
Golf Dreams
Writings on Golf
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Narrated by:
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John Updike
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By:
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John Updike
About this listen
Golf is neither work nor play, John Updike tells us: "Golf is a trip."
Golf has been the subject of many books and the province of many experts, but few have written as sympathetically, or as knowingly, about the peculiar charms of bad golf and the satisfactions of an essentially losing struggle.
John Updike has been writing about golf since he took the game up at the age of 25. In the nearly 40 years of pleasurable bafflement that have followed, he has composed essays for Golf Digest and short stories for The New Yorker concerning the sport.
His memories, insights, and witty remarks make this a truly unique audiobook. John Updike will tell you, in his own voice and his own words, how he learned the game, plays the game, and loves the game.
©2017 John Updike (P)2017 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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If it were on cassette tape, my copy would have be
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An avid golfer with a demanding career in the greeting card business, Mike Keiser found a new calling on the authentic links courses of Scotland and Ireland. Seized by the beauty of the landscape and the holes running through it, he determined this was how golf was meant to be: inclusive, not private; played on foot, not riding a cart; the courses natural, neither lavish nor contrived. Vowing to transplant this experience to the States, Keiser entered the golf business and, ignoring the advice of experts, built a true links course in Oregon.
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Fantastic book, well written and narrated
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The Ball in the Air is reported with Bamberger’s you-are-there intimacy and captures the sweep of time. Pratima finds her way from Nepal to a university golf team in Southern California. Ryan and his father caddie in minor-league events while sleeping in tents, a preamble to Ryan’s becoming the godfather of the popular Monday Qualifier Twitter feed. Sam Reeves, born in rural Georgia during the Depression, becomes a cotton king, the oldest amateur to make the cut at the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, and the ultimate man for all seasons.
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A Game for All, A Book for All
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So Help Me Golf
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Fantastic!
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Ton 10 golf book for your library
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Filled with delightful and insightful stories about golf and the golfers Rotella works with, Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect will improve the game of even the most casual weekend player.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Hailed as a classic when it first appeared in 1972, Michael Murphy's novel combines an amiable Zen mysticism with what many consider the very mystical - and sometimes downright frustrating - sport of golf. At its center is the charming guru of the Scottish links, Shivas Irons, whose instruction is as pertinent in life as it is on the course. After a long wait, this shamanic golf pro reappeared for the follow-up novel, The Kingdom of Shivas Irons.
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If it were on cassette tape, my copy would have be
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The Nature of the Game
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
An avid golfer with a demanding career in the greeting card business, Mike Keiser found a new calling on the authentic links courses of Scotland and Ireland. Seized by the beauty of the landscape and the holes running through it, he determined this was how golf was meant to be: inclusive, not private; played on foot, not riding a cart; the courses natural, neither lavish nor contrived. Vowing to transplant this experience to the States, Keiser entered the golf business and, ignoring the advice of experts, built a true links course in Oregon.
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Fantastic book, well written and narrated
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The Ball in the Air
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- Narrated by: David Morse
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
The Ball in the Air is reported with Bamberger’s you-are-there intimacy and captures the sweep of time. Pratima finds her way from Nepal to a university golf team in Southern California. Ryan and his father caddie in minor-league events while sleeping in tents, a preamble to Ryan’s becoming the godfather of the popular Monday Qualifier Twitter feed. Sam Reeves, born in rural Georgia during the Depression, becomes a cotton king, the oldest amateur to make the cut at the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, and the ultimate man for all seasons.
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Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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-
Fantastic!
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-
The Four Foundations of Golf
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- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lower your scores, increase enjoyment. Are you struggling to take your golf game to the next level? Learn the philosophy that has helped thousands of players worldwide lower their scores and improve their relationship with golf. Swing tips come and go, but foundational golf skills last forever.
-
-
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By: Jon Sherman
-
Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect
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- Narrated by: Dr. Bob Rotella
- Length: 1 hr and 32 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Filled with delightful and insightful stories about golf and the golfers Rotella works with, Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect will improve the game of even the most casual weekend player.
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Golf is not a game of Perfect
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Nothing New Here! Boring!
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The narrator is incorrectly identified.
