Golfing With God: A Novel of Heaven and Earth
I’m not sure what to make of this book–and maybe that’s the point of it.
Perhaps my confusion, if that’s the word, has something to do with the fact that I don’t often equate playing golf with one’s mystical relationship to God.
There are more than a few occasions when God and I will have a little chat while playing.
Sometimes I’ll ask for his specific condemnation of an event, for example.
More often, however, I’ll stop while playing to appreciate where I am and what I’m doing, and simply give thanks.
Roland Merullo goes way beyond that in this intriguing novel. The central human character is Herman Fins-Winston, an English émigré to America who much prefers the nickname Hank, and who is not so keen on using his full surname, either. He narrates the novel, and makes it immediately obvious that he’s dead—or at least, he’s been dead in a past life.
Winston is enjoying his afterlife in a heaven that includes playing and teaching the sport at which he once participated as a PGA Tour golfer, and for years thereafter worked as a country club pro.
His past career was a bit of a disappointment, however, and not only for Winston. Several others also had a keen interest in his development as a golfer, for reasons that I won’t spoil by recounting here.
One of God’s staffers asks Winston to help a very special golfing student—it’s God, and He/She has the putting yips. Winston agrees, and the book takes off from there.
As happens repeatedly in the novel, the expressed intentions of the characters should not always be taken at face value. There are multiple motivations. Winston eventually comes to understand and appreciate them, and then integrate them into his choices of what to do and how to act.
Winston’s explanation of how humans qualify for entry into heaven will not please adherents of several major religions. At one level, it almost seems too easy. Then again, the book’s emphasis on a type of reincarnation theology could be summarized with a version of the old adage, “If at first you don’t succeed…”— even if it takes millions of past lives.
Winston and God eventually return to Earth, the only suitable place for this special Student to improve His/Her game when in human form. The duo take a road trip to several well-known golf resorts, such as Ford’s Colony in Williamsburg, Virginia and Pawley’s Plantation in South Carolina.
It eventually dawns on Winston that the need for lessons was yet another misdirection ploy. His own improvement as a player ultimately prepares Winston for a significant golf match at another resort in Georgia, and for an even more important round at Greenbrier in West Virginia.
Fiction writing often calls for the willing suspension of disbelief, some books more so than others.
This novel pressed that point about as hard as any golf story I’ve ever read.
On the other hand, it also presented a coherent, consistent, and challenging way of thinking about golf, our lives here on earth, and what may await us after we pass from this place.
Review date: March 11, 2006