Rate this book

An American Caddie In St. Andrews: Growing Up, Girls, And Looping On The Old Course (2013)

by Oliver Horovitz(Favorite Author)

4.11 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1452665796 (ISBN13: 9781452665795)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Tantor Media

review 1: I enjoyed this book immensely, but I would not recommend it to everyone. Golfers/caddies, like other sport professionals, have the language skill of a drunk sailor on leave (i.e. lots of foul language).What I liked about this book is it puts light on something that goes unnoticed or unseen. Oliver shows up for the first time as a shy kid looking to cap his deferment year from Harvard being around what he loves...golf. But it's more then golf. It's about the relationships. With other caddies, golfers or his Uncle Ken (WWII veteran/widower) and Ken's best friend Harry. He learns respect, handwork and how important family is.
review 2: Oliver Horovitz is at his graduation from Stuyvesant High School in NYC when he gets a call from the Harvard Admissions Office: h... moree's off the wait list and IN, but the class is FULL. He has to take a gap year. In what's written as a whirlwind of decision-making, Oliver enrolls at St. Andrews University in Scotland (when Prince William was there!) for one year only, with plans to matriculate at Harvard the following year. His mom has an uncle (Ken) who lives about a par 4 (?) from the Old Course at St. Andrews, so Oliver has been to Scotland and golfed there. He also has a 1.8 handicap. He learns that caddying at St. Andrews can be lucrative and fun, so the summer after his school year, he signs on as a trainee caddie. I won't spoil the story any more than that, except to say the next 300+ pages, which you will devour even if you're NOT a golfer (I am not. . . yet) are filled with antics and anecdotes about caddies and golfers on the Old Course, students and flatmates, and various other colorful St. Andreans, including Uncle Ken, his best friend Henry, and other garden- and golf-obsessed residents of this cool-sounding town. Oliver is humble, funny, warm, smart and thoughtful. You will fall in love with him as he navigates the politics and personalities of the caddy shack while falling in love (and lust) himself with various golfing (and other) girls, building a deep friendship with his Uncle Ken, getting his undergraduate degree, zipping back and forth across the Atlantic, and growing up. You could read this well-written book for the funny stories about the caddies and golfers alone, but there's so much more. Oliver's understanding and even compassion for those who come to St. Andrews to fulfill a lifelong dream grows even as he does "doubles" (caddying 2-rounds a day) for some super-stingy tippers. And despite his amusingly self-deprecating nature, he also grows in confidence -- with his golf, his caddying, his academic and career goals, and . . . girls! To say it's a coming-of-age, fish-out of-water, wonderful memoir just doesn't begin to cover it. Hmmm, maybe Oliver will make a movie out of it! Read it. less

Download links for: An American Caddie in St. Andrews: Growing Up, Girls, and Looping on the Old Course

Advertising