Golf's Best Short Stories (Sporting's Best Short Stories series)

Is there a serious student of literature--or golf--who wouldn't give a stroke or two a side to be part of a Nassau that included, say, Don Marquis, Paul Gallico, P. G. Wodehouse, Ethan Canin, Ring Lardner, Stephen Leacock, Bernard Darwin, or John Updike? "People who care about golf," writes Paul Staudohar in his introduction to this marvelous and sometimes whimsical collection that packs all the above into its bag, "are typically well-educated men and women who appreciate things of quality in life, including good literature." The literature in Golf's Best Short Stories is indeed good: it contains 24 stories, dating from just before the turn of last century to just before the turn of this one, that explore some aspect of the mesmerizing hold golf has on its adherents. Updike's "Farrell's Caddie," perhaps the most anthologized of all golf stories, is the ace here, but there's not a bogey in the bunch. What serious golfer--or reader--could ask for more?