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Summary: Can't live with 'em & you can't live without 'em
Review: A terrific read. The story of two guys each with his own hangups, or shall I say self descructive traits, who find each other only to end up like the divorced couple that can't find true happiness apart. Great insight into the pressures of the tour showing how easy it is to fall from grace overnight. Fast paced and tough to put down.
Rating: 
Summary: Enough Tiger. Long Live Rich Beem!
Review: A well written story of life "inside the ropes" for a PGA Tour Rookie, Rich Beem, and his free-wheeling but experienced caddie. You can't help but pull for Beem after going along with the ride to his improbable first PGA Tour victory one year removed from his position as an assistant pro at El Paso Country Club. Also provides insight into the psychological impact a top level caddie has on a touring pro's performance. Liasons with topless dancers, groupies, and gambling stories only add to the mix of this interesting read.
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Summary: You'll follow Rich Beem.....
Review: after reading this. Shipnuck picked the right guys at the right time to follow and write about. Beem's rookie year was sensational to say the least. The pairing of a self described "Army Brat" and his dysfunctional caddie provide just the right combination for a book of this sort. Besides the look at these two and their wild life, the book does a wonderful job giving insight into how the Tour ticks. Beem does a great job describing how there are basically two tours, the one for the superstars and one for the up-and-comers and also-rans and the difficulty in overcoming the odds to become one of those upper eschelon types. One of the most entertaining and enthralling aspects of the book is the look at how rookies put together sponsership deals and also how endorsment deals work once on tour. Shipnuck gives you all the monetary details of how it all works. That he hooked up with two such interesting characters at such a pivotal time in both of their careers is akin to catching the proverbial lightning in a bottle. Oh yeah, lets not forget the travel, partying, gambling and womanizing.
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Summary: A great read
Review: After watching Beem win this year's PGA, I was turned onto this book. What a great ride. It's a little heavy on details for my non-fan taste, but it definitely gives some insight into the Tour and the folks you see on tv every weekend. Shipnuck does a wonderful job of taking you inside the ropes, and more importantly, out to the 19th hole.
Rating:
Summary: A great read
Review: After watching Beem win this year's PGA, I was turned onto this book. What a great ride. It's a little heavy on details for my non-fan taste, but it definitely gives some insight into the Tour and the folks you see on tv every weekend. Shipnuck does a wonderful job of taking you inside the ropes, and more importantly, out to the 19th hole.
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Summary: An "Inside the PGA Tour" Look
Review: Alan Shipnuck did a great job of exploring the life of Tour golfer and caddy as they make their journey to and through the PGA Tour. Unfortunately, he chose to write about two of the most uninteresting figures around! Two of the most irresponsible people are featured in this story of a drunken, womanizing, immature caddy and a golfer who most people would give anything to trade places with, but doesn't take his job seriously.
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Summary: Winning Isn't Everything On PGA Tour
Review: Alan Shipnuck is the best young golf writer going, and the proof is in "Bud, Sweat, & Tees." Was it a newshound's instinct that led him to chronicle the debut win of a by-no-means young rookie in a mid-level PGA Tour event in 1999, three years before that golfer would do what no other golfer ever managed to do, go head-to-head with a charging Tiger Woods in a major and win?No, of course not. He just got lucky. But so do golf readers, because this wry, perceptive, and utterly addictive account of Beem's trials and tribulations, and that of his caddie, Steve Duplantis, is surely a once-in-a-lifetime event. It's hard to imagine any other PGA golfer, at any point in his career, opening up to the degree Beem does here, as well as be complimented by the perspective of Duplantis, a once-promising caddy who bounced back with Beem after losing top contender Jim Furyk's bag a few weeks before. Beem's a deserving center of attention, particularly in a moment-by-moment account of the first tournament Beem and Duplantis ever worked together, the Kemper Open in Maryland, the one Beem won. But Duplantis may be the most enduring character here, a guy who makes his own worst luck, but wins you over by wearing his heart on his sleeve. As Shipnuck relates, Duplantis hits on a succession of strip-bar performers, then wonders why he can't have a steady relationship. He shows up late for practice rounds, and wonders why golfers lose patience with him. But when he says of Beem: "Does he want to be responsible and treat this like a job or does he want to get ----faced and stay out all night?" you know what he means even if it is pot-on-kettle commentary. Beem has fierce drive, guts, and creativity with his iron shots, but what seems to drive him most is a desire for a good time. He ogles waitresses, downs Jack and cokes, and talks about hitting on Tour groupies in a way few golfers do, at least when someone with a pen or tape recorder is around. All this candor could have blown up in Beem's face, but two things prevent it. One is Beem doesn't seem to care that much what people think. He's beyond social embarrassment. Two is that Shipnuck is not writing some leering tell-all to titillate the masses, but a very finely-tuned account of what makes pro golfers tick, namely what separates the good from the great. Reading about Beem makes you appreciate more a man like Tiger Woods, who stays hungry win-after-win. Beem's first victory, hard-earned and glorious to read, put him in a bit of a glidepath which went on for the next two years. You know from reading this that Beem has it in him to excel, but will he? Add to this examination Shipnuck's way with metaphors, his unerring ear for the right quote, and an occasional way with a phrase that would make Herbert Warren Wind proud: "There is no room to write excuses on the scorecard, just numbers," Shipnuck writes, but golf is a game of color and life, and in "Bud, Sweat, & Tees" Shipnuck delivers both like nothing you've ever read before.
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Summary: Top notch, top notch!
Review: Alan Shipnuck is the man! Great subjects plus a young 'with it' writer equals a great read! For years I've read John Feinstein's work and while he tells a good story, I identify with Shipnuck's style much more. I don't know if it's generational or not, but the words he uses and the quotes and stories he chose to include were perfect. If you even have a casual interest in golf read this book.
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Summary: Ya Gotta Love These Guys--Beem, Duplantis, and Shipnuck
Review: Bud, Sweat, and Tees is a great book, entertaining, endearing, and full of the humorous turns we've come to expect from Alan Shipnuck. More that just the Inside Scoop on the PGA Tour--though it certainly is that, and revealingly so--the book exposes a pair of leading men straight out of central casting. There is the Salty Caddie, young but wise from experience, equipped with just enough game to know how golf works between the ropes, and plagued by personal struggles off the course. And there is the Young Gun, loaded with potential, shining in the bright light of a breakthrough moment, scratching to turn that flash of brilliance into the sustained glow of a Tour career. The obvious affection and inevitable tension between Beem and Dupantis anchors Shipnuck's book in the human dimensions of a compelling storyline. In the end, you should know that any book capable of invoking the epochal figure Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High on the first page will deliver in a big way. Oh by the way, contrary to certain claims, Shipnuck uses the word "comprise" in exactly the right way. "Beginning" writers may think that the parts comprise the whole, but careful scribes know that the whole comprises--or includes--the parts. The Point: This book comprises a number of compelling tales. Try it; you'll like it.
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Summary: Brilliant behind-the-scenes expose of the PGA tour
Review: Entertaining, bawdy but sometimes poignant look at two very complicated lives that intersect on the golf course. The serious, introspective side of the book is balanced by the off-the-course exploits of drinking in the clubhouse and partying in strip bars. Alan Shipnuck expands on the humorous themes in golf that he writes about in his...column. His youthful, energetic style is perfect for a holiday read.
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