LETTERS TO A YOUNG GOLFER

Golf (and life) tips from a member of the PGA Senior Tour and father of PGA talent David Duval.

Tendered here are pinches of wisdom gleaned from years as a golf pro, then forged under some difficult circumstances. Written in the form of a collection of letters Duval sent to his family and friends, it all seems a bit forced: Did he really need the helping hand of professional sportswriter Vigeland (Stalking the Shark, 1996, etc.) to pen a letter? Did he truly send a 225-word postcard? The correspondence’s stilted language (“Well, we played pretty good, didn't we? Twenty-one under par for two rounds but we finished third”) doesn’t help. Duval's counsel is sensible if timeworn: have focus, don't let your mistakes get you down, be resilient, move forward. “Play what's in front of you,” he says to golfer and everyman alike. “If I hit a bad shot—and I hit plenty of them, everyone does—I immediately start putting it behind me, because you never know what may happen next.” Midway through, when readers will have had enough of “believe in yourself and give whatever it is you dream of a chance,” Duval abruptly shifts gears to chronicle his eldest son’s death at age 12 from aplastic anemia. His loss crushed Duval, who started drinking, abandoned his family, came back a hollow man, left again, and then slowly rebuilt his life and his relations with his two remaining children. Suddenly, the emphasis on developing a routine, moving forward, playing the hand dealt you, makes a whole lot of sense. And our new knowledge about Duval definitely puts the importance of a game of golf into mighty perspective.

Well-meaning advice and certainly hard-won, but the gist could fit onto a postcard.