How to Quit Golf: A 12-Step Program

Rating:
Summary: Finally!
Review: Hillarious! This guy has obviously suffered through all the phases of golf addiction and has hit upon the only treatment that can cure - an honest look at how ridiculous we amatures are to think that we can beat the game. Get this book for every golfer you know that takes the game way too seriously. They probably still won't quit, but they just might become easier to live with after reading it.

Rating:
Summary: On the money!
Review: How to Quit Golf was given to me by a friend to read on my plane trip.

I could not put it down. It was too close to home for me.....and my family. I gave it to my wife to read and now she's pointing out how I resemble the characters in the book.

It was a great read.

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious Golf Book
Review: I was laughing out loud reading the book in my office, my employess wondered what was going on, I ignored them. Being an avid golfer myself I could emphasize with many of the situations that occur in the book. "How to Quit Golf" is the perfect book when you need a good chuckle. Anyone who has ever attempted to play golf will enjoy it.

Rating:
Summary: Read and be saved!
Review: Mark Twain once described golf as "a good walk spoiled." Accurate as Twain was in revealing the insidiously evil nature of this addictive pastime, he stopped short of explaining why so many people were willing to spoil their walks despite vowing at the end of each round never to touch another club.
Craig Brass, mercifully, has done what Samuel Clemens could not. He has exposed golf for what it is: a heroin derivative. What else could explain the shakes I get when the weather is nice, the grass is green, and I'm stuck in the office? What else could explain my need to sneak out on a weekend with the flimsy and transparent excuse, "I'm going to run some errands," as my wife gives me a shameful stare?
I admit it. I'm addicted. Author Brass has empowered me to face the problem and do something about it. Namely, quit the game.
No longer will I suffer the humiliating laughter of "friends" after gagging on an 18-inch birdie putt. No longer will I helicopter a 3-wood into the top of Indiana's tallest tulip poplar after worm-burning a brand new Titleist into a mosquito-infested swamp. No siree, not me. No more. I quit. I can do it. Just follow the 12 steps and keep the faith. I can quit.
Alright... well, no I can't. No one can. As Brass explains, we're all just puppets at the end of strings being pulled by the golf gods. We are at their capricious mercy, and they have precious little. Oh sure, they give you the occasional chip-in from off the green. But that's just to keep you coming back.
I read Craig Brass's book in one evening, and I laughed til I cried. I cried because a) the book is funny, and b) I recognized that Brass was describing me - and many of my friends. His writing is cynically witty (like Twain) and, thank heavens, he does not just resort to the same dried-up old golf jokes you've heard a million times. His approach is fresh. His evidence is convincing. More than a few golf widows will want to stuff their husbands' stockings with this gem. It's probably the next best thing to professional intervention.
In fact, I'm writing this review having just come in off the golf course. Now on a beautiful 55-degree December day in South Bend, Indiana (where it's normally closer to 55-below), I could have been stringing Christmas lights on my house, or finishing some holiday shopping for my wife. But no. I played golf. I pretzeled a driver around a yard arm after cold-topping a Nike Tour Accuracy into a lake. I vowed never to play again. But the weather report for tomorrow looks pretty good . . .

Rating:
Summary: Read and be saved!
Review: Mark Twain once described golf as "a good walk spoiled." Accurate as Twain was in revealing the insidiously evil nature of this addictive pastime, he stopped short of explaining why so many people were willing to spoil their walks despite vowing at the end of each round never to touch another club.
Craig Brass, mercifully, has done what Samuel Clemens could not. He has exposed golf for what it is: a heroin derivative. What else could explain the shakes I get when the weather is nice, the grass is green, and I'm stuck in the office? What else could explain my need to sneak out on a weekend with the flimsy and transparent excuse, "I'm going to run some errands," as my wife gives me a shameful stare?
I admit it. I'm addicted. Author Brass has empowered me to face the problem and do something about it. Namely, quit the game.
No longer will I suffer the humiliating laughter of "friends" after gagging on an 18-inch birdie putt. No longer will I helicopter a 3-wood into the top of Indiana's tallest tulip poplar after worm-burning a brand new Titleist into a mosquito-infested swamp. No siree, not me. No more. I quit. I can do it. Just follow the 12 steps and keep the faith. I can quit.
Alright... well, no I can't. No one can. As Brass explains, we're all just puppets at the end of strings being pulled by the golf gods. We are at their capricious mercy, and they have precious little. Oh sure, they give you the occasional chip-in from off the green. But that's just to keep you coming back.
I read Craig Brass's book in one evening, and I laughed til I cried. I cried because a) the book is funny, and b) I recognized that Brass was describing me - and many of my friends. His writing is cynically witty (like Twain) and, thank heavens, he does not just resort to the same dried-up old golf jokes you've heard a million times. His approach is fresh. His evidence is convincing. More than a few golf widows will want to stuff their husbands' stockings with this gem. It's probably the next best thing to professional intervention.
In fact, I'm writing this review having just come in off the golf course. Now on a beautiful 55-degree December day in South Bend, Indiana (where it's normally closer to 55-below), I could have been stringing Christmas lights on my house, or finishing some holiday shopping for my wife. But no. I played golf. I pretzeled a driver around a yard arm after cold-topping a Nike Tour Accuracy into a lake. I vowed never to play again. But the weather report for tomorrow looks pretty good . . .

