Preferred Lies
A Journey to the Heart of Scottish Golf
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A book about golf that will appeal to both players and non players, by Scottish poet and novelist.
Surely golf is a game for posh people, country clubs and networking businessmen, for unfortunate sweaters, politics and trousers? Andrew Greig grew up on the East coast of Scotland, where playing golf is as natural as breathing. He sees the game as the great leveller, and has played on the Old course at St Andrews as well as on the miners' courses of Yorkshire.
He writes about the different cultural manifestations of the game, the history, the geography, the different social meanings, as well as the subjective experience, the reflections between shots. He plays alone, with friends and brothers, with ghosts. He is looking for the essence of golf, the pure heart of it, which can be found, Andrew Greig believes, on the free 9 hole course on North Ronaldsay.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Greig, a novelist, mountaineer and poet, is not the first to view the vexing paradoxes of life through the lens of golf, but his gentle lyricism and distinctly Scottish outlook make this round a unique pleasure. After lifesaving surgery left the author with an uncooperative memory, he called upon the game he'd given up long before to help him regain his grip. Greig brings the reader along to 18 Scottish golf courses as he relearns golf and life. An accomplished poet, he lends lyrical depth to blades of grass and existential musings alike and manages to cast new light on a lot of life's oldest questions. Greig understands the limits of his metaphors, acknowledging that "life is not golf, and love for an ageing parent isn't trying to play a tricky shot out of the rough." Laundry lists of maxims and aphorisms, central to the golf experience, are occasionally impossible to avoid, but Greig approaches each life lesson with inspiring passion and humility.
