I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball.
In a brid Egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Brian Egg, Frida Egg.
Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump. Welcome to the Frida Egg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and today Michael Bamberger is on the show. The Occasion is the republication of Michael's great book to the Links Land. Thirtieth anniversary edition of this book is going on sale next week. It's currently available for pre order, and I highly recommend that you get yourself a copy. This is one of those golf books that you have
to read. It'll put you under its spell, draw you into its world, and rekindle your enthusiasm for the game. It's been doing that for the past three decades for readers, and I'm sure it will continue to do it for many more decades. Basically, the book is an account of Michael Bamberger's quest to find the soul of the game in Europe in nineteen ninety one. First, he caddies on the European Tour for Peter Terra Vanan and crosses paths
with players like Ian Wusnam and Sebby Biasteros. Then he sets off with his then new wife on a personal journey through Scotland to play links golf. So that's the subject of my conversation with Michael today. But really this is just an opportunity, an excuse to talk to one of my writing idols, somebody who's byline I've followed since I was a teenager. Michael is one of the most
distinctive sports writers. Right. You could put a paragraph of his in front of me and I'd be able to link it to him almost immediately because his voice is so individual. So this is a big deal for me to get to interview him. He joined me from an outdoor setting, so you'll hear some sounds of nature and the recording. I like to think this provides some uniqueness, and honestly, I'm just impressed that he was able to set up a hotspot that actually kept us connected. So
big thanks to Michael. That interview is coming up now somewhat appropriately, this episode is brought to you by Golf in Ireland. If you want to take a to the Linksland style odyssey. The island of Ireland is one of the best choices for a destination. It's a golfer's paradise, with over four hundred courses and one third of the world's true links. Ireland also has exceptional championship courses surrounded by epic landscapes. These include Royal County Down and Royal
Port Rush. A portion of the Friday team is actually visiting Northern Ireland and seeing those spots right now. You'll also be able to see both courses on TV in the next couple of years. This September, County Down will host that amjin Irish Open, and in twenty twenty five the Open Championship. We'll go back to Port Rush. If you decide to go to some of these courses, you'll
also discover some wonderful hospitality. There's no better place to finish a day of golf than the confines of a great pub where you can relax and make new friends. All you gotta do to start planning your trip is go to Ireland dot com slash golf again. That's Ireland dot com slash golf. All right, let's get to my interview with Michael Bamberger. All right, I'm here with Michael Bamberger. Michael, thank you for being on the podcast.
Thank you. Here's a relative term.
Yeah, well, describe where you are right now.
In fact, well, I am at the country Club of winter Haven, winter Haven, Florida. It's Rehys Jones Course designed with another fellow whose name I can't recall, and it is just a lovely setting. I think the Red Sox maybe used to train here. I know years ago. I was here for baseball and there's an EPSOM tour event. For those who don't know what the EPSOM tour is. What Cornfrairiy is to the PJ tour, Not Cornfrairiy. Is
that what they call it now? Cornfrey? Yeah, what cornfrairie is to the PJ Tour, EPSOM is to LPG tour. And I was looking enough to be invited to play in a pro M today and that's what I'm going to do.
Excellent.
I'm also lucky to be invited onto this Garrett Morrison podcast. Someone actually seems to read a lot of books based on the bookshelves behind you, so thanks so much for having me.
Well, we were just joking about this before the podcast came on, and I told you that I point my camera at the books just to fool people into thinking that I'm smart. But those books are all for show. But one book that I have read is To the links Land, and it's being republished very soon. Here, can you give me an idea of why it's being republished now.
It's being republished only because I've got a wildly enthusiasm atic young editor named Jophie Jofie, who works for Simon and Schuster, and he's done so well at Simon and Schuster that they've given him his own imprint, and the imprint is called Avid Reader Press, and so he has some liberty to do things that he wants to do, including republishing super obscure golf books from his childhood that he would like to still see have life. That would be the short version.
I'm not sure that To the links Land is super obscure at this point, but we will get into that. Why don't we go back to the to the beginning of this project. You know, it says the thirtieth anniversary edition, but I think it's in fact the thirty second anniversary of the publication and the thirty third anniversary of this endeavor that you undertook. So tell me about where you were in your life when you decided to take on the project that would become.
To the You had a high math SAT score, didn't you.
I mean, my verbal score was a little bit higher.
