Two college buddies. One summer. Thirty-six states. Forty-two rounds of golf at some of the best courses in the country.
Sound like a MasterCard commercial? Well here is the best part: They paid almost nothing for it.
“Fairways and Highways: In Search of the Perfect Drive” is the narrative of John Gardner and Kevin Price, who set out on their 72-day pilgrimage to various golf meccas just months after graduation from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wash. The pair wrote to dozens of golf courses using stationery from a friend’s publishing company, saying they planned to write a golf book but, “due to a tight pre-publication budget,” needed a waiver on their green fees. Almost all course administrators responded in the affirmative and thus began every avid golfer’s ultimate fantasy.
Crammed inside Price’s Honda Civic, the two hopped from tee time to tee time, sleeping only at friends’ homes, their tent or the not-so-spacious Civic during the scorching summer of 1995. While spending the summer living in poverty, they swung at the playgrounds of the wealthy: Pebble Beach, Blackwolf Run, Pinehurst, Harbour Town, Bethpage Black and the list goes on.
Working from notes and cassettes from the trip, Price wrote the book last year as a Ph.D. candidate in political science and lecturer at UW-Madison. For anyone who has taken a UW class, it’s sometimes hard to believe a staff member could do something that can only be described as “cool.” But Price — one of those lecturers who loses sleep over passive sentences — makes it come to life with an almost conversational tone, as if the two were retelling their summer adventure over beers at the Union.
The book itself can be broken into two largely separate parts: the golf journal and the road trip. With a few exceptions — such as Blackwolf Run foursome partner Rico Paris, playing with just one arm as the result of a stroke — the two parts rarely intertwine. Non-avid golfers might sleep-read through the detailed descriptions of their rounds at some courses, but golf fanatics will certainly enjoy the commiseration.
The road trip, however, appeals to everyone. The freedom of two college bachelors without classes or jobs is unmatched, and throughout the adventure they meet older golfers who envy the carefree youthfulness Price and Gardner epitomize with their trip.
Many of the best stories — pitching their tent on a high school football field only to awaken to football practice whistles, sweet-talking the beer cart girls, crashing at fraternity houses — seem like something out of “Animal House” or “Road Trip” rather than a golf narrative.
“Fairways and Highways” is about more than golf and driving through America on $20 a day, however, and Price’s political science background is evident in his writing.
He finds much food for commentary, from the pre-civil rights character of some Southern country clubs to the otherworldliness of rural Indiana. He allows several colorful characters along the way to present their own commentaries on America, golf and what is truly important in life, with the aggregate sum amounting to an analysis of aging, economic class and American life.
Such insight is subtle, however, and does not overshadow the real nature of the book: A fun retelling of an adventure that captivates by itself, made inspirational through the skill of the storytellers.
