My Usual Game: Adventures in Golf
Every so often I read a book that makes me jealous of the author.
This happened when I read David Owen’s My Usual Game a few years ago.
First published in 1995, it’s now available in paperback. As with other golf books, once published, the good ones tend to stay in print.
Owen is an otherwise apparently normal guy who managed to do some of the coolest things any rational human being could dream about: play courses in Scotland and Ireland; play several of the best courses in America; watch the Ryder Cup, in person; and play in a pro-am at a PGA Tour event.
All he had to do was write about it.
I didn’t need any more proof that life is unfair.
He then added to my jealousy by making his adventures and misadventures laugh-out-loud funny.
My favorite chapter is “Grown Men On Spring Break.” I make it a point to read this chapter each spring. It is an uncannily accurate depiction of a trip with the guys to Myrtle Beach. I can personally vouch for his skills as a golf anthropologist, especially in his depiction of the two basic types of Myrtle Beach golfers: Golf Dependent Personalities, and Arrested Development Cases. I could swear he was in the gang I’ve joined in similar trips to Myrtle and other places for the last eight years.
Several of these pieces first appeared in magazines, and were then compiled for this book. Owen contributes to Golf Digest Magazine, when he isn’t writing for other publications or working on his swing.
Buy this book. You’ll get over your own jealousy at his good fortune, and just enjoy a good writer working with great material.
Review Date March 14, 1998/revised July 10, 2000