I see what you're doing here. In nineteen ninety, my wife, Christina and I got married. I was a baseball writer for the Philadelphia Choirer, not a very good one, and Christine was an advertising executive in New York. And we got married on Shelter Island, on Long Island, and we were looking to do something adventurous when we could while we could before maggot, excuse me, before mortgage and kids and all those other things. And I had already canted
once on the PGA. Jordan written a book about that, and I was enamored with the European too. I read Golf World very closely, and Golf World covered the European Tour well, and it was Seve at the height of his powers, a lot of the ball lusm Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer and you know, Colin Montgomery, and very supporting characters.
And I'm using the word intentionally playing. So I thought I could somehow hook onto that tour and caddy there in caddying these national championships in Belgium and Italy and Ireland and Portugal and Scotland and other places. How fun would that be? And what a great way to get our married life off to a start. So I wrote a letter to a Yale grad who was playing the European Tour with middling success, named Peter Terra Maynan, and he was willing to take me on on an experimental basis,
And on that basis, off we went. I took a leave from my job and Christine quit hers, and as newlyweds, off we went on this adventure, really having no idea where we were going and what it would be like, or how long it would last, of Peter or anything else.
Was it part of the plan from the beginning to end up leaving the European Tour at the Scottish Open and go on this journey across Scotland playing golf yourself? Was that part of the concept from the beginning.
So you know, I'd really have to go back in time, but that sounds right, because I do remember. I do remember writing out a schedule or maybe photocopying the schedule and putting into my wallet. And I think it did conclude with the British Open mid July, and then after that we would go to Scotland. So yes, so the degree we had a plan. Yes, I think that was I think that was the plan.
Well, I'm curious about that because the book has this really interesting structure where where it's basically two parts. One part is catting on the European Tour and the next part is going through Scotland on this kind of magical, wonderful journey of links golf. I wonder, you know, it makes it such a great and rich book that way. But I wonder why you didn't just write a book about catting on the European Tour, or just write a book about playing golf in Scotland, because those would have
been maybe the conventional ways to go. Those seem like maybe two different books on their own, but you've put them together here. I wonder why you did that.
Yeah, it's a terrific question, and I don't have an answer except for that. You know, the whole thing was the spirit of adventure, and we would go where we would go. And I guess in part I had done the catting thing and written about it once, so I
didn't want to do that again. I was always very moved by Michael Murphy's Golf in the Kingdom, where he explores, you know, semi fictionally, his own golf in scott in Scotland, and I thought, how neat would it be if I could try to do something similar in a nonfiction way. I didn't have. I didn't have a Shiva's Irons in mind at all, but I did have in mind the idea of exploring links golf in Scotland, So yes, you're right, it was. It's sort of two books in one, but
it's kind of a skinny book to begin with. For those who I don't like the long books, this one's not. But those are good questions which I have no answer except that, as they say, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Well, I mean, I think it was a great idea. I love that the book is these two things at once, because what you're tempted to do is kind of compare and contrast them. And you knows, as you wrote the book, did you you know you don't compare and contrast them in a kind of pat way. Where you say this is the real spirit of golf journeying through Scotland and the European Tour is a professional golf is some kind of bastardized version of it. You're not that simplistic about it.
But you know, as you were writing it, did you come up with a kind of working theory about how these two sides of golf relate to each other?
I guess, well, I never thought about it as you're framing it until this conversation, but I would definitely say the spirit of golf on the European Tour as I experienced it, and the spirit of golf as amateurs played it in Scotland there was a great connection between the two. So now today if you were trying to do something similar about let's say live golf or even the PJA Tour versus you know, amateur golf at ely, it would
feel very different. But in that period it didn't. The European Tour was rough, hewn and what can I do to stay out here and survive? And golf in Scotland was inexpensive and brown and hard in the couple different senses. So I felt one paved the way to the other. And as I'm thinking about your question, it's really an interesting one. I think I think I could take what I learned about golf catting for Peter Turvaine and seeing the European Tour up close and try to apply it
to some degree to my own golf. So I think one paved the way for the other.
Well, let's dig in a little bit with your experience on the European Tour. For those who are familiar with the with the DP World Tour as it's called now in the twenty first century, how would you say it was different about thirty years ago.
Well, it's night and day. I don't really know much about the DP World Tour except for that it's all over the place. I'm not saying that in Goojaradi way just is. And even in ninety one when I was over there, I think they did have one scheduled event in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, and I believe it was canceled because of the Gulf War. I'm nearly certain of that, although I really would have to live it up to check. But for the most part, the European Tour was played.
This will shock you, Garrett. In Europe and The currencies were different in every country because there was no EU. Travel was rough. Christina and I travel by overnight train, which was great. There was overnight ferries, there were overnight bus rides. There were higher cars, There are caravans, there were, you know, all sorts of different ways of getting around. Some players would occasionally caddy for themselves or push or trolley.
Sebbe was out there, and Sebbe was a golfing god, but he was propped up by all these working class kids who turned pro at eighteen, guys like Richard Boxall, David Ferriday and Robert Lee, you know, because you can't have a star without a supporting cast, and it had one, so it was I would say, you know, the conditions were often semi primitive by American standards, the driving ranges and the course and the travel and everything else. The hotels,
the band of caddies was a bunch of characters. You know, everyone was sort of scraping by uh and we were too. Christ and I were, you know, even though you know, we had some cushion, but we were trying to make it based on what I was making from Peter as his caddy. So night and Day is the short answer, I don't think you can even compare the two.
You chose Peter terra van and as your subject slash employer. Why did you do that? Did you have a pre existing connection with him?
No, and chose would be a wild overstatement. You know. I begged him to let me come on for a couple of weeks, and it's in the book. I think he said he was going to give me a two week trial, maybe a three week one, and then we'll see how it goes. He didn't promise anything beyond that. So my great fortune he made the cuts and both events despite my broad ineptitude. I often talk about my broad ineptitude, but some you know, there was some connection
for us as caddy and player as well. I was aware of him as an American players, as someone you know, probably the I would say, certainly the best golfer in the history of the Yale University golf team. And I could easily put up with Peter's quirks. I enjoyed him. He was pathologically frugal, and he had all sorts of interesting theories, and he needed an audience as a receptor for these theories. Like he'd hit a good shot and then he hit another shot, stiff a shot, and then
he'd make a six flitter. And once he said, good shots much common groups of two, and I run with that ever since. As a matter of fact, I saw CC Sabbathia, the great left hander the other day yesterday at Bay Hill. He's playing in a pro am and he drove it a mile and then he stiffed a wedge and then he made the putt. This guy's always going to drive a mile, but it was the wedge and the putt, and I said, yeah, I used to carry for a guy who's a good shots must come
in groups of two. And Sabbathi says, yeah, I like that. But Peter was always Peter always had things like that going on because he's super smart and verbal in a quirky kind of way. And but anyway, I didn't choose I was. There was one guy that I had a path that I could maybe write to. He didn't know me from Adam and h and who was willing to take me on for on this experimental basis. And I'm not gonna say we hit it off, but we did okay, okay enough that he wasn't going to fire me.
Terry Vaynen has these two sides to his character, it seems to me from from your portrait of him in your book. On the one hand, there is a mystical side to him, you know, he he's you don't make much of it in the book, but he's starting to get into into Buddhism. On the other hand, he's a very black and white kind of person. It seems economics major, somebody who is very into numbers and like it's either it's either good or it's bad. There's there's no one between.
You know, golf is a matter of kind of figuring out the numbers. And uh it was he kind of struggling between those two poles as as you were working with him.
Yeah, great question. And I have to say it brings up something right right away when you say, you know, black and white, yes or no, left or right. So I was guiding for him at the Italian Open, and he drives it well and and we're looking at the pinsheet. It doesn't in the in the the green's a two tiered green and then it's got a gentle slope in the middle. And Peter says, go up to the green and tell me where the pin is. It's either on
the back plateau or the front plateau. And I come back and say, yeah, it's in the middle, and Peter says, it's not in the middle. It's either on the back plateau. I'm over stating here, but this is basically help one back plateau or the front plateau can't be in the middle. I said, Peter, I, no, I answer your question. It's in the middle. And he's like, he hits it on the green too, but he comes up the green He's like, yeah,
you're right, it was in the middle. But it was like so memorable here we are thirty two years later, because it was so rare for him to agree that it wasn't one or the other, like it often once with him, once I told him we were I often cite this. I don't know why. Christine and I, my wife, Christine and I were saying, in a place where you could cook breakfast for yourself, and I said, no matter how good the eggs are wherever you're eating, they'll never
be like the eggs you eat at home. And Peter said, yeah, that's right. And for Peter to casually agree with anything was so rare because he could find problems with anything, because he was so smart and so analytical. So that always stuck all these years later. That sticks to me and I think about all the time when I cook eggs at home, because I like him to cook on intense heat, and I like the edges with a lot
of butter. And I can hear my wife say, you know, turn on the fan right now, and I like the edges to be crispy and brown. And then sometimes I'll look them over with no heat on. But the point is you can't go to it diner and get that.
