The Back Nine

Golf: it’s that simple, and that bedeviling, and that’s what it comes down to when Charlie McLeod—having fled unspecified disaster back East—turns up at a golf club near San Francisco and is entranced again by a game that had defined him until, years ago, he had to give it up. Now he begins caddying, a job that respects every privacy and motivation, while wrestling with those things that had exiled him not only from the sport but from life itself.

In the profane, reassuring yet competitive world of the caddy shack, lost souls jostle for position, sometimes among well-heeled members, men whose passion for golf is often perverted by their own frustrations. What they revere in common, though, is the player whose mastery defies all understanding—and in this role Charlie will either find a new start or shatter everything once more.

A story of love, challenge, and redemption, a thrilling debut and an immediate classic of golf writing.

Billy Mott was born in Pittsburgh and for many years has worked as an actor, while caddying as often as possible. He lives in Los Angeles.