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.

The Second Life of Tiger Woods, by Michael Bamberger ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

When one of the finest golf writers working today has a new book out, it pays to take notice. Michael Bamberger, formerly of Sports Illustrated and lately writing for Golf.com is, without a doubt, one of the best to carry a GWAA card in recent years, and his new book, The Second Life of Tiger Woods, certainly lives up to expectations.

Tiger Woods has lived in the spotlight (and under a microscope) nearly all of his life, and certainly since exploding onto the professional golf scene in 1997 after a dominating amateur career. There have been times when his life didn’t hold up to close scrutiny, in particular the several years beginning Thanksgiving evening 2009, when the news of his long-rumored infidelities came to light in blockbuster fashion. Through it all, however, his fans and much of the sports media world have clung to every bit of Tiger news that came to light, good and bad.

That being the case, The Second Life of Tiger Woods is going to be flying off of bookstore shelves, both real and virtual, and Michael Bamberger will be richly rewarded for the countless hours he must have put into researching and writing this book. The book’s release was timed to coincide with the opening of play at the 2020 Masters Tournament, when Tiger would be defending his 2019 win—a tournament that wasn’t played due to the nationwide lockdown that resulted from the coronavirus pandemic. The cancellation of Tiger’s defense of his fifth Masters title did nothing to damp the fervor of his fans, or the golf media, however; indeed, it raised it to a fever pitch, and Bamberger’s publishers may well find themselves thanking their lucky stars for the lockdown.

At this point I need to come straight out and say that I am no fan of Tiger Woods. While there is no denying his skill, and his dominance when he was both healthy (physically and mentally) and playing well, I have never cared for his attitude, and his demeanor either on or off the course. I bring this up for two reasons: 1) despite my dislike for the man who is the subject of this book, his position in the game combined with my admiration for the work of the author compelled me to read it, and 2) the author’s attitude toward the subject plays an important role in the book.

The tone of the book ranges from near-fanboyish admiration (when recounting Woods’ 2019 Master win) to tut-tutting admonishment (when listing the several instances of rule-bending and breaking which featured in the period of his “comeback”), but one constant factor is the thorough, in-depth investigative reporting that backs up the narrative.

Bamberger spent time with and interviewed a wide range of people who have or had some involvement in the events covered in the book—from the Jupiter, Florida law-enforcement personnel who were involved in Woods’ Memorial Day 2017 arrest for DUI, to the assorted cast of sordid low-lifes who fed his PED habit over the years.

The topics covered include a look back at Woods’ upbringing, at his parents (both pretty hard cases in their own ways) and the manner in which his early-life experiences manifested themselves in his golf career and personal life. The things he learned, and reports, and the conclusions he draws may not suit Tiger’s fawning fans, but there is no contesting the professionalism of his approach.

Woods has always been known for a dismissive attitude toward other people in his life, even those who are close to him, as manifested by the diminutive nicknames he assigns to other—“Steiny”, for his agent, Mark Steinberg; “Stevie”, for former caddie Steve Williams (a tough Kiwi who was probably never called “Stevie” by anyone but Woods, even as a child); “Joey” for current caddie Joe LaCava—and even “Bernie” for veteran pro and former Masters Champion Bernhard Langer.

He is also known for having a low tolerance for those, even members of his inner circle, who try to draw some part of the spotlight to themselves—just ask his former swing gurus Butch Harmon, Hank Haney, and Sean Foley; caddies Steve Williams and Mike “Fluff” Cowan; or former girlfriend Lindsey Vonn. Even his father, Earl, was cold-shouldered at times, early in Woods’ career when he pushed his face and words too close the forefront.

Woods has always had a famously contentious relationship with the golf media. When he was only fourteen he asked the sportswriter Jaime Diaz, “Why do they have to know everything?”,  and early in his rise through the professional ranks an interview request from Dan Jenkins—the dean of American golf writers, and a man who got into the Golf Hall of Fame on the strength of his writing before Woods got there by dint of his playing record—was dismissed, through Woods’ agent, with a terse, “There’s nothing in it for us.”

In the wake of several years of scandals and headlines that probably caused the intensely private Woods a lot of mental anguish that he wouldn’t admit to (and which, if I may say so, he brought on himself), he has thawed slightly in his attitude toward the media. Woods may have finally, as Bamberger put it, “…started to see sportswriters for what we are; representatives of the fans who pay for [his] jet fuel and everything else…”. That being said, you will not find a direct quote from Woods, given for this book, in the text.

Whatever your feelings about Woods are, the book is an interesting read. Michael Bamberger is a keen and well-connected observer of the world of golf, and he brings a depth of knowledge and understanding to the subject that is virtually unparalleled. As a chronicle of a significant (in its way) period of time in the career of one of the most recognizable professional athletes of the 20th century, The Second Life of Tiger Woods is a noteworthy addition to the history of the game of golf, and will find an audience across a wide range of the fans of the game.