Duffer's Debut: An Introduction to Golf, Its Culture, Customs and Conventions

Greetings new golfer! Welcome to the most frustrating, infuriating, intimidating yet greatest of sports. Beware that, in taking up golf, your self-esteem is about to suffer irreparable damage.

You have, no doubt, remarked, in scanning the myriad of available golf books, that the authors, all blessed with olympian reflexes and hand-eye coordination, first took up the sport before the age of ten. Insightfully, you have probably also concluded that there may be a communication gap between these venerated masters of the game and your own tired, ripened and athletically-challenged physique.

Happily, you have just found the holy grail of golf wisdom for beginners. This book is about taking up golf - from a beginner's perspective. Like yourself, the author is a mere mediocre mortal who took up the game in his mature middle years and whose only previous athletic renown was winning a hula hoop contest in a church basement.

There are two things to learn about golf - how to hit a ball and understanding the game. The former is best learned, not from a book, but on a range from a teaching pro. You must also learn about the game's culture, customs and conventions, which is what this book is all about.

Prior to 'Duffer's Debut', writing was always a major cornerstone of Ted's professional career. As an air force engineering officer, a construction engineer, a principal in a management consulting firm and finally as a senior executive with the federal government, his solid writing skills proved essential in the preparation of clear, intelligible reports requiring complex issues be explained in simple terms. This skill, coupled with his enthusiasm and wit, has now been directed at Ted's passion for golf. He maintains that there is no sport more complex or intimidating for beginners and is amazed that the non-technical dimension of the game is largely unaddressed by golf writers. This is the challenge undertaken in writing - Duffer's Debut - where both humour and satire are liberally used to convey the message. Ted's interesting and varied life has taken him all across Canada with jobs in the military, private business and government. After leaving the air force, he worked in industry for construction contractors and a major international engineering company. Seeking a less mobile situation for a still young family, he then embarked on a management consulting career where a major focus was on developing, writing and delivering courses for the Government of Canada's manager training program. In delivering these courses, he successfully combined writing and speaking skills to make presentations both interesting and entertaining. He was also heavily involved in writing policy and documents for government contracts and developed, wrote and delivered courses for government architects and engineers. In his capacity as Director of Technology for Architecture and Engineering Services he was accountable for technology transfer, which required the review, editing and simplification of complex engineering reports in order to distil them into terms that could be readily understood by non-technical audiences. He has also managed and chaired seminars directed at simplifying and communicating emerging technologies to general audiences. Kieron O' Gorman is an accomplished golf artist and systems engineer who, through his illustrations and cartoons of duffers Dudley and Dolly, has successfully captured the lighter side of golf and the key points of the text. He hopes one day to elevate his duffing ability to match Ted's.