Golf Dreams: Writings on Golf.

UPDIKE, John; Illustrated by Paul Szep .

Item Number: 139363

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.

First edition of this classic collection of golf stories by John Updike. Octavo, original half cloth, illustrations by Paul Szep. Presentation copy, inscribed with a large drawing by the illustrator on the front free endpaper, “Merry Christmas from John Rogers and Szep Dec. ’15.” Fine in a near fine price-clipped dust jacket.

John Updike wrote about the lure of golf for five decades, from the first time he teed off at the age of twenty-five until his final rounds at the age of seventy-six. Golf Dreams collects the most memorable of his golf pieces, high-spirited evidence of his learning, playing, and living for the game. The camaraderie of golf, the perils of its present boom, how to relate to caddies, and how to manage short putts are among the topics he addresses, sometimes in lyrical essays, sometimes in light verse, sometimes in wickedly comic fiction. All thirty pieces have the lilt of a love song, and the crispness of a firm chip stiff to the pin.