Courses Called Crackers: One Golfer’s U.K. Quest

About the Book

A part-time golf writer gets the royal treatment from a host of fine U.K. clubs in exchange for his implied promise to sing their courses’ glories in this memoir that meshes a Finegan-like travelogue with the poignancy of Plimpton’s Bogey Man and the vinegar of Doak’s Confidential Guide. Traveling solo, this fifty-something Yank has his vigor roundly tested by a quest to play 36 courses. And, along the way -- in a wholly honest account -- the reader gets taken inside the golfer’s mind when encountering the alluring yet treacherous terrain at one great links after another, along with engaging the natives who call these courses “Crackers.”

About the Author

This is R.N.A. Smith’s fifth golf book and first historical novel. On Social Security’s brink, he still shoots in the 70s more oft than not, for which R.N.A. is humbly grateful. At the same time, it wearies him to have cared too much for so long on that score – a bit like Willie in this book. The founder of golf’s one-and-only online literary magazine (DIVOT), R.N.A. is contemplating a return to Web life for his next venture in golf-writing.