title: Golf Dreams: Writings on Golf
author:  John Updike 
description: Limber and sprightly, unique, alive . . . Updike understands golf, keenly, and expresses his understanding with charm and beauty, in words as sturdy as Lee Trevinos stance.<i>Sports Illustrated</i><br /> <i></i><br />A book written under a clear blue sky with an utterly pure swing . . . Here, Updike waltzes about the heavens of Nabokov, in pure esthetic bliss. And here his transcendental agonies and anxieties fuse into split-second moments of impact that lift us from sand pit to rhapsody.<i>The Philadelphia Inquirer</i><br /> <br /> [<i>Golf Dreams</i> clears] the hazards with ease and grace. [Updike] is eloquent on the pleasures and frustrations of the game [and] even better at dramatizing its mysterious pull.<i>The New York Times</i>
zlib_text: **The Amateurs**
  
   **John Niven**
  
  For my father, John Jeffrey Niven, and my son,  
  Robin John Niven. Golfers who never met.
  
  > Here, in Scotland, golf was not an accessory to life, drawing upon one’s
  > marginal energy; it _was_ life, played out of the centre of one’s being.
  
  > > John Updike, ‘Farrell’s Caddie’
  
  > He rallied, my tears being in unsurpassably bad taste, and said, ‘Look here,
  > it’s _only_ a game.’
  
  > Trying to speak softly so the children wouldn’t hear, I said, _‘Fuck you!’_
  
  > > Frederick Exley, _A Fan’s Notes_
  
   **Contents**
  
  Epigraph
  
  Part One
  
  1
  
  IT WAS THE MOST HUMILIATING START TO A BIRTHDAY Gary…
  
  2
  
  PAULINE DROVE FAST THROUGH THE STREETS OF Ardgirvan, heading for…
  
  3
  
  GARY WALKED ACROSS THE FACTORY FLOOR ON HIS WAY to…
  
  4
  
  CATHY IRVINE NERVOUSLY FLATTENED HER NAPKIN ON the table and wondered…
  
  5
  
  LEE IRVINE HAD BEEN NAMED AFTER THE GREAT Mexican golfer Lee Trevino,…
  
  6
  
  DRIVING RANGES; FLOODLIT CITADELS OF CONCENTRATED torment where the damned…
  
  7
  
  IN ROOM 411 OF