Customer Reviews

Tales from Q School: Inside Golf's Fifth Major

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

John Feinstein is one of the great sportswriters of this generation...or, at least he was. I love golf and considered his 1995 "A Good Walk Spoiled" to be a classic golf and sports book. He also scored big with "A Season on the Brink" in 1988 and "A Civil War", the great read about the Army/Navy football game. These books are all classics and I thought of Feinstein as one of the true greats in the business. And then came Tales from Q School. This book is about as light as any book I have ever read on content. The type is big and there are few words on each page. You can read a page in about 20 seconds because a page in this book is really not a page at all. It's more like a paragraph or two. The stories aren't that interesting and the book just has the feel of a commercial rush job. I will think twice before investing in a Feinstein book from now on. There isn't anything that interesting in the book and one man's story has the same feeling as the next guys. Frankly, some of these stories are old and have been part of Q-school lore for years. The book just had the feeling of a rushed term paper...his heart just wasn't into this book like some of his others.
This would have been a good Golf Digest article...just cut out a few stories and you have a good article. I read the book in about 5 hours and I read pretty slow...I would not buy this book again. This is a piece of work that Feinstein should be ashamed because we know how capable he is...save your money and time. Feinstein better do better next time or his credibility will be tarnished and that would be a shame.

Tales from Q School has a fundamental flaw that steals most of its potential charm: Mr. Feinstein thinks he is writing Open all over again. That book was horribly flawed by lots of names and mini-biographies about people that few other than their relatives would want to read about. Tales from Q School has the same flaw . . . along with a new one: Mr. Feinstein decides to teach you everything you never wanted to know about how the format and rules have changed over the years (and repeats the key points ad nauseam throughout the text). Argh!

Q School isn't really Q School any more. It's just a series of annual golf tournaments with qualifying rounds. Depending on where you finish in the field in each round, you may or not be able to advance to the next round or to various professional tours (including the PGA tour).

Mr. Feinstein is fond of proclaiming that almost everyone had to go through Q School to make it to the PGA Tour and that everyone has a great Q School story. So why didn't he just interview 300 players from the past and present and share with us the best 100 or so stories? That would have been a great book.

Instead, he decided to write a history of the 2005 Q School. In the book, he includes a few of the older classic stories. There were also a few compelling stories that occurred during the 2005 Q School. But in between the good stories, Tales from Q School is a yawn.

So why write about Q School? First, few people other than professional golfers know much about it. Second, it's a horrible experience that causes a lot of happy and sad moments. Third, there's a lot of drama involving those who come close to qualifying as they near the end of their rounds.

Basically, Q School tests pros for their ability to play well consistently while under pressure. Most good golfers can score when there's no pressure and no gallery. But the PGA Tour has lots of pressure and enormous galleries. So it's not a bad test in that sense. Those who can stay relaxed and just play golf seem to do fine in Q School . . . but that's hardly anyone.

I would have rated the book lower if it weren't about golf. Even enjoying a few new golf stories is worth trudging through an unfortunately conceived and executed book.

if you are one of those golf fans who goes to (...) to study the money list or just loves the drama of individual athletic striving,you will find this book enjoyable. as with his other books on golf feinstein definitely does not bring "it" to the next level as his writing sometimes leaves as many questions as answers,but no one else is telling this story and it is a compelling story or should i say stories. easy to read and the cast of golfers from yale graduates to past major champions are all here struggling with that four letter word....golf.

Cannot say enough about how dramatic this book is. It touches on all aspects of the human experience, not always nor exclusively pertaining to golf. The reader is sucked in by stores of the everyday Joe going for that elusive goal or dream, and doing whatever they feel is necessary to get there. And not with a very high success rate. Feinstein offers a very personal look at how the Tour operates, and how the golfers are put through one of the most arduous qualifying processes in major sports. After reading this book, I find myself paying much closer attention not only to the Nationwide Tour, but also to the not-so-famous names that pepper the leaderboard on the second and third days of any tournament. Woods, Singh, and Lefty are always around, but when you see that guy who ranks 124th, and has yet to win a Tourney, you can't help but rot for him, 'cuz this will very likely be his one time in the sun. And con't ever forget the battle cry of all golfers:
I hate golf, I hate golf, I hate golf; NICE SHOT!!! I love golf!

