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Ancestral Links |
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| eBook: ePub eBook | 8.26 x 5.23in | 304 pages | ISBN 9781101019528 | 03 Mar 2009 | NAL |
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One man's "poignant and revealing" quest to uncover the roots of his family's obsession with golf-in Ireland, Scotland, and the American heartland.
In Ancestral Links, senior Sports Illustrated writer John Garrity takes readers on a fascinating golfing odyssey. First he returns to the majestic seaside Carne Golf Links in a remote corner of Ireland, from which his great-grandfather left for America. Next he visits Musselburgh, Scotland, where his maternal ancestors played golf before the first thirteen rules of the game were written there in 1774. And in Wisconsin's St. Croix River Valley, Garrity revisits the New Richmond Golf Club, where his father learned the ancient game. At every stop on his journey, Garrity reflects on the life and career of his beloved late older brother, Tom, a former tour player.
Part memoir, part travelogue, and all golf, Garrity's story of how the sport altered three small-town landscapes and forever changed one family is a captivating and unforgettable tour of the links.
“Poignant and revealing.”
—Booklist
“Garrity offers some wry insights into the sport of golf.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Lively, humorous, and informative…a deeply personal and soulful journey by…an exceptionally talented writer.”
—Michigan Golfer
"Garrity's odyssey is green, Irish, wry, wistful and inspiