I might as well get this out of the way right off the bat: this review won’t make me any friends—in fact, it might even make me some enemies.
“Why is that?,” you ask.
Well, I’ll tell you. It’s because if you are a member of the mystical-guru school of golf enthusiasts—a big fan of Michael Murphy’s Golf in the Kingdom, maybe even a member of the Shivas Irons Society, the type of golfer who sees (or is looking for) transcendent meaning in every dew-sweeping round, every linksy sunrise, every made (or missed) putt, chip, or drive—I am about to rain all over your parade.
As a golf writer I sometimes receive copies of golf-related books, for free, to read and review. Sometimes I solicit a copy of a new golf book that I have heard of, sending a polite letter to the publicity department of the publishing house citing my bonafides and inquiring as to the availability of advance reading copies (ARCs, in publishing parlance); sometimes they are sent to me out of the blue. As often as not, though, I just buy them. I love the game of golf, and I love books—so I feel that I should support those folks who expend the time and energy to add to the literature of the game (and for the record, I purchased my copy of the book being reviewed here.)
Of these books there are some that I like, some that I love, and, sadly, there are some—a few—that I really, really, can’t bring myself to like very much at all. I do my best to give every book I read an honest evaluation, but I am picky, and I will find—and point out—errors of fact, I will deflate ego-balloons, and I am especially hard on “mental-game self-help books (see my review of the most recent one from “Dr Bob” Rotella – Make Your Next Shot Your Best Shot: Latest from Bob Rotella is more of the same: blah-blah-blah, rah-rah-rah ☹ ☹ ☹ ☹ ☹) and twee little volumes that lean too hard on the mystical-golf point of view.
The book I am reviewing here, Swing, Walk, Repeat, by Jay Revell, is, I am sorry to tell you, of the second variety. Not to rub it in at all, but for me this book strays too far toward a twee, off-with-the-fairies outlook on the game.
Do you feel the raindrops yet?
Swing, Walk, Repeat started out as a series of Instagram posts, a sort of daily golf journal that Jay Revell started in 2020 about the way that the game shapes his life. He managed over 250 of those daily observations, a pretty good tally by any measure, of which 225 (by my count) make up this book.
Don’t get me wrong—I love the game of golf. And I love it for many of the same reasons that Jay Revell does, and the same reasons as do the other people out there who lean hard on the mystic-guru button when it comes to golf—I like being out amid the green (or tawny brown, these days, in drought-stricken California) environs of a golf course; I enjoy the sense of accomplishment that comes from a well-struck golf shot, from aiming at a spot in a fairway or on a green, hitting the shot that I envisioned would put the ball there and seeing the ball actually end up on (or near) that spot. But I don’t get too sentimental about it.
For me Swing, Walk, Repeat leans too far in the direction of the meditations-and-deep-thoughts school of golf writing. Maybe my viewpoint is shaped by the fact that I didn’t grow up with the game, like Jay Revell and so many other small-ball writers did. I never played golf with my dad—I’m not sure that my father ever laid eyes on a golf club, let alone picked up or swung one—and I didn’t actually take up the game until I was in my early 40s. I have approached golf more as a challenging physical skill—like longbow archery, another avocation of mine—than as a meditative pastime or a bonding experience, and books like this one wear me out with their pastel-colors, Bob-Ross-happy-little-trees outlook. With chapter titles like “Golf Prayer”, “The Course is Calling”, “Dreaming of the Course”, “The Endless Search”, and “Longing for Golf”, when I was reading it I felt like I should be reading aloud in an awe-tinged whisper, with soft music playing in the background—angelic choirs, maybe, or slow, very soft bagpipe music.
Another thing: I noticed that there is no credit to or even mention of an editor having worked on the book, a fact which is apparent (or was to me) from early on. Meditation and feelings are great, but get your facts straight and make sure that your grammar is correct.
For example: In the introduction, page 4, fourth paragraph, first sentence, the word “grinded” is used. I see and hear this much too often in the context of golf, and it grinds on my ear like a misbehaving putter dragged down a cart path as punishment for a four-putt triple-bogey. The past tense of “grind” is “ground”, and if that word doesn’t fit the flow of the sentence you planned, find another way to phrase it.
Another, and I daresay more offending, error shows up on page nine, in the chapter entitled “Persimmon”—and I quote: “(Y)ou remember persimmon woods, don’t you? For generations this soft lumber was artfully crafted into club heads…”
My scanning eyes skidded to a disbelieving halt before they reached the end of that line. If you are going to wax lyrical about persimmon golf clubs, get your facts straight. Persimmon, the only North American member of the ebony family, is an extremely strong and hard wood—which seems obvious given the application. It is more than 1-1/2 times as hard as the hard maple that is used for flooring; of the North American hardwoods only hickory, used for axe handles and such, is stronger and harder. If you are writing about golf and you get a basic fact like this so very wrong, how am I supposed to trust what you write about anything else?
I won’t list any more errors, but suffice it to say that I read the remainder of the book with a pad of brightly colored sticky notes and a red pencil close at hand, and I admit that I was skimming briskly before I got to the middle of the volume, because I just couldn’t take it any more.
In summation: If your copy of Michael Murphy’s Golf in the Kingdom is dog-eared and worn (Murphy wrote a back-cover blurb for this book—no surprise), you will probably love this book and hate my review of it. That’s fine; really, because there is room for all sorts of folks in this game, and if there is one thing that golf teaches all but the most obtuse who venture out onto the course, it is how to get along with all kinds of people.
