In 2007, golf lost a wonderful writer. She didn’t die…a good thing. Instead, mystery writer Roberta Isleib turned her focus from Cassie Burdette, struggling tournament professional, to Rebecca Butterman, psychologist, psychoanalyst, psychiatrist…whatever, SHRINK!!! Rebecca and Cassie had crossed paths in Cassie’s fictional world, and the young LPGA star makes an appearance in Isleib’s novel Deadly Advice. It’s a cameo, to be sure, and a little hopeful, as Cassie has just been named to the Solheim Cup team (talk about a meteoric rise!) However, it’s the rest of the novel that catches and keeps your attention. It moves along at a youthful and quick pace, blending a middle-aged look back with a youthful cry forward. As always with good writing, it’s not the one you’d suspect, and isn’t the creepy ones you grow to dislike.

One of the great pities of the world of golf architecture is that not all architects get their fair shake. What they do out of need to survive is find avenues to ply their trade in a changing golf world. When new builds dry up, restoration, refurbishing and recasting beckon. Many clubs and courses built during the first gold age of golf courses in the USA are coming to realize that their current layouts are not at all what was first built, nor what the architect had in mind via evolution and aging. Scott Witter, a terrific plier of the trade, gifted me with Mark Fine and Forrest Richardson’s Bunkers, Pits and Other Hazards. The volume examines the history, character, and effect of hazards in the game of golf. From the Devil’s Asshole at Pine Valley to That Damn Bunker somewhere in England, these types of attractions have kept golf from rendering itself boring and obsolete (as many fine architects point out.)

Funny, huh? It’s the challenges that keep us coming back, not the easy part. It’s the innate desire to conquer and be conquered (usually without spilling blood) that make us play and play and play on. One of my favorite bunkers is the betting bunker at Whistling Straits, where caddies offer a wager of $1 that you cannot get out on your first attempt. They seldom lose. Another great hazard is the entire 16th hole at Bandon Dunes. You see the green on the promontory, you see the ocean, you see the ridge, you see the inlet, you WANT the green on your drive…

Richardson and Fine walk you through so much information concerning hazards that you emerge with great appreciation for what went into creating, uncovering, or merely ignoring the great hazards of the game. Knowledge often eliminates fear, and you’ll sashay into the next bunker with much less fear than before.

I recommend both volumes to you with great heart.

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