“Playing Dirty”, by Joel Beall – a “compare-and-contrast” examination of the current state of the game of golf ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆

Playing Dirty, by Golf Digest senior writer Joel Beall, is the newest book from the golf specialty publisher Back Nine Press. An intriguing mix of thoroughly researched investigative journalism and golf sentimentalism of the Golf in the Kingdom school of golf writing, it is a “compare-and-contrast” exercise between what might be seen as two wholly unrelated aspects of the game of golf.

The book combines a hard-news journalistic examination of the current state of men’s professional golf, specifically the effects of the influx of Saudi investment, with a somewhat dreamy-eyed look into the experience of the game as (when?) played in its ancestral homeland, Scotland. While I am myself essentially immune to the more spiritual side, if you will, of the golf experience, I deplore the grotesquely cynical approach that has been taken by the professional players who have taken the Saudi shekel, of which Joel Beall offers a concise examination.

The portions of the book that deal with the current kerfluffle in the men’s professional game are thorough, well presented, and obviously well researched—and while I for one have grown somewhat weary of reading about Saudi Arabia, the PIF, LIV Golf, and the current state of the seemingly unending negotiations between the PGA Tour and the golf-obsessed Saudi money-man Yasir Al-Rumayyan, I found a smile creeping across my face as I read the sections in Chapter 3 in which Beall skewers the LIV Golf membership, their tournament format, and the twisted rationalizations employed by the men who have taken Saudi blood money to participate in these farcical exhibitions; in these opinions we are brothers.

“LIV is a moral crisis masquerading as a golf league.”

   – Joel Beall, Playing Dirty

(You will note that I specifically define the affected aspect of the game as men’s professional golf, because for all the bandying about of the well-worn phrase “growing the game” in LIV Golf communications and the scripted diatribes delivered by LIV Golf members, it is only men’s professional golf that is affected. There is no aspect of this issue that has any impact whatsoever on the recreational game of golf as it is played by millions of people all over the world, beyond, perhaps, arguments over post-round drinks.

Not only that, but a clear-eyed assessment of the supposed “rupture” of men’s professional golf can only come to the conclusion that it is a tempest in a teapot, an over-reaction by Jay Monahan and the PGA Tour leadership to the departure of a handful of mostly fading former stars and the pick-up of some unproven newbies who lacked confidence in their abilities to make the grade in the meritocracy-based pro game as it is played on the PGA Tour.)

As for the other side of the coin: the “hie me away to the misty links” portions of the book, well, this is the bread and butter of the folks at Back Nine Press and an area where our viewpoints diverge somewhat (see my review of their 2022 release Swing, Walk, Repeat by Jay Revell.)

Beall hits the reader with this stuff right from the get-go, in the introduction, starting up with the story of an itinerant seeker-after-truth named Hess (“just Hess”) who dabbles in real estate and personal training to support his true purpose in life—playing golf. This side of the book segues into examinations of, among other things: the differences between golf in the United States and in Scotland, caddies, lists of the greatest golf courses in Scotland, descriptions of the aforementioned great courses (and others that didn’t quite make the cut), the joys of and proper ways to conduct a Scottish golf pilgrimage, etc., etc., etc. …

Don’t get me wrong, I would love to take my golf clubs to Scotland. It is, after all, the land of (some of) my ancestors, the origin of my surname, and the birthplace of the game—and I have enough of a sense of history to acknowledge the importance of that last fact. What wears me down is the insistence on attributing an air of mystical importance to the experience, a practice which I attribute to a man with whom I share a hometown—fellow Salinas, California native Michael Murphy, the author of the aforementioned Golf in the Kingdom.

Murphy’s book originated the idea of “golf’s mystical journey”, perhaps as a counterpoint to the aspirational country-club ideal of golf as the game was interpreted when it came to the United States. While golf is an everyman’s game in Scotland, and despite the fact that 75% of the golf courses in this country are open to the public either as daily-fee or municipal facilities, the non-golfing public-at-large in the United States view golf as an elitist, members-only activity for RWMs (Rich White Men). It is an image that has proven to be difficult to shake, and in the wake of the popularity of Michael Murphy’s pretentious little tome, many a golf writer has swung that pendulum to the other extreme, extolling the mystical, soul-healing qualities of this crazy game especially when played in Scotland.

Despite my impatience with tales of healing journeys to the mystical homeland of golf, I recognize the counterpoint comparison that the author is making in this book when he contrasts that side of the game, as pursued and experienced by devoted amateurs, to the cynical and unholy, if you will, pursuit of more money than a person could reasonably want or need, by professional golfers.

In Playing Dirty Joel Beall has, I believe, drawn a thoughtful comparison between two widely disparate aspects of the game of golf, contrasting the pursuit of the pure enjoyment of the game by devoted (if somewhat obsessive?) amateurs with the stubbornly obdurate pursuit of obscene wealth, in total disregard of the moral objections to the source of that wealth, by professional players who have, in many cases, already profited enormously from their ability to play this maddening game at a high level.

