Two Years in St. Andrews
At Home on the 18th Hole
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- ¥2,200
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- ¥2,200
発行者による作品情報
The Old Course at St. Andrews is to golfers what St. Peter's is to Catholics or the Western Wall is to Jews: hallowed ground, the course every golfer longs to play -- and master. In 1983 George Peper was playing the Old Course when he hit a slice so hideous that he never found the ball. But in looking for it, he came across a For Sale sign on a stone town house alongside the famed eighteenth hole. Two months later he and his wife, Libby, became the proud owners of 9A Gibson Place.
In 2003 Peper retired after twenty-five years as the editor in chief of Golf magazine. With the younger of their two sons off to college, the Pepers decided to sell their house in the United States and relocate temporarily to the town house in St. Andrews. And so they left for the land of golf -- and single malt scotch, haggis, bagpipes, television licenses, and accents thicker than a North Sea fog. While Libby struggled with renovating an apartment that for years had been rented to students at the local university, George began his quest to break par on the Old Course.
Their new neighbors were friendly, helpful, charmingly eccentric, and always serious about golf. In no time George was welcomed into the local golf crowd, joining the likes of Gordon Murray, the man who knows everyone; Sir Michael Bonallack, Britain's premier amateur golfer of the last century; and Wee Raymond Gatherum, a magnificent shotmaker whose diminutive stature belies his skills.
For anyone who has ever dreamed of playing the Old Course -- and what golfer hasn't? -- this book is the next best thing. And for those who have had that privilege, Two Years in St. Andrews will revive old memories and confirm Bobby Jones's tribute, "If I were to set down to play on one golf course for the remainder of my life, I should choose the Old Course at St. Andrews."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Former Golf magazine editor Peper (Playing Partners: A Father, a Son, and Their Shared Passion for Golf) bought a townhouse beside the 18th hole of the Old Course in the Scottish village of St. Andrews and spent a few years living there and penning this pleasant homage to "golf's version of the Vatican." Peper soaks up the traditions, vistas and aura of the storied Royal and Ancient Golf Club, pokes gentle fun at the horrors of Scottish cuisine, reminisces about encounters with such celebrities as Jack Nicklaus and Sean Connery, and gives shot-by-shot recaps of some of his many confrontations with the Old Course (his goal was to shoot an under-par round). Peper writes with jaunty, understated good humor, lit with occasional flashes of exhilaration and despair depending on the vicissitudes of his game. The narrative calms down in accounts of his wife's remodeling of their townhouse or dull thumbnails of neighbors; often the book really feels like a story about a couple who retire to a golf course. But golf fans devot es of one of life's most pedestrian thrills will savor this walking-speed appreciation of their greatest shrine. Photos not seen by PW.