To the Linksland (30th Anniversary Edition)

This handsome 30th-anniversary edition of a much-loved golf classic captures both the reality and romance of the game. In the first section, sports writer Bamberger peels back the sport’s mystique with a colorful, unromantic account of his sabbatical season caddying for Peter Teravainen, a journeyman golfer gutting it out in match after match to earn a middling livelihood on the European pro tour. Having captured the grit and grind of these club-wielding road warriors, Bamberger pivots, devoting the book’s back nine to golf’s legend, lore, and history as he plays the great courses of Scotland from St. Andrews to Dornoch in search of the soul of the game. His Yoda is John Stark, a hipshot sage of the auld school whose wise counsel restores the cadence of the author’s swing, and his Brigadoon turns out to be Machrihanish, a remote and windswept natural links full of bewitching quirks.