112 Miles to the Pin

October 1, 2007
Escorting the reader through uncharted territory, journalist and author Lennard playfully describes the adventurous side of golf, hoping that fellow golfers will rediscover the joy of a game that "remains dominated by social convention... marginalizing the people who have the most fire for it." As such, he's amassed infectious, inspiring interviews with unorthodox golfers from every continent: cross-country golfer David Ewen improved his game by playing all the way across his homeland of Scotland; the Natural Born Golfers, a group of raffishly dressed German punks, swing at targets from rooftops or boats; and New Zealand's Mackenzie Muster naturist festival features a nude tournament (though socks and shoes are allowed). Lennard rounds out his global survey with an amusing appendix of miscellany: records of the longest hits from land, ocean, and space; tips for tundra and mountain golf; and rules for playing the city ("from the Shoreditch Urban Open Rulebook"). Though Lennard's descriptions are deft, readers will long for a photo to illustrate rare hazards like the aftermath of warring hippos or the Arctic skuas, large and aggressive birds who steal balls, mistaking them for penguin eggs; for those and other images, readers will have to turn to Lennard's 2004 book, Extreme Golf, for which this makes a fun, fitting follow-up.

September 17, 2007
Escorting the reader through uncharted territory, journalist and author Lennard playfully describes the adventurous side of golf, hoping that fellow golfers will rediscover the joy of a game that "remains dominated by social convention... marginalizing the people who have the most fire for it." As such, he's amassed infectious, inspiring interviews with unorthodox golfers from every continent: cross-country golfer David Ewen improved his game by playing all the way across his homeland of Scotland; the Natural Born Golfers, a group of raffishly dressed German punks, swing at targets from rooftops or boats; and New Zealand's Mackenzie Muster naturist festival features a nude tournament (though socks and shoes are allowed). Lennard rounds out his global survey with an amusing appendix of miscellany: records of the longest hits from land, ocean, and space; tips for tundra and mountain golf; and rules for playing the city ("from the Shoreditch Urban Open Rulebook"). Though Lennard's descriptions are deft, readers will long for a photo to illustrate rare hazards like the aftermath of warring hippos or the Arctic skuas, large and aggressive birds who steal balls, mistaking them for penguin eggs; for those and other images, readers will have to turn to Lennard's 2004 book, Extreme Golf, for which this makes a fun, fitting follow-up.

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