The Soul of Golf

At the outset, Hallberg (The Rub of the Green) confesses that he has no idea what the deeper meaning of golf is and has failed to dissect ""the vast metaphor"" of the sport. He expresses the hope, however, that the journey he describes will reveal what it is to be a man in the United States. And although that goal is not fully realized either, this is a heartwarming account of Hallberg's golfing odyssey across the South to California, then to the Pacific Northwest and the upper Midwest. The courses he played ran the gamut from the most prestigious, by which he was awed, to the seediest, about which he also finds something upbeat to say. But the strongest feature is the people Hallberg encountered; perhaps because of the camaraderie engendered by the perpetual frustrations on the links, all were warm, open and friendly, with a winning sort of masochistic wit. A cloud hung over Hallberg's trip, however, with his mother and sister dying of cancer and his father lapsing into senile dementia; and, while he was away, his daughter fractured her leg on a trampoline. Although the mystique of golf remains an enigma, Hallberg's quest to discover its nature is well worth reading. Author tour. (June)