Straight down the middle

THIS book got me into a bit of trouble. "Will you review it?" they said.

"Sure", I said.

"We need it in a hurry," they said.

"Sure", I said. Just not in a talkative mood.

Then came the problem. I've liked John Updike since Rabbit Angstrom was in his first hutch. I actually like the way he writes. I like golf. And this book is a collection of short pieces, essays, magazine articles, extracts from novels all on the subject of golf - thirty in total - gathered between one of the most badly designed book jackets I have ever seen.

So there's the problem. I've been reading, enjoying, savouring, going back to bits and generally having a jolly good Updike time at the rate of one article per night. Thirty articles equals one month of reading. I've about ten days to go. So, I confess, this is an interim report. I am unwilling to up my Updike rate even for The Irish Times. If the last ten articles take a sudden nose-dive. I'll inform Corrections and Clarifications.

Apart from a style that even a literary cretin like myself can appreciate, John Updike has another advantage over the countless millions of other golf authors that are thrust afore us.

He isn't very good at the game. He ain't a pro. He is therefore immediately speaking to the 99.99 per cent of golfers who don't make the Tour, don't break seventy, don't hit the ball ten yards past the flag and spin it back. He is a real golfer, has been hacking around for years on golf courses great and small, with people noble and ignoble, with a golf swing in various stages of decay.

It is a book with secondhand instruction. He repeats, mantra-like, all the hints he has. been given down the years from all the professionals he has sought out for advice. It is a book of diverse subject matter, reaching parts of the game no other book has reached before. Which reminds me, it's a great book to read with a beer at your side, by a big window, watching the rain steadily fall over the golf course.

Buy it for your best golfing chum for Christmas. Even at my rate of reading you have plenty of time to enjoy it yourself before passing it on.