The Caddie Who Knew Ben Hogan [Hardcover]

John Coyne (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312355238 | ISBN-13: 978-0312355234 | Publication Date: May 2, 2006 | Edition: First Edition

Returning as an honored guest to the exclusive country club where he worked in his youth, Jack Handley remembers the summer of '46 when he caddied for Ben Hogan in the last Chicago Open. Now a respected historian, Jack recounts to the assembled sons and daughters of members he once knew the dramatic match between the mysterious and charismatic Hogan and the young club pro he idealized.

    Filled with dazzling description of hole-by-hole match play drama, laced with anecdotes from that golden age of sports, this novel of friendship, lost love, and great golf is told through the eyes of a 14-year-old boy whose life is forever changed by one of the greatest players of the game.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Known more for his novels of the macabre, Coyne moves onto the links and comes up with a terrific blend of golfing lore, PGA tournament drama and country club soap opera. It's 1946, and Jack Handley is a 14-year-old caddy at a posh country club near Chicago. He loves the game, and his mother needs the money. When Ben Hogan shows up one day to play a practice round before the Open, Jack caddies for Hogan and for Jack's pal, assistant pro Matt Richardson, as the two men play a not-very-friendly round. Coyne's descriptions of the strained practice round and the gripping first day of the Chicago Open are masterful sports fiction, with Jack reliving every drive, chip and putt, adding savvy golf tips and caddy tricks. Add in Jack's entanglement in Matt's secret romance with the daughter of the club's rich and powerful president, and anecdotes of other legendary players (like Jimmy Demaret, Gene Sarazen and Lefty Stackhouse), and the results rank with James Dodson's nonfiction, and John Corrigan's PGA golf mysteries. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

When golf novelists reach for profundity, they invariably trot out either God or Ben Hogan. Often, there is little distinction between the two, with Hogan dispensing wisdom in godlike fashion. Coyne builds his novel around the revered Hogan, too, but he loses the fantasy element. The frame story has an author speaking to a gathering of country-club members in Chicago about his experiences caddying for Ben Hogan in 1946, when the Chicago Open was held at the club. His tale involves a talented assistant pro, whose romance with the daughter of the club president threatens his chance to compete against Hogan. Our narrator caddies for Hogan in a practice round and then finds himself forced to choose between a job with the great man and his loyalty to the assistant pro. The interpersonal story line descends quickly into melodrama, but Coyne nails the golf scenes. Whether describing Hogan's surgeonlike style, or relaying the shot-by-shot drama of a match, he never makes a bad swing--no sloppy metaphors, no wrong-club howlers, only precise prose in service to that most precise of athletic motions, the golf swing. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; First Edition edition (May 2, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312355238
• ISBN-13: 978-0312355234
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,333,592 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was 12 when I started to caddie at Midlothian Country Club, south of Chicago, Illinois. At 16 I was promoted to caddie master. Today I still consider that job the most demanding one I ever had. After graduating from Saint Louis University, I served with the first Peace Corps Volunteers in Ethiopia before becoming a novelist and college administrator. I've written over twenty books of fiction and nonfiction, and edited three books on golf instruction. However, this is my first novel about golf, my lifelong passion. If you want to know more about the book or myself, you can check out: www.TheCaddieWhoKnewBenHogan.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Golf Story Ever!!!, June 14, 2006

By 

Patrick M. Hodgdon "looper4life" (Naples, FL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Caddie Who Knew Ben Hogan (Hardcover)

If you love golf, you will love this book. If you're a caddy, you love this book. If you love characters rich in wisdom, life, and love, you'll love this book. If you love a good story, you'll love this book. In other words there is no way you won't love this book. Coyne's prose is as smooth and powerful as Hogan's swing and much like the Hawk himself, Coyne hits his target with precision and ease while always leading the reader to the next shot. With this novel Coyne just might have birdied every hole too. Buy this book, it's the story about life you've always wanted to read. Read it, you won't regret it.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A really great golf read...Coyne connects with The Caddy......, May 24, 2006

By 

Jim Thompson "Jim Thompson" (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Caddie Who Knew Ben Hogan (Hardcover)

A masterful fiction writer whose story telling and intimate Hogan truths and legends make this an exciting novel for all readers...Golf aside, an intriguing love story and interesting take on country club mores. Read it!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb Novel, July 15, 2006

By 

John K. Crane (SANTA FE, NM) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Caddie Who Knew Ben Hogan (Hardcover)

This is an excellent, truly wonderful novel. For an author known more for Gothic horror stories, this is a major shift to the golf course, a game he obviously plays and loves. He must also have been a caddie, for he knows all of the lingo. The reader does not have to be a golfer, for all such terms are defined in the text. Structurally it is built around two tense matches between Ben Hogan and the assistant club pro, Matt Richardson. The point of view is the caddie, Jack Handley. The first match is Hogan's practice match, the second the first round of the Chicago Open (in which Richardson somehow makes the cut). Another device Mr. Coyne uses is dual narrative structures--the first (which dominates) is Jack telling, decades later, his story of the Hogan-Richardson matches when he was 14 years old. I might add that it does not ring true that an audience could sit through 250 pages worth of this. The third-person narrative is set years later when Jack returns to his former club to recount the Chicago Open after having become a professor who's written a famous book on golf.
There is an air of tension throughout because Jack tells the reader early, almost between the lines, that the story will end in tragedy. One assumes it will be a lost tournament, but it is a real tragedy in which a central character dies. Besides telling a story that locks the reader's interest, Mr. Coyne is a true master of his craft: metaphors ("Matt gave me a grin as if he had just won the lottery, the Open, and the girl of his dreams. I [was] feeling as I had just robbed a bank"); speaks directly to the reader ("On a humid day, as you players know, the ball will carry farther"); humor, as when two characters have to go French Lick, Indiana, because there was no blood test required nor a three-day waiting period ("'Even I, a fourteen-year-old, knew about French Lick, which was named, I might add, for the salt springs in the area and not lascivious behavior.'") There is also continual contrast between the post-War equipment golfers were forced to use--factories had been converted for wartime--and the clubs most people now see on TV. 1946 to 2006 does not seem to have improved professional scores very much.
But Mr. Coyne's strong suit is constant tension, both hole-by-hole and by the tragedy that will conclude the novel. If Jack the caddie is the main character, the source of the book's wisdom is Ben Hogan. Jack Handley is a different man because of his brief meetings with him. The Caddie Who Knew Ben Hogan is a truly rewarding book for golfer and non-golfer alike.