Customer Reviews

Who's Your Caddy?: Looping for the Great, Near Great, and Reprobates of Golf

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I found this book to be a quick read (took me a weekend to read 250+ pages) and very enjoyable. I give it four stars on account of the people that Reilly interviewed while he walked the loop with them. My personal favorite was just how much of a redneck John Daly was. I cannot begin to explain some of this man's humor in life unless you read this book. After reading this book, you also realize just how nice Tom Lehman and Casey Martin are, and just how full of themselves Jack Nickalus and Donald Trump are. I found most the humor to be very good, but it just lacked the hook to really pull me in. There were some good moments though, including Reilly's constant problems with the golf bag and how easily he pisses golfers off. I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a quick laugh and one who wants to get an insight on walking with some of the pros on the PGA, but I also found that this book wouldn't win the "Most Humorous Book of the Year" award. A good read for most, especially fans of SI and Reilly's work.

First, a disclaimer. I think Rick Reilly is one of the most creative and entertaining sportswriters out there. I thought it before picking up this book, and my impression has been confirmed.

I've read interviews about dozens of "golfers." Reilly's genius is his ability to turn those "golfers" into "people." In these short vignettes, Reilly not only gives you some insight into what makes people like John Daly and David Duval tick, but he does it an entertaining, mapcap manner.

There are sometimes when Reilly gets a bit over the top, such as when he uses expression like "eat hot titanium," but I can overlook these exaggerations when they serve to move the stories along. I know that I'll pick this book up time and again for light, fun reading.

Reilly is like the kid in high school who tries sooo hard to be funny: some of the jokes he tells might indeed be good, but the sheer, focused effort to "be funny" conveys a sad idiocy to it. Many of his "funny" lines read like they should be accompanied by a vaudeville cymbal-crash, or at very least the canned laughs of 70s sitcoms. His relentless self-deprecating fun-poking at his own caddying inability comes across as contrived in someone who, at other junctures in the book, is revealed to be a solid low-to-no handicap player. The sections on Trump and Jill McGill were decent. The rest was a write-off, and revealed no more abut the inner workings of tour golf that you can glean attending a practice round at any tournament. The snippets of translated "caddy lingo" are pitiful, and by the end of the book I was simply skipping them outright.

This book will appeal to some tastes - after all, even "Blind Date" and "Maury" find audiences... somewhere. If you love watching "Grey Goose 19th Hole" on Golf Channel, or you tape or TiVo episodes of "Peter Jacobsen Unplugged", buy the book with no second thoughts. Otherwise, redeploy your money to another piece of golf literature (Ken Venturi's "Up and Down...", for instance) and you'll be glad you did.

Not exactly Herbert Warren Wind here. Rick Reilly's attempt at a humorous peek at life on the other side of the ropes falls well short of the green. Of the twelve chapters, each detailing time spent carrying the bag of a celebrity, only two or three are of any interest. The highlights of the book perhaps include the stories on blind golfer Bob Andrew, crippled Casey Martin, and David Duval - with a glimpse of the family tragedy that colors his game. And in all fairness, I learned a bit more about the LPGA. Yet the constant snickering about the idiosyncracies, different biology, and lifestyle preferences of women pros were consistent with the bulk of this book: written for an audience in a third grade bathroom.

We learn for instance that the author gets a first hand glimpse of why John Daly is nicknamed "Long John", and that Brad Faxon's caddy measures yardage "You got 189 plus OJ" (meaning 2 for two murders,) or "It's 201 plus Anna (Kournikova, a perfect 10)." We're subjected to a discussion with self-help mystic Deepak Chopra that describes how to keep cool or hot on the golf course. Naturally, the answer involves a bodily aperture below the belt. Even worse, we endure Reilly's retelling of Bob Newhart's old jokes. As you might suspect, Reilly's poor delivery leaves the reader wishing he or she just found the old Newhart albums on [...].

Beyond the premise that a rookie caddy might have a truly difficult time keeping pace with professional golfers the yuks are pretty dull. Reilly's self-deprecating jokes about dropping clubs, spilling bags, and misreading yardages grows old fast. After the first few pages, we get it.

