Maybe It Should Have Been a Three Iron: My Year as Caddie for the World's 438th Best Golfer

by Lawrence Donegan

Overview

Maybe It Should Have Been a Three-Iron is the funny and poignant story of one man's search for sporting glory.

Lawrence Donegan had the desire but lacked the talent to be a professional golfer, so he settled for the next best thing—caddying for Ross Drummond, a little-known pro on the European PGA tour, ranking 438th in the world. With self-deprecating humor, Donegan recounts the days and endless nights he spent on the road with Drummond as they existed on a string of meager tournament checks and chased the elusive "big win" much as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza chased windmills.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312204228
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/12/1999
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.59(d)

About the Author

Lawrence Donegan was born in Scotland and studied politics at Glasgow University. He now works as a journalist for the Guardian and lives in Glasgow. He is the author of Maybe It Should Have Been a Three Iron.

Editorial Reviews

An entertaining, fast-paced read...The book leaves you laughing at the pair's misadventures and startling achievements.” —Golf Magazine

“A cornucopia of self-deprecating laughs and a pleasure for those who have golfed or caddied.” —Publishers Weekly

“This quixotic adventure is priceless. Anyone who reads chapter 11 and doesn't laugh until he can't see is dead or ought to be.” —Dave Kindred author of Around the World in 18 Holes

From the Publisher

The author, a journalist for the English Guardian, recounts his experiences caddying for Ross Drummond, a journeyman pro, on the 1996 European Professional Golfers' Tour. Donegan describes tournaments and their host cities with a tone of frustration that one might naturally expect from someone exposed to the trials of finding his own ride and bed on the wages of a bag carrier for a pro who misses the tournament cut most weeks. Along the way, we meet a pastiche of great and not-so-great tour characters, including the Ballmark Kid, suspended from the tour for moving his ball marker during the qualifying round for the 1985 British Open. Although carrying clubs across Europe and parts of Africa doesn't quite do for Donegan what it did for Michael Bamberger in his turn as a caddy in To the Linksland (Viking, 1992), this amusing book is sure to find an audience on the back nine and beyond. Recommended for most public libraries.Peter Ward, Lindenhurst Memorial Lib., West Islip, NY

Library Journal

YA-Golf's competitive spirit lightens up as Donegan shares his amusing perspectives of his year caddying for Ross Drummond, the 438th ranked linksman in the world. More than a carrier of clubs, says the author, a proficient caddy must be supporter, psychologist, and intuitive advisor. The experienced, dedicated caddy will predict a shot, know the appropriate clubs to select, sense the mood of the player, and then react in the most positive way to inspire the golfer to be on top of his or her game. Teens are often first involved in this sport through caddying, yet few books have been written from that unique point of view. YAs who love the game will learn some tips and enjoy the author's well-trod sense of humor. What fun to experience golf filtered through this author's witty observations.-Catherine Charvat, King's Park Library, Burke, VA

School Library Journal

A marginally funny expos‚ of life on the European pro golf circuit. According to Donegan, a Manchester Guardian reporter who masqueraded as a pro caddy during the 1996 European PGA tour, "caddying is not brain surgery. It is much more complicated than that." From this clumsy metaphor-cum-witticism, we might surmise that Donegan wields turns of phrase about as effectively as he wielded a golf bag (and we need only read the subtitle to see how well he did that). But seriously, the author seems quite genial, and is always willing to be the butt of his own joke (perhaps this is because the Milquetoast personalities of the European PGA tour provide little fodder for the author's japes). However, his stories about the erratic quality of tournaments on a circuit that included such golfing meccas as Dubai, Czech Republic, Morocco, and Austria, or the boozy, vagabond lifestyles of caddies and the less successful golfers, begin to sound familiar (see any of the dozens of other golf books published over the past few years). Basically, Donegan played Sancho Panza to his Don Quixote, Ross Drummond, a mid-table tour pro whose delusions of greatness and outsized ego often serve as grist for the author's mill (though not as often as the occurrence of Cervantes references used by the author to describe their relationship). What ensues is Drummond enjoying tantalizing glimpses of success that he, to the author's consternation, attributes to every factor (including the teachings of the self-help guru Anthony Robbins) other than good caddying; Drummond and Donegan parting ways; and Donegan looking to land one-shot tournament caddying assignments. Par for the course, as golf books go.

Kirkus Reviews