Around the World in 18 Holes » (Reprint)

In June of 1993, after months of absurdly complex planning, Dave Kindred and Tom Callahan set off on their own incredible journey: in sixty-nine days they went around the world (thirty-seven thousand miles) to play eighteen holes of golf in twenty-one countries on four continents. A few stops were famous and familiar: Augusta National, St. Andrews, Pebble Beach. But most were more like dream sequences out of the Arabian Nights. In Kathmandu they waited on the first tee while a shrouded corpse bound for cremation passed. In Iceland they teed off after midnight in the Arctic Open: it was golf in a refrigerator by the glow of a fifteen-watt bulb. They hit balls into the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans as well as the Baltic Sea, the River Eden, and an unmentionable spot on a French course built in the shape of the architect's mistress. They got to know Japanese millionaires, Russian prostitutes, Nepalese madmen, and Mother Teresa's volunteers. They even learned why chewing gum is a crime in Singapore. And somewhere along the way Callahan and Kindred came to feel just enough out of place to find their own places in this world. So, after searching for Ben Hogan, they headed home.

Publishers Weekly

The authors, both contributors to Golf Digest , set out in the summer of 1993 to play 18 holes of golf on 18 very different courses throughout the world. They began in Northern Ireland and finished in Augusta, Ga., site of the Masters that year. Along the way, they played in such unlikely spots at Akureyri in Iceland, where players tee off at midnight on the longest day of the year; Sun City in Bophuthatswana, not entirely isolated from the killings in South Africa; Mauritius; Kathmandu in Nepal; and Singapore, where chewing gum is a felony. Yet, even though they describe each of the holes, their book is travel writing at its best, with emphasis on the people they met in each country. They write of crusty old Scots, Russians gloomy about their nation's immediate future, B-girls in Thailand and Ben Hogan, whom they sought out as worshippers. It's a delightful volume and, for those who keep score, Callahan bested Kindred on the links. (June)