The chapter on (famous?) gambler Dewey Tomko and his high-roller friends is mind-bogglingly offensive. Even if the reader is OK with cliché-filled banter out of a cheap dime-store detective novel ("Dewey, if you're bluffin', I'll kill you, etc.,") most golfers and sportsmen would find these lowlife bettors a black spot on a pretty good game. Is it a thrill to learn about Michael Jordan and others losing hundreds of thousands of dollars on golf bets? For that matter, why not throw in a chapter on steroid use for laughs?

All in all, this scatology is pretty much straight out of the locker room, and not one in which you'd care to spend much time.

C. What do Donald Trump, Jack Nicklaus, Deepak Chopra, and Bob
Newhart have in common? They've all utilized the caddying services
of Rick Reilly, a senior writer for SPORTS ILLUSTRATED and author
of the hilarious WHO'S YOUR CADDY?

Reilly set out to find out about what makes golfers tick . . . to do
so, he offered to caddy for them for free . . . although Tiger Woods
turned down his offer (repeatedly), some of the best pros in the world agreed to let him carry their bags--including David Duval,
Tom Lehman and John Daly . . . others did as well, and all their
tales are covered in this book that is a MUST for any golfer
to read.

And even though I haven't played the game since I was a teenager,
I loved this book and would recommend it to non-golfers as
well . . . it is funny, in many spots, but also quite moving when
describing the uphill battle faced by Casey Martin when he had
to get the Supreme Court to rule that he should be allowed to
play with a cart.

I was also touched by the story of Bob Martin, one of the top
blind golfers in the world.

There were several memorable passages; among them:
* The bag was simple and blue, with no sponsor on it, and heavier than
Meatloaf. What's this guy got in there, anvils? I remembered the time
British golf writer Bill Elliot spent a day caddying for Faldo for a story.
Elliott struggled under its weight all day, until he discovered, afterward,
that Faldo had snuck a brick and three dozen extra balls into the bottom
of the bag for a laugh. There is nobody that will crack you up like
that madcap Nick Faldo.

* A local TV crew comes up to us on the second fairway. The reporter
asks, "What's the secret to hitting it so far?"

"Well," says [John] Daly, "you gotta have a lot of ex-wives. I just think of
them and hit it."

* The truth was, I'm sure it's not easy playing with somebody grilling
you between every shot. "Nah," he [Jack Nicklaus] said. "Remember,
I played with Trevino. In fact, one time, we met on the first tee and
I said, 'Lee, I don't want to talk today.' And Lee said, 'You don't have to talk,
Jack. You only have to listen.' "

I was really pleased with Reilly's effort here. After initially hearing the author shilling the book on Jim Rome back when it was first released on hardcover, I never had much of an inclination to read it. I've found the bits of Reilly's work that I've read in SI often too sentimental and too snarky.

In the meantime I have picked up a fairly serious interest in golf, and when I stumbled across the book again, I thought I would pick it up. "Who's Your Caddy?" won me over and proved that I had been haboring a number of misconceptions.

First, you needn't be a golfer to enjoy the work. There are some moments where Reilly sinks into golf-speak of the kind that I think every weekend player grows tired of by about the second tee when you're out playing with that clown from work or the brother-in-law who's sporting a [...] putter, [...] irons, and a $1 million ego because he's a 4 handicapper. But, the book mostly takes a trip around the course that is accessible to golf novices. Especially when Reilly joins amateurs like Donald Trump (I've always wanted to find a way to plausibly refer to Trump as an amaetur) and Deepak Chopra for a round, the story moves quickly and humorously.

Reilly even convinced me that he isn't the guy I would have thought he had to be after reading his SI work. Like the [...], naked under his raincoat, Reilly can't seem to help himself from unleashing overweight sarcastic sidebars. These inhibit the best parts of the story, but with a self-depricating twist that ususally leaves him as his own target, these diversions actually contained some redeeming moments.

