Driven To Extremes: Uncommon Lessons from Golf's Unmanicured Terrain - Hardcover

Wallach, Jeff

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 158080103X ISBN 13: 9781580801034

Publisher: Burford Books, 2002

Synopsis

A rollicking collection highlighting extreme golf from one of the game's freshest voices.

About this title

About the Author

Jeff Wallach writes for Golf magazine, Links and many other publications. He lives in Portland, Oregon

From the Back Cover

JEFF WALLACH is the author of three other books: Beyond The Fairway, What The River Says, and Breaking100. In addition, Wallach has written more than four hundred features, columns, essays, and reviews for more than fifty national magazines, including GOLF, Links, Travel and Leisure Golf, Money, Outside, Sports Illustrated, Men s Journal, Men s Health, and many others. An avid skier, backpacker, mountain-biker, river-runner, scuba diver, squash player, and golfer, he claims to have a good short game for a journalist. Wallach lives with his wife in Portland, Oregon

From the Inside Flap

"I admire anybody who loves the game and writes about it as expertly as Jeff Wallach does. This diverse collection of entertaining glimpses into the wide world of golf its vaunted shrines, out of the way places, and eccentric figures reads like a scorecard that breaks seventy. I enjoyed it immensely."
--James Dodson, author of Final Rounds

DRIVEN TO EXTREMES
Uncommon Tales from Golf s Unmanicured Terrain
Jeff Wallach

Golf is commonly thought of as a game of stately tradition played by well-dressed gentlemen; but there s another side to it, as well.

In Driven to Extremes, Jeff Wallach writes about the "unmanicured terrain" of golf. In this irreverent, funny, and engaging collection, Wallach casts sidelong glances at the game, with an eye for the unusual and the downright strange:

 Follow the "spiritual path" of golf at the Esalen Institute; celebrate good shots with shouts of "yippee skippee" at the prodding of golf guru Chuck Hogan

 Visit Baja s Loreto Golf Club, where the caddie master has no caddies and the practice range closed when someone lost the ball

 Learn how (and why) course architect Greg Nash agreed to build a single hole of Wallach s own design

 Enjoy a reverent look at Oregon s Bandon Dunes and Pacific Dunes Golf Courses, the new twin Meccas of American golf

 Tee off from atop a 2,000-foot granite wall in British Columbia

These and many more adventures in golf await the reader of DRIVEN TO EXTREMES, a rollicking selection of the best writing from one of the freshest voices in the game.

Reviews

Despite a clever title and compelling cover photos, this slender homage to unorthodox golf teachers, extraordinary courses and eccentrics of the sport is just under par. Wallach's vivid descriptions of obscure, famous and infamous golf courses of the world (and his occasionally unorthodox methods of traveling to them) are entertaining and would have sufficed for a good airplane read. However, he begins with a trip to California's esoteric Esalen Institute for a five-day seminar inspired by Michael Murphy's mystical golf novel, Golf in the Kingdom. Although golf psychology is fashionable and persuasive, reading about other golfers' search for their "inner swing" can be tedious. Phoenix guru Chuck Hogan has a theory that many golfers are stymied because "as children, we never felt safe enough to just play," and thus they never develop the ability to grow, explore and improve. He cites Tiger Woods's close relationship with his father as evidence of the high performance that can be achieved when the athlete is emotionally secure. Among the "Eccentric Personalities" Wallach profiles are course architect Robert Trent Jones Jr.; a golfer who holds the world record of 468 holes played in half a day; and a retired millionaire who tries to help a 41-year-old former U.S. Open qualifier make it to Qualifying School. Wallach (an adventurer who writes for numerous outdoors and travel magazines) is a clever wordsmith, but his effort to be humorous distracts from a sense of the book as a whole.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Golf writer Wallach (Beyond the Fairway: Zen Lessons, Insights, and Inner Attitudes on Golf) here reprises 23 previously published essays and adds two new ones. The book is organized into three sections: instruction, locations/courses, and personalities. The first is the most engaging: what golfer is immune to the thought of improvement at the hands of the swing doctors, except for odd birds like Lee Trevino and John Daly? Wallach recounts his pilgrimages to sessions with Fred Shoemaker, Chuck Hogan, and Ed LeBeau nontraditionalists all and in the section on locations/ courses deals with both the familiar and the traditional (St. Andrews) and the remote (Cascata, a course that is the ultimate paean to exclusivity). Golf instruction doesn't come cheap, and Wallach's impressions form a sort of consumer's guide. The sport is also chockfull of personalities, and Wallach goes beyond the usual characters. Normally, such profiles deal with tour players and the country club set, or perhaps the occasional sandbagger, but seldom with golf course architects and instructors, as one finds here. Still, while such interviews add form to what might otherwise just be familiar names, they don't give much more. While the diehard golf enthusiast will appreciate this book, it is recommended mainly for large sports collections. Steven Silkunas, North Wales, PA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Journalist Wallach combines his love of two seemingly disparate activities--golf and off-road adventure (kayaking, rock climbing, etc.)--into something he calls "extreme golf." The essays in this collection explore the game's extremities in three contexts: offbeat places to play (Baja California, the Moab Golf Club in southeastern Utah), uncommon forms of instruction, and eccentric characters. The opening piece sets the tone: Wallach travels to Esalen on the Monterey Peninsula for a five-day seminar called the Golf in the Kingdom Institute (named after Esalen cofounder Michael Murphy's classic golf book). Rather than hitting buckets of balls on a driving range, participants in the GITK Institute engage in such activities as clasping hands and imagining "energy flowing like a white light" from person to person. Thus empowered, Wallach gallivants around the globe, playing golf at the most improbable of spots and chatting with a rare collection of genuine oddballs. Golf fans looking to read something truly different from your run-of-the-mill analysis and instruction will find Wallach a rare treat. Others will prefer the driving range. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Burford Books
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 158080103X
• ISBN 13: 9781580801034
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224