For several years I have considered John Feinstein to be one of my favorite authors and have read most of his books. His prior golf books were all excellent. He should have stopped, though, with A Good Walk Spoiled trying to characterize Q-school. He did a great job then and a poor job now. I'm beginning to think he's on an annual deadline with his publisher as his last few books have lacked the quality of his earlier ones in an effort to ht a deadline. It was all I could do to finish the book and did only because one of the first stage qualifiers of Q-school will soon be held at our local country club and wanted to get a feel of the pressure from someone who I thought could best articulate it. I should have reread A Good Walk Spoiled. And what's with all the name dropping in the credits. Geez, there must be a lot of famous people that get off seeing their name (again) in print. I'm beginning to enjoy Feinstein more as a radio commentator on NPR than an author.

Fascinating inside look behind history, players and tales of school where few make it to the big dance, others the smaller one, and still others find something else.

From ball landing at critical point on a discarded divot to a back giving out at just the wrong moment to a player signing card for bogie he never made and more, this is nice collection of what golfers have heard so much about ... Q School.

Makes for entertaining and informative reading for the golf aficianado who wants the feel of those who wrestle with the twisted gutness of this pressure cooker like no other.

I've read many of Feinstein's previous works and enjoyed some of them immensely. A Season on the Brink and A Good Walk Spoiled were outstanding. His last two books, however, have been disappointing.

Perhaps his style is such that over time it begins to wear and grate on you. I could swear that he wrote a similar book on Q school some years ago. Much of the story seems very familiar, though with different names. The old 40 something year old pro trying for one last shot. The former major winner relegated to Q school. The hot young junior golfer suddenly struggling to make the show. I've heard it before and to make matters worse, Feinstein seems to repeat himself throughout the book. He tells a story in the foreward and then repeats it in the body of the book, perhaps to beef up a work that can easily be read in one sitting.

If you watch the television special on Q school each year, you get the same story with video. Hold out for the TV special.

This book is so boring and poorly written that I cannot believe Feinstein is behind it. It seems he is resting on past accompishments as this book fails in every way to live up to his previous books.

Feinstein collects the best "Q-School stories" in this entertaining, if uneven, book. Q-School is the tournament marginal golfers must excel in to make it back to the PGA Tour. The lesson Feinstein teaches is that nearly every golfer is marginal at some point (and often at many points) in his career, so all roads lead to Q-School.

Q-School stories fascinate professional golfers for obvious reasons. But they also fascinate the average reader, who can identify with the challenges one often faces to keep ones status in life and to the insecurity that defines our current economy. To paraphrase Hemingway, the best and truest stories always end in death -- in this case death of the golfer's PGA Tour hopes.

The stories are fascinating, particularly given the maddening unpredictability of golf that is aggravated by the ridiculous shortness of one tournament and by the immense pressure on the golfers. One wonders why golfers put up with this. Why is it that the monetary payout is so skewed between the privileged few who make the "major" league of any sport and the barely-paid many who languish in the "minor" leagues? The difference in talent level is often razor thin. There seems something uniquely American about such a brutal meritocracy, but Feinstein does not explore it.

The book tells Q-School stories in a meandering and disorganized fashion until the end, when the stories from one-year's tournament are collected in one telling, and an epilogue is included. More concerning than the disorganization is Feinstein's failure to do what he did so well in his earlier books, such as "The Punch", when he was able to tell the story and backgrounds of the athletes so well that the reader is left with real empathy and affection for them. This requires an incredible amount of work by the journalist, and one suspects that Feinstein's latest books are simply researched and written too fast.

The topic is too interesting, and Feinstein too good a writer, to give this book a bad review. But Feinstein's letting his standards slip.

As an avid golfer and a constant reader, I generally find most golf books quite entertaining (example "First Off the Tee". This book was as exciting as watching paint dry. The stories of the golfers trying to get a tour card are too similiar and within 20 pages more or less all seem about the same. I do not recommend this book to even the most avid golfer, the author has made our sport about as interesting as oh say curling.