I know this will bring to mind for some people the Larry David episode where he goes to the country club with his own eggs, and I have to say, I can totally understand, because the quality of the eggs that you bring from home are very very likely to be better than the quality of the eggs that the country club is going to have.
Oh my gosh, we need to have an egg section of this podcast now, especially considering it is that the Fried Egg Golf podcast. Oh that's exactly. Yeah, that's a that's a wonderful story. In any case, these these aspects of Terra Vanan's character were so interesting to me, and it seemed like he was, you know, to an extent when you were working with him, he was not quite at peace, right. He hadn't he hadn't won yet. There
was some struggle going on with him. And that's what so many golfers go through, where where they want things to be certain, they want things to be black and white. They know they can if they just figure it out, if they just solve the equation, then it's all going to be okay. But the fact is golf is a lot more chaotic than that. It's not possible to make things black and white and golf and this kind of going back and forth between those two polls, it seems to me is like a big part of just being
a golfer. And I guess that's just that's not really a question, it's more of a thesis. But I wonder if it brings anything to mind for you.
Well, it does, and I would say what you're describing is very much a real thing for some golfers, and especially in the modern context, like you know, Tiger, it's all about the w But for Peter Terra Vaynen and my friends Billy Britten and Mike Donald and various others, it wasn't all about the win. They weren't going to win. Maybe occasionally they might win. They wanted to play good
enough golf that they could stay out there. So to play good enough comp to say out there was to constantly try to solve the various and many mysteries of the game, like where should the right thumb be when when you're putting? I kind of forget al Garbery relate in his life. Oh, you won't be able to see this. Well, they see this, you know, and he had his he had his right thumb right down the shaft. And then he says in one day, you see that cork. This
is an eighty vibe. And Corey Paven was cutting great. I mean, you're always pretty great. You see see that Corey Paven. He's got his right thumb here and he moved at a quarter inch. I'm like, yeah, absolutely, that will make the difference, because maybe would make the difference. Now, Al Gibery was a very accomplished player. No, he was a mega mega talent, you guys. Peter was not a mega mega talent. But I don't think it was unsettling.
I think it was like, man, I'm making a living playing professional golf, and I'm going to keep at this mystery of it. And there was a tremendous I want to use the word joy, but it's not like isn't this all great? It's more like deeply satisfying to be in this really interesting thing where you're trying to figure it out. And I can very much relate to it because I'm trying to do this, you know here at
sixty three. You know, I'm allows you writer. I'm a terrible reporter, but I'm going to try to get better at it. That's my mo And you know, I think Peter would have said about the same thing.
You mentioned that Tara Vanen was was pretty frugal. His frugality led you to one particularly interesting situation. I'm sure many interesting situations, but the one I'm thinking of is the night on the caddy bus? Can you give me? Can you give me? Can you give me a few snatches of your memory from the night on the caddy bus? Garret?
I thought you might go for another one, which I'm going to get to one quick second. Yes, anything to save the Knight's Peter called hotels and the kind of British tradition did now digs always quest yea at least thirty pounds, and he was not fussy at all. He often said work the caddies did. Thirty pounds even then was not a lot of money. But if you could, if you could transport yourself and not have to pay for digs at the same time, it was a two
for one. So an overnight train or overnight fray or an overnight bus ride would be ideal. So at one point Christina and I were going from I think Spain to a port of Portugal definitely to a port of Portugal by way of an overnight caddy bus. And there were sixty caddies and various states of impairment on the bus, one caddy spouse, my wife Christine, and one player Peter, and he was fine with it. We got to the border crossing of Spain and Portugal, we couldn't get in
because the border wasn't open yet. Peter was rolling with it all and I don't know, it's astounding to think about it now. And there were there was some movie showing Herbie rides the bus or something like that. Herbie r Yeah, something like that. No, it wasn't Herbie rides bus. Some Herby type VW type bug movie and it was on. It was showing out again and again. Of course it was not what the caddies were looking for. And there were you know, things got very chaotic on this bus ride.