Rating:
Summary: Tongue in Cheek Look at a Passionate Game
Review: Places this game from Scotland in the light of twelve step addiction programs. Highlights the borderline addict (at least) in everyone of us passionate about this great game. Why do we continue to toruture ourselves? This fun book delves into this, poking fun as would a standup comedian in a nightclub would take shots at the audience.

I teetered on this one--from two to four starts, likely because the book itself surges from good to average or slightly below. Reaching its high pint in chapter five, it then descends into the kind of cheap, over exaggerated category of humor we have come to in our times. Sex oriented with reference after reference to different items and people that I became saturated with this. Much of the talk about club throwing, gimmick helps, etc. seemed like they could easily have come out of a brainstorming session by a high school golf team holed up in the clubhouse waiting out a rain.

Sprinkled in the high-point chapters however are some great one-liners, e.g. "Golf if like a sting operation, setting you up at every turn."

Enjoyed more the creative side of books such as: Flatbellies, Enchanted Clubs, the Greatest Golfer who Never Lived and A Mulligan for Bobby Jobe.

Rating:
Summary: Tongue in Cheek Look at a Passionate Game
Review: Places this game from Scotland in the light of twelve step addiction programs. Highlights the borderline addict (at least) in everyone of us passionate about this great game. Why do we continue to toruture ourselves? This fun book delves into this, poking fun as would a standup comedian in a nightclub would take shots at the audience.

I teetered on this one--from two to four starts, likely because the book itself surges from good to average or slightly below. Reaching its high pint in chapter five, it then descends into the kind of cheap, over exaggerated category of humor we have come to in our times. Sex oriented with reference after reference to different items and people that I became saturated with this. Much of the talk about club throwing, gimmick helps, etc. seemed like they could easily have come out of a brainstorming session by a high school golf team holed up in the clubhouse waiting out a rain.

Sprinkled in the high-point chapters however are some great one-liners, e.g. "Golf if like a sting operation, setting you up at every turn."

Enjoyed more the creative side of books such as: Flatbellies, Enchanted Clubs, the Greatest Golfer who Never Lived and A Mulligan for Bobby Jobe.

Rating:
Summary: How To Quit Golf: A 12-Step Program
Review: This is hilarious reading for anyone who has ever golfed. It answers so many questions about this frustrating game and does so in a totally entertaining way. I read the book in an afternoon. It is not a lengthy tome, and will be easily understood by the most pathetic of all creatures...the avid golfer.

The author's version of renowned 12-step programs, adeptly adapted to golf, explains not only how but why one should quit this constantly humiliating game. Written for adults, it is irreverently relevant and poignantly pithy. Addressing golf from several perspectives (including but not limited to golf history, Greek mythology, yesterday's golf legends and today's hottest PGA Tour pros) it educates and informs by covering subjects that will touch the heart, the mind, and the funny bone of all who endeavor to chase a little white ball with a stick.

Buy this book for weekend duffers, golf league members and champions, country club members, or any person in your life who plays golf. They, men and women alike, will be happy you did, and best of all, it will get them off the darned golf course (at least while they're reading it).

Rating:
Summary: How To Quit Golf: A 12-Step Program
Review: This is hilarious reading for anyone who has ever golfed. It answers so many questions about this frustrating game and does so in a totally entertaining way. I read the book in an afternoon. It is not a lengthy tome, and will be easily understood by the most pathetic of all creatures...the avid golfer.

The author's version of renowned 12-step programs, adeptly adapted to golf, explains not only how but why one should quit this constantly humiliating game. Written for adults, it is irreverently relevant and poignantly pithy. Addressing golf from several perspectives (including but not limited to golf history, Greek mythology, yesterday's golf legends and today's hottest PGA Tour pros) it educates and informs by covering subjects that will touch the heart, the mind, and the funny bone of all who endeavor to chase a little white ball with a stick.

Buy this book for weekend duffers, golf league members and champions, country club members, or any person in your life who plays golf. They, men and women alike, will be happy you did, and best of all, it will get them off the darned golf course (at least while they're reading it).

Rating:
Summary: Another obcession to admit to
Review: Unlike a George Carlin humorous rant at everything and everything, it's tough maintaining a high level when dealing with only one subject. That's why this book has its hilarious ups and somewhat tedious downs: from practicing your swing in elevators (I personally like bathroom mirrors while dripping wet) to the Bobby Jones chapter. But overall, well worth reading especially for AA members who have the double whammy of being hooked on the game and will really appreciate the tongue in cheek comparison.