With the stunning success of James Cameron’s Titanic, the look and feel of the early 20^th Century is popular again. Fittingly enough, the stories of P.G. Wodehouse remain available to golf readers in search of humor related to their sport, while also keeping them in a post-Victorian mood.

Wodehouse wrote an prodigous number of humor pieces throughout a very long career. He is probably best known for his series of stories involving a hapless fop, Bertie Wooster, and his long-suffering, mentally superior butler, Jeeves.

As with that series, Wodehouse’s thirty or so golf stories in this collection also take place in the times before and immediately after World War I, or at least evoke that time effectively. A working knowledge of old golf terms such as baffie, spoon, and niblick is therefore useful. You will also encounter some now-stilted language, but if you persevere, your funny bone will be rewarded handsomely.

Many of the stories actually revolve around the oldest game, in which the fair damsel wins her man in a golf-related context. Mental images of Helena Bonham Carter and Kate Winslett passed before me as I read these pieces. Not a bad form of mental imagery at all, if you ask me.

I would not, however, recommend you read this volume of short stories all the way through. As with many collections of short stories, this is a book to dip into now and again, marking off the stories as they are read and enjoyed. Reading it straight through could produce a surprising change in your speech patterns, or set you off in search of the most recent Masterpiece Theater episode. That said, this is a book that belongs on your golf bookshelf, and deserves to be taken off that shelf and read about every year or so.

Review Date April 12, 1998/revised October 16, 1999

Hole By Hole's Recommendation For:

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