But you know, the things you do when you're young and are quite amazing. But there was another time. At one point I had a car and Christina had rented a car front of long term business, and Peter did not. And we were staying in some modest hotel and I think this is Monte Carlo, and Peter was staying in the same hotel, and Peter had left a note on
our door. Now I'm the guy with the car, but he is the boss, and the note says the following Mike, I wanted to eat breakfast at the club, so we'll leave at seven point thirty, Pete so, or we'll leave at seven so. But our tea time was like nine thirty or so. It was like all for his convenience. So Christine writes back on the note, p the car leaves at eight if you want to go earlier. Bus it. You know, this is not precise to a st of memory, but it's in the book. And but another example of
how Peter thought, and also his frugality. But his frugality actually made the whole thing possible. You know, if he spent, he would have been spending into debt and he can't play good golf and the debt. So I think, you know, it was a way a life for him, frugality, but also prevented him from you know, he was able to make more money than he spent, even when he was one hundredth on the order of meritis that charmingly called it there, So it worked hugely to his advantage to live the way he lived.
I wonder if your experience as a caddy has bled into your career as a journalist. You know, you've at this point, by the time you finished caddying for Tara Vana in nineteen ninety one, you had put in some hours as a caddy. You had also caddied, I believe, on the PGA Tour or in the US somewhere. And so when you're inside the ropes at a golf tournament, do you think you look at the action somewhat differently than an ordinary journalist might because you have had this experience on the bag.
I wouldn't want to compare myself to anybody else. But I would definitely say that the caddying that I've done has enriched every aspect of my writing life, and for this conversation, particularly my golf writing. Part of it is to this day, I still have friends and great friends
who are caddies themselves. But I see Mike Cowan, Fluff, you know, have a little chat with him, Bowens, Mackay, Joelicava, various others that I've known, gone back, you know, in some of these cases to the mid eighties or maybe even the late seventies, and they know golf at a level that I'll never know it because they have so much fast experience. But also, I think having caddied in professional events, I think I understand because I've seen it.
It's such close range the challenges of what it's like to try to the challenge to try to, you know, to play the lastually holes and even to make a cut. That challenge for Peter Tremain and you know, or Brad Backs or whoever it might be, is nearly identical to calm On Garment trying to play the last three and one under to win a tournament. And it's nerve wracking. It's really, really difficult getting to the house, getting to thirty six sols get into seventy two holes is really
really astoundingly difficult thing to do. And the close, if you watch from you have one sense of it. If you watch as the spectru you have another, and if you watch as a caddie you have yet another. And of course the player would have yet another. So yes, I think that's been very, very helpful. And then Tom Watson has written I think a book and he's definitely talked about it a lot over the course of his life,
and Bones Mackay's a TV commentator, did the same. What I'm about to say is the lie, and Tiger is the master of this. The lie dictates everything. You really don't know what you're going to do with the shot until you see the lie how it's actually sitting. But you could extrapolate from that just a little bit and say the lie is also of course it's the wind and the weather, but it's also how you're feeling, where you stand on the leader board, where you stand on
the money list, blah blah, blah, blah blah. The lie is the hearing now, and the hearing now is one of the single most fascinating things about golf, because in Nicholas about this Forever, said this forever, You're only gonna have one chance in your life at this exact shot, this time and place, and what are you going to do with it? And after what you do with it,
you're gonna have to live with it. So like Tiger was absolutely brilliant at get really absorbed, and all these golfers are, but Tiger, who was so obvious you could actually see it, get super absorbed in this moment. What
am I going to do with it? And then let's say the result is not what you want, then there's gonna be this moment of anger and feeling unworthy, and then you must let that go so you can do it all over again here and now here and now here and now now when you're on the practice toe or the practice around or something else. Then it's all start of future looking having learned something from your past all the while. But it's an endless thing in golf. And here I am in sixty period trying to get
better or trying to hang on. I'm not sure which, but I think it's true for all of us. So like up I Growe, Golf of games is the one in which you know that the walls between the earthly world and the supernatural repe Thinness, that's not at all on the exact quote, and that's true. But it's also the game in which, like the amateur experience and the pro experience are really identical. Because everything that I just said for the best players in the world, it's also
true for us. And I think that's why, you know, the Fried Egg exists, and Golf Club Atlass exists, and people want to read and learn more about the game because well, really, you know, sentence, it's just endlessly interesting.
