Caddie Who Played with Hickory

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Caddie Who Played with Hickory (First Edition) Pub. Date: 4/29/2008 Publisher: St. Martin's Press

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Overview

Before there were titanium woods and graphite shafts, golf clubs were made from the wood of hickory trees and had intriguing names like cleek, mashie and jigger. Golf was a game played not with high-tech equipment but with skill, finesse, and creativity. And the greatest hickory player of all time was Walter Hagen—-until the day he met a teenage caddie at a country club outside Chicago.

America’s first touring golf professional, Hagen made (and spent) more prize money than his friends Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey earned from baseball and boxing during the Golden Age of Sports. In this novel, set in the halcyon post-war Midwest of 1946, Hagen comes to historic Midlothian Country Club as the champion he is—-but also as a man handicapped by a secret.

Waiting for him are two caddies. Harrison Cornell—a onetime rich playboy from the Bahamas—has a past; the other—-Tommy O’Shea, a farm boy who caddies at the country club—-may have a future . . . but only if he can somehow beat Hagen on the links, in one last game played with hickory.

Cornell is a mystery man who appears from nowhere and presents himself as a “looper,” a professional caddie. Soon everyone sees that he has a gift—-within weeks he has improved the games of dozens of members. Only Tommy O’Shea, his eager pupil, knows Cornell’s real motive for coming to the club: his grudge against Walter Hagen, over something that happened during the Second World War in the lovely paradise known as the Bahamas.

As the playboy and the farm boy become friends, Harrison teaches Tommy the secrets of playing golf with hickory, along with lessons in life and love. But the shadow of Hagen, and the upcoming match, fall across the Midwest summer, and as the competition nears, Tommy’s hopes for the future—-and his love for a member’s daughter—-are threatened when the truth about Harrison’s past is revealed. Not until the climax, played out in an exciting shot-for-shot match, will all the questions be answered and all the scores settled.

As in his previous novel, The Caddie Who Knew Ben Hogan, author John Coyne has created a world rich in characters, action, and golf lore—-this time including the fascinating history of hickory play. An entertaining, suspenseful read for anyone who loves the game, it is also a book that offers a pure dose of Midwestern soul, written by a new voice in golf literature who has firmly established himself as one of the leaders of the genre.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

In Coyne's engrossing hole-in-one (after The Caddie Who Knew Ben Hogan), it's the summer of 1946 and Tommy O'Shea, a top caddie at Midlothian Country Club, gets a fantastic chance to challenge golfing legend Walter Hagen in the "last important golf match of his life." To do so, Tommy must be proficient in the usage of hickory golf clubs, the kind Hagen used to win his first U.S. Open in 1914. At stake is a $1,000 prize that could finance farmer's-son Tommy's college dreams. In walks Harrison Cornell, a WWII vet and former POW, who wants to caddie for Hagen. As it turns out, Harrison has a secret score to settle with Hagen dating back to 1941. As Tommy prepares to compete against Hagen-one of golf's first superstars-he learns much about golf and life from Harrison ("Carry your own clubs. Be your own man"), flirts with a club waitress and falls for Val, a member's daughter. Coyne's neat plotting and firm grip on even the most obscure corners of the sport make this the perfect treat for hackers and pros alike. (May)

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780312560911
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publication date: 5/12/2009
Edition description: First Edition
Pages: 336
Sales rank: 574,178
Product dimensions: 5.54 (w) x 8.28 (h) x 0.91 (d)

Meet the Author

JOHN COYNE was twelve when he became a caddie at Midlothian Country Club, south of Chicago, Illinois. At sixteen he was promoted to caddie master, which even today he considers the most demanding work he has ever done. After graduating from Saint Louis University, he served with the Peace Corps in Ethiopia and did a stint as dean of students at a New York college before becoming a full-time writer. Since then he has written more than twenty books of fiction and nonfiction, and while he has edited three books on golf instruction, this is his first novel about golf, his lifelong passion. Today, in addition to writing, he is working at a college again and edits the Web site www.peacecorpswriters.org. He lives in Pelham Manor, New York, with his wife and son.

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Overby

Posted May 13, 2011

Could've...

the author must be a chainsmoker, because most of the book is about who's smoking, what they're smoking, when they're smoking, how they smoke etc...just when the story gets interesting, we have to hear more about smoking. It could've been a good book....
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Anonymous

Posted October 25, 2008

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