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Phil
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Phil Mickelson is one of the most compelling figures in sports. For more than three decades he has been among the best golfers in the world, and his unmatched longevity was exemplified at the 2021 PGA Championship, when Mickelson, on the cusp of turning fifty-one, became the oldest player in history to win a major championship. In this raw, uncensored, and unauthorized biography, Alan Shipnuck captures a singular life defined by thrilling victories, crushing defeats, and countless controversies.
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Not what I’d hoped for.
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The Wager
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On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty’s Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as “the prize of all the oceans,” it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia.
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Gasping for Air
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Open
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In June 2002, the world watched a U.S. Open like no other. The most prestigious golf championship was played, for the first time in history, on a public golf course. Feinstein takes us through every step of the event, from how the players qualified to how pairings were made, from preparing the course to the negotiations between the USGA and NBC. You will meet golf's biggest stars - and come to understand why playing in the Open at Bethpage meant so much to so many.
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A Major Disappointment
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Humanly Possible
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Humanism is an expansive tradition of thought that places shared humanity, cultural vibrancy, and moral responsibility at the center of our lives. For centuries, this worldview has inspired people to make their choices by principles of freethinking, intellectual inquiry, fellow feeling, and optimism. In this sweeping new history, Sarah Bakewell, herself a lifelong humanist, illuminates the very personal, individual, and, well, human matter of humanism and takes listeners on a grand intellectual adventure.
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A glimmer of hope
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The Cup They Couldn't Lose
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The task facing Steve Stricker at the 2021 Ryder Cup was enormous. It was his job, as the American captain, to stare down almost 40 years of Ryder Cup history, break a pattern of home losses that had persisted almost as long, and reverse the tide of European dominance in one of golf's most tense and emotional events. This was the epitome of a must-win, but it was also something more—in the entire 93-year history of the event, no American side had ever faced this kind of pressure.
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Great listen
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Every Shot Must Have a Purpose
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
As coaches to some of golf's top players, Pia Nilsson and Lynn Marriott have designed and refined a revolutionary way of teaching the game, with great results. They don't believe in prescribing the same stance, grip, and swing to everyone, followed by hours of purposeless drilling. They don't even believe in beginning with physical technique. Their success has proven to them that a great game begins with a great vision. Every Shot Must Have a Purpose offers cutting-edge techniques for integrating the physical, technical, mental, emotional, and social parts of a player's game.
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A must for every golfer
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Tales From Q School
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- Abridged
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Story
It is the tournament that separates champions from mortals. It is the starting point for the careers of future legends and can be the final stop on the down escalator for fading stars. The annual PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament is one of the most grueling competitions in any sport. John Feinstein tells the story of the players who compete for these coveted positions in the 2005 Q school as only he can. America's favorite sportswriter unearths the inside story behind the PGA Tour's brutal all-or-nothing competition.
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Feinstein was a sloppy reader
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The Match
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- Unabridged
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Renowned novelist and screenwriter Mark Frost turns his eye for golf to an event so famous that it’s grown to the stuff of legend. In 1956, a casual bet between two millionaires eventually pitted two of the greatest golfers of the era—Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan—against top amateurs Harvie Ward and Ken Venturi. Frost recounts this dramatic tale from start to finish, detailing the match that vaulted golf out of the shadows and into the national spotlight.
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Transported to another world
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By: Mark Frost
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Be a Player
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- By: Pia Nilsson, Lynn Marriott, Susan K. Reed
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Golf is a beloved yet technical game, so a sound swing and precise technique are essential. Most golfers who want to improve their skills go to the range and work painstakingly on their swings, not realizing it's often their performance state on the course that needs work, not their technique. Simple things such as awareness of your balance, tension, and tempo, as well as the ability to control mental, emotional, and social variables you encounter while playing, can quickly take your game to a new performance level.
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one of the better books I have owned.
- By Amarjot Singh Bedi on 05-25-19
By: Pia Nilsson, and others
Critic reviews
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Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Guy
- 10-15-23
The passion of golf
Wonderfully written book about the passion of golf, from the love of the game, its complexity, its beauty, its difficult moments, its cynical truth. Highly adviced for anyone playing/loving/hating the game
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