some just obscure names in the agate, who are nevertheless part of the rich weave of the tapestry that is the history of the greatest game.

Some of the people you’ll read about in this book are Harry Vardon, the great English champion to whom 95% of the golfers in the world pay homage every time they pick up a club—he invented (or at least popularized) the overlapping grip; John J. McDermott, still the youngest man ever to win the United States Open, in 1911, at the age of 19 years, 10 months—a great champion who repeated the win the following year, becoming the first to complete the tournament under par, and who faded away into mental illness and obscurity; and Glenna Collett Vare—one of the great champions of the early years of women’s golf in the United States, a woman who combined marriage and motherhood with the accomplishments of a champion golfer.

Fields writes with compassion and understanding, whatever the subject, from well-known incidents like Arnold Palmer’s well-known meltdown in the 1966 U. S. Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, to footnotes in golf history such as the first 55 recorded in an eighteen-hole round of golf—and still the only one in a competitive round—a 16-under carded by a little-known Texas pro named Homero Blancas, on an oilfield course in the flatlands of east Texas.

With a foreword by a man who is simultaneously a great champion of the game, and an avid student of its history, Ben Crenshaw, Arnie, Seve, and a Fleck of Golf History is a must-read for anyone with an interest in the history of the people and events of the game of golf.