Courses Called Crackers

A part-time golf writer gets the royal treatment from a host of fine U.K. clubs in exchange for his implied promise to sing their courses' glories in this memoir that meshes a Finegan-like travelogue with the poignancy of Plimpton's Bogey Man and the vinegar of Doak's Confidential Guide. Traveling solo, this fifty-something Yank has his vigor roundly tested by a quest to play 36 courses. And, along the way -- in a wholly honest account -- the reader gets taken inside the golfer's mind when encountering the alluring yet treacherous terrain at one great links after another, along with engaging the natives who call these courses "Crackers."