Why don't we transition into talking about your own game, your own golf in Scotland after you decided to leave the European Tour and Peter Tavaine and moved on to a new caddie, which you write about in the book, and you felt a little pang of jealousy, which was a charming moment, but it was time for you to play some golf of your own in Scotland. You mentioned Michael Murphy's book Golf in the Kingdom earlier and his
great character Chevis's Irons. You didn't have a Cheviss Irons in mind when you went to Scotland, but you ended up sort of finding one in the flesh. How did you learn about John Stark?
Great question? And if I could just brag about Mike for a minute, Mike's in his mid nineties, I would say he's a friend. I'm honored to say that. And he wrote a little introduction to the new version. I mean, it's so brilliant, it says so much about three hundred words, you can't believe it. He is an astounding person who's the full DNA package. In his mid fifties, early fifties,
he could run like a four to thirty mile. Mean, this mind boggling, tremendously handsome in our tarticulated and smart person and he has this ability to see through things in an incredibly deep way. Alan Schipnook and Jeff Ogilvy and I did a podcast with him maybe about a year and a half ago, and he was so astoundingly interesting.
But anyway, so I want to tip my head to Michael Murphy and his great, great invention of Sheeva's Irons, who combines different characters from real life into a fictional character. And yes, I very much did have the idea. I had no idea who the person would be. But if I could find my own shevas irons, wouldn't that be great? And I went to Peter Alice oddly, how I don't you know? Everything was more casual than you know. I was a caddie working at a tournament and Peter was there.
For those who don't know, Peter Alice was the great golf the great voice of golf for the BBC for about one hundred and ten years and he's in the World Golf Hall of Fame. And if you ever want to see something really funny, look up his Hall of Fame induction speech. It's priceless, funny and very droller. But anyway, I introduced myself to Peter, and Peter said, look up this guy John Stark in Crief. That's all he said.
I knew nothing about it about him, and I think I wrote a letter to John Stark and Krief and asked if I could come see him, and he said yes. And for whatever reason, Start and I hit it off, or he took a liking to me, or he could see my desperation. Probably a combination of all those things and my eagerness and my just desire to sort of learn the game anew, learn it from a Scottish perspective.
And that conversation with Peter Alice enriched the rest of my life because being Stark enriched the rest of my life and has enriched my golf to this day.
I have a sense that John Stark represents a tradition in the game that is not It hasn't gone away completely, but it's more rare to find. Now, how would you describe the tradition in golf that John Stark represented the lineage that he was bringing to bear in his conversations.
With you, Well, it's it's it's everything really because it you know, he would say, you know, golf, the swing starts from the ground up. Golf starts from the from the ground up. Now, so much of golf is what do you see from a video camera? What do you see looking down at a golfer and down at a golf course. And his whole view was the game and the people who play had come from the ground up.
And you know, I wrote another book called the Ball in the Air, and I got that phrase from Billy Harmon, Klaud Harmon's but Claud Harmon's son and Butch Harmond's kid brother. There were four Harmon brothers and two sisters, and Billy was the neameest of the brothers. But their thing was that ball in the air, what is it doing? And what can I learn from it? And also in Stark, not so much Stark the professional, but Stark the person
who love golf. It really was. This is like a cliche of Scottish golf, but it's good cliche because it's true. It really was about the match, the camaraderie, appropriateness of how serious. Don't take the game seriously, don't take yourself so seriously. And part of that, part of that very much is the pace of play, because if you're not taking it so seriously, you will play faster. And I know a lot of my American friends that I play
with think that I play ridiculous leave fast. I think I just play appropriately fast, But I realize I am out of step with the rest of the culture. But in Scotland I wasn't out of step for the rest of the culture. And as a matter of fact, what on a late afternoon golf game that began at four point thirty one day at the Old Course, on a busy day, we played in three and a half hours.
I don't think that would happen today. So Stark just does, you know, represent he comes right out of the Hogan tradition in his own way, you know, figure it out for yourself. And now, oh and and he would and I would add to that, and don't take yourself to dam seriously, it's a game.
Tell me about making good sounds.
