The Playing Lesson: A Duffer’s Year Among the Pros

Golf.com writer Bamberger (This Golfing Life) shares in this discursive and eccentric account what happened when he set out to “play golf with more focus and more purpose” and seek “the wonder of golf, wherever it might be.” In 2024, Bamberger participated in multiple tournaments, both as an amateur player and as a caddie. The Florida’s Natural Charity Classic, for instance, with its “Double-A baseball” vibe, reminded Bamberger of a past era when most players “didn’t have equipment deals or traveling caddies or creased new tour clothes.” He also describes finding meaning at California’s “recess-gone-wild” Pebble Beach pro-am tournament, where he caddied for Fred Perpall, president of the United States Golf Association. “I felt like I was in my mid-twenties again, caddying for George Archer, Bill Britton, Tony Cerdá, Mike Donald, Steve Elkington, Brad Faxon, Al Geiberger, Jamie Howell—I could go on,” notes Bamberger, who cadied at pro-ams in high school and college. The author manages to cleverly convey some of the appeal of the sport, describing, for instance, how golfing “promotes a tingly anxiety.” But not everything advances his goals—Bamberger’s rambling approach to his narrative, which he at times concedes is overly technical, can be a bit much. It’s a mixed bag. Agent: Kristine Dahl, CAA. (June)