Walking With Jack: A Father’s Journey to Become His Son’s Caddie

In order to recapture the closeness he and his son once shared before gradually growing apart, writer and golfer Snyder (The Cliff Walk) decides to become a caddie so that he can carry his son’s bags when Jack enters the pro circuit in this plodding account. Arranged chronologically according to diary entries he kept from December 2006 to February 2012, Snyder describes the hardships and the victories of his caddie apprenticeship at St. Andrews Old Course in Scotland. He endures the chill and downpours, and he walks over 1,000 miles carrying the golf bags of others, but he reassures himself, noting, “Someday you will be caddying for your son when every shot will count.... Keep your eyes open and your head up and you will always learn something new.” In 2011, after a trying college career, Jack makes it onto the Adams Golf Pro Tour, and his father proudly accompanies him, trying to stay as close as possible—cringing when his son performs poorly and offering encouragement along the way. Snyder’s tedious recap of every hole Jack plays on the tour carries the story far off the fairway, losing it in the rough. (June)