Making good sounds was the very thing that led me amazingly to have a golf game with John Updike. And I'm not name dropping, although I just didn't.
Name I definitely want to hear about this and they drop away that this is. This is fascinating to.
Me what he believed. You know. The starting point for Stark, by the way, I met Sandy Lyles, golf pro father during this trip as well, and uh and and it was the same and it was the same for for mister Lyle was that the golf sling began with the rhythm, and a golf sling that didn't have rhythm was not
going to be a successful golf swing. And Stark's point was that there are different types of rhythm and the shaft will make different sounds based on the rhythm that at which you were swinging, and depending on your athleticism and strength and age and lots of other things. Uh, you will have a different rhythm. And even Ernie El's and Tiger in their prime, they hit them all the
same distance, but they had different rhythms. So so he wanted you to think about the wush sound that the shaft makes that would have really several different types of pitches, as he described it, and be aware of that, and be be aware of the air and your lungs as you're making a backswing. And to this day I try to do that. This is really name dropy, but it's true. So I had to pow Roger Angel. I'd met him through baseball and some other things, and he sent the
book to John Updike. This is my memory of it, and John Updike wrote me a note out of the blue, and part of his draw to golf and Kingdom excuse me, he did love golfling Kingdom. So that was kind of a funny mistake to this book that we're talking about. To the linksline was that he liked Stark and you liked what Start was teaching, and he invited me up for a golf game at his home club myopia hunt and by the way, to speak of different errors, he invited me to this golf game by postcard. He set
up the date by postcard. Everything. He never gave me his phone number, and I certainly never asked for it. Everything no Internet, no email of course, no texting of course, thing was by post guard. So I've got a collection of postcards from John Updike. That's this thick uh to set up this golf game. Then the aftermath of the golf game anyway, you know, one of the thrills of
my life. And then in this new version of Two Buns and I've got an afterward and I described that little bit with with with with Updyke.
Yeah, it's a it's a wonderful little scene. And it's funny because another great golf writer, James Dodson, has written about his own round with John Updyke. I forget which book it was in, but that's a that's a very memorable essay slash chapter in that book where he talks about how John Updyke goes about playing golf, which which
I'd never really heard about before. Yeah, I'll figure out which which book it was in, But in any case, let me just read read you something that John Stark said to you and that you transcribed into the links land. He says you, and by you he means Americans. Here you showed us that there's money in golf that had never occurred to us. The money has corrupted us, all all of us, myself included. Once you start making it, it's a damn cancer. The money is you start thinking
what can I do to make more money? In my generation, we went into golf with no expectation of wealth. The golf alone sustained us. What does that make you think about now, given the current state of the professional game, particularly.
Deep it was deeply true then, it's only more true now and that it start saw the handwriting on the wall. And I don't think there's any question but that he's correct, and it hasn't helped the game at all.
All right, let's talk about the reception of to the link Slaying and the effect that it had on you. We've we've already discussed updyke Reddit, and I think that you know after you published this book that there was certainly a number of perhaps unexpected things happened for you. What's your memory of the initial reception of the book how did people react to it right out of the gate, Well, it was lovely.
Golf Dies so generously excerpted it in not one but two issues as you were as you were saying Garrett earlier, and it's got the in and the outportion, the European tour portion, in the Scotland portion, and Jerry Tarty very the editor Golf di just very kindly saw that the excerpts you really needed, you really needed too, goes at it to make it work. I was reported at the Philadelphi Inquirer at the time. This is before some years
before I joined Sports Illustrated, and that helped greatly. And then the artful way that he did it and Golf and his colleagues at goulfed I just did it was that it gave you a little bit, but not the whole thing where you might actually want to read go out and read the book. And this is of course in the early nineties, so in that period people would actually, if they liked the book, would write your letters like
the one I got from Updike. But I must have hundreds of letters at home and I haven't thrown them out, and I wouldn't throw them out from just readers who liked the book and got something out of it, and what I think what they you know, two of them happen to be sort of noteworthy because they were former USDA presidents and they wanted to find there's this secret course in the book called Ocna Free that start took me to. They wanted to find their way to Ogenaphree.
They did find their way to Octaphree, and then they wrote me about the experience. So that was, you know, quite an amazing thing to hear from these sort of lines of the game, Bill Campbell and Sandy Tatum, but most most of the people were like the wild They've wanted to practical advice about going to Scotland, or they just wanted to share about their own experience in the game or their own John Stark. So anyways, it was just a lovely thing and goes on to this day.