This book captures a snapshot of the current landscape of the game of golf which will be appreciated by thoughtful students of the game, and looked to, I think, by future scholars of the history of golf.

Book Review: “Swing, Walk, Repeat”, by Jay Revell ⭐️⭐️☆☆☆

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.

Golf’s Holy War: The Battle for the Soul of a Game in an Age of Science, by Brett Cyrgalis ⭐️⭐️⭐️☆☆

I had been hearing about this book for over a year, via author Brett Cyrgalis’ dropped hints on social media, before I was able to get my hands on an advance copy, and I was eager to read it. By the time I turned the final page, I was sorry to have found that the reality had not lived up to my level of anticipation.

Golf’s Holy War: The Battle for the Soul of a Game in an Age of Science examines the yin and yang, so to speak, of how people approach the game of golf. The book opens by examining two well-known books about the game which are perfect diametric opposites of each other: Homer Kelley’s The Golfing Machine, a self-published opus of such diabolical complexity that it is either revered as the ultimate technical manual on the golf swing or decried as an impenetrable morass of swing-position micro-management and technical jargon; and Golf in the Kingdom, Michael Murphy’s guidebook to the mystical side of golf, a navel-gazing volume that is much revered by the members of the “be-the-ball” school of golf.

That first chapter reflects author Brett Cyrgalis’ general approach throughout the book, contrasting the softer side of the game, in many aspects—teaching the swing, playing the game, and even golf course design—with the technical, hard numbers approach that has gained so much traction in the age of Trackman and video analysis.

Cyrgalis traveled far and wide, and interviewed dozens of people—including the old golf mystic himself, Michael Murphy—in the process of researching this book; it seems that there was no one with any kind of a hand in the game from the standpoint of teaching or coaching that he didn’t interview or quote—some very well-known, like Butch Harmon, Dave Leadbetter, Sean Foley, and Hank Haney, and others who are less well-known except to the hard-core cognoscenti, those seekers of deeper truths and a lower handicap who aren’t satisfied with the monthly “How to Fix Your Slice” articles that are such a staple of the mainstream golf publications.

The book explores Michael Murphy’s detour into mysticism after a solid farm-country upbringing in our mutual hometown of Salinas, California, and presents more than we really needed to know (in a book about golf, at least…) about the founding of Murphy’s Esalen Institute. An exploration of Homer Kelley’s background in that ultimate example of theological dichotomy, the Church of Christ, Scientist (aka “Christian Science”) takes the reader down what seemed to me to be an unnecessary side road in the chapter “Golf and Religion”.

The hard-numbers side of the current state of the game is also explored, as Cyrgalis delves into the origin and development of the now-ubiquitous Trackman system, Professor Mark Broadies’ statistical “Strokes-Gained” results-analysis technique, and the blossoming of the hard-science, analysis-intensive golf institutes such as the Titleist Performance Institute and Taylormade’s Kingdom.

There is also quite a number of pages devoted to, you guessed it— Tiger Woods. I’m writing this review after some six weeks of pandemic shelter-in-place that produced a level of Tiger-hysteria over the cancelling of the 2020 Masters tournament and the wiping-out of Woods’ chance at a (highly unlikely, in my opinion) defense of his title that was second only to that which immediately followed his 2009 Thanksgiving evening run-in with his wife, a nine-iron, and a fire hydrant, in that order. The obligatory if-you-want-to-sell-a-golf-book chapter on Woods tested my patience, reiterating material that has been covered ad nauseum over the last decade or so, and serving mainly as a springboard into a look at the career of one of Tiger’s more controversial coaching associates, a pot-smoking Canadian named Sean Foley.

The book follows, in large part, the modern journalistic practice of reporting both sides of an issue impartially and without judgement, when in reality it is generally true that while there are often two (or more) sides to a story, usually only one of them is right. Therein lies its major weakness.

By exploring the far reaches of both ends of the range of approaches to the game of golf, without judgement, Cyrgalis does the reader a disservice, I think. Homer Kelley’s minutia-laden tome goes too far in one direction, and Michael Murphy’s book, which I found too ridiculous to even finish, goes too far in the other—and those are just the two most familiar examples—but we are not presented with any examples of more balanced approaches to the game which live in the fat middle portion of the bell curve, where actual success lives.

By meandering down so many side avenues and offering it all up with little in the way of examination, Cyrgalis presents a broad-spectrum look at how the game of golf is approached by the amazingly varied cross-section of humanity who play the game, but without a grounded judgement as to what really works.

It could be argued, I suppose, that golf doesn’t lend itself to that approach. The landscapes over which it is played, both physical and mental, are so varied, and there are so many, possibly infinite, paths that will arrive at the same destination—that is, getting the ball into the hole—that almost any path is legitimate.

Ultimately, the book’s broad-spectrum approach, while largely unsatisfactory to me, reveals something that just about anyone who has played the game with any level of introspection has realized: that golf is an unknowable, unconquerable game. Which is, I guess, why we love it.