Finally, he does descend into melodrama (the typical golf schlock type stuff, i.e. golf is the great game that challenges your will and quickens your mind and personifies American freedom), but only very rarely, and that restraint rescues the book from what might have become the nonfiction take on Bagger Vance.

Other reviews are right on target, this is not the kind of Updike, Heinz, etc. sports writing that actually captures the humanity and value of sports on paper - its silliness. But, on a summer afternoon when you'd rather save the $250 in greens fees and lost balls, this book should do the trick.

The book starts off well, but the chapter about John Daly is really distasteful. Irony is, Reilly falls into the hole he dug for Daly. Some of the things the golfers did and said to Mr. Reilly were obviously not meant to be published. However, Mr. Reilly betrays their confidence in hopes of some cheap laughter at their expense. Pro-golfers will take a dim view. This book could have been great, but cheap tricks and crude language are never funny, Mr. Reilly. And the chapter on the lady golfer reeks of sexism. This book may only earn Mr. Reilly the "John Daly" of sportwriters title, and not much respect from tour players.

As I finished the book, I realized that it annoyed me that Reilly took up caddying without really trying to learn how to do it. He started at the Masters with no experience and didn't do very well. He didn't seem to improve much . . . even with experience. I thought he showed a fundamental disrespect for his craft, the game and for the golfers he served by taking this approach. Thinking about my reaction, I thought about the responsibility we all have to do our best to serve others when that is our task. I'll try to do it much better after reading this book.

Not exactly Herbert Warren Wind here. Rick Reilly's attempt at a humorous peek at life on the other side of the ropes falls well short of the green. Of the twelve chapters, each detailing time spent carrying the bag of a celebrity, perhaps only two or three are of any interest. If there are any highlights of this book perhaps they include the stories on blind golfer Bob Andrews, crippled Casey Martin, and David Duval - with a glimpse of the family tragedy that colors his game. And in all fairness, I did learn a bit more about the LPGA. Yet the constant snickering about the idiosyncracies, different biology, and lifestyle preferences of women pros were consistent with the bulk of this book: written for an audience in a third grade bathroom.

We learn for instance that the author gets a first hand glimpse of why John Daly is nicknamed "Long John", and that Brad Faxon's caddy measures yardage in a unique way: "You got 189 plus O.J. (meaning 2 for two murders,) or "It's 201 plus Anna (Kournikova, a perfect 10)." We're subjected to a discussion with self-help mystic Deepak Chopra who describes how to keep cool or hot on the golf course. Naturally, the answer involves a bodily aperture below the belt. Ha-ha. Even worse, we endure Reilly's retelling of Bob Newhart's old jokes. As you might suspect, Reilly's poor delivery leaves the reader wishing he or she just found the old Newhart albums on eBay.

Beyond the premise that a rookie caddy might have a truly difficult time keeping pace with professional golfers the yuks are pretty dull. Reilly's self-deprecating jokes about dropping clubs, spilling bags, and misreading yardages grows old fast. After the first few pages, we get it.

The chapter on (famous?) gambler Dewey Tomko and his high-roller friends is mind-bogglingly offensive. Even if the reader is OK with cliché-filled banter out of a cheap dime-store detective novel ("Dewey, if you're bluffin', I'll kill you, etc.,") most golfers and sportsmen would find these lowlife bettors a black spot on a pretty good game. Is it a thrill to learn about Michael Jordon and others losing hundreds of thousands of dollars on golf bets? For that matter, why not throw in a chapter on steroid use for laughs?

All in all, this scatology is pretty much straight out of the locker room, and not one in which you'd care to spend much time.

Rick Reilly may just be the best and most unpretentious writer about sports or anything for that matter in America. Even when his jokes fall flat at least you're not reading for the millionth time one of these "sport is like a way of life, it reaches in us and bla bla bla" type writings. I'm amazed that he has not been nominated for a National Magazine Award, hmm, looks like that institution shares a lot with Oscar in its ability to constantly overllook great talents. This book is great, just entertaining and a light read, something you can enjoy over and over again. Yet another cult classic from a master.