In this memoir, the father of an accomplished young golfer with a Stanford University athletic scholarship recounts his hopes for his son as well as his disappointments.

As a kindergartner, Brian Sinay loved bashing whiffle balls around the house with a plastic golf club. As he grew, his devoted father,Richard Sinay, a retired high school English teacher and the author of this book, began teaching his son the game of golf at local courses. The child showed talent, especially at putting, and began to compete, winning the Junior World Championship at age 12. Along the way, the author says, father and son met several luminaries of the golfing world, including Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, and Tiger Woods. The latter attended Stanford University, which Brian decided was also his goal, and a golf scholarship made that possible. The author writes that he wanted his son to reach for the “Golden Ring” of joining the PGA Tour, but that wasn’t Brian’s goal. This memoir chronicles Brian’s early golfing achievements and what the author characterizes as his lackluster golfing performance at Stanford due to Brian’s focus on academics and a change in the coaching staff. Readers who are unfamiliar with the sport will learn new details about the world of competitive golfing and the extraordinary amount of effort, as well as luck, required to reach the top. This story is recounted 20 years after the events it describes, but the anguish that the author expresses still seems fresh in these pages, as he recounts how his dreams for his son were unrealized. The author’s openness in sharing this with readers is admirable and it seems to have been therapeutic, but readers may find the details to be painful to read, especially in letters in which he expresses his disappointment in Brian for not working hard enough at the sport: “You have been given a gift, a talent that not many people get. Please don’t throw it away before you get a chance to exercise it.”

An earnest but difficult book about a father’s unmet expectations.