Absolutely not a week is by where I don't hear from some person I don't know, but I feel but the reader feels connected to me and I to them because I did the reader because of how they're writing and what they're writing. Where now for you? For thirty plus years, first by letter and now by email, I just hear directly from readers who are touched by early marriage and the promise that it brings and the simplicity that it brings. Golf in a more simple state. Tremainan
as a character. We've been talking about him, Stark as a character. We've been talking about them. An approach to life where of course you need money. We all need money, we all need sleep and health and be closed and the rest. But it's not obsessively more. Not this attitude more and more and more, which you know, just raised by the parents I was raised it with I've never had. So it's been an incredibly enriching experience to have this relationship with readers for a long time.
Now, right, And I would say that part of the charisma of the book is the places that you talk about. You mentioned OCNA Free. Now I haven't asked you questions about the various courses that you went to in Scotland, intentionally because I want people to read the book and discover those places for themselves and find out what you think about them. I think some some mystery should be left there, but it should be clear. That's that's a big part of the second part of the book, and
a big part of its appeal. This book really has lived on. It's one that people kind of talk about in hush tones and give to each other. For a while. In recent years it was a little bit hard to find or a little bit hard to find affordably, and people would kind of pass it between each other. Why do you think it has had this effect when other golf books, I'm not going to say equally good golf books, but very worthy golf books have not lived on in
the same way. Why do you think to the links Land has stuck.
It's such a generous question, and Garrett, I'm thoroughly enjoying this conversation. I've had two problems. Problem number one is a tea time. Problem number two is a computer that's sound of work percent. Oh no, if we suddenly die, you'll know why. But I think we're okay. But and I'm happy to continue this later if you wish to the book is overrated. I'm well aware that I'm very critical writing. I look at it and it's like, you know, it's so differently get But I think about everything that
I write. But the book does capture, and I think this is true of every piece of writing and movies and other things. There is an underlying spirit to it of you know, it's called two points and the golfing adventure. There is an underlying spirit of an adventure, and many, many people are afraid to get in touch with their own adventure spirit, even though almost all people do have
an adventures spirit. I was very lucky to have the parents I had, because they encouraged my brother and me both to explore our own adventurous miss not really warning that cryptic, but I'm sure you got the idea. So I think the reader is coming away from that, sometimes not even people who are interested in golf at all, but I have kicked up on that from readers over the years.
So, Michael, in this book, your mission, as you stated it in the first chapter, was to search for the primal heart of golf. And I think it's you know, it's a happy book. It's a hopeful book in the sense that you sort of discover it in a lot of different ways. You go looking for the primal heart of golf and you find it now. Back then you did it by following the European tour and playing Scottish golf.
I have a hard time imagining what the present day version of this adventure would be, do you think it's harder to find the primal heart of golf now than it was back in nineteen ninety one?
Really good question, Probably yes, but definitely doable. You know, I'm here at this EPSOM Tour event, and when I know it, this just Paingane, very nice middle class country club course in winter Aven, Florida. And like the second I rolled in here, I was happy because I'm every one of these girls, women in this field, women in this field. They're on that same path as Peter Traminan. And uh, you know there's a local Dodge dealer has
his car out in front. Uh Octener Free that you know, the six hole course that Stark took me to in a wilderness that's not there, but other things are there. And you know there's great public golf courses everywhere you everywhere you go, and I think it's there, But I think you have to define the terms for yourself and for your era. And I feel like I've stayed and connected to my own primal search. You know, I don't play these ping itwos that I play to be eccentric.
I play them because they make me happy and I can and I know what they can do, and I know what they can do, so yes, I think the answer is yes. But it's going to be different because nothing in life is.
Segnant Michael, thanks for coming on the podcast.
Okay, thank you Garrett. Thanks for the great questions. This is thoroughly enjoyable.
This episode of the Friday Golf Podcast was produced by Meg Atkins. Thank you Meg. If you would like to support Frida Egg Golf on a different level, then consider joining Club TFE. Go to the Frida Egg dot com slash membership and see what it's all about there. But a big part of the offering in Club tf is exclusive content like a weekly in depth course profile with a write up about the golf course and great imagery, drone shots and illustrations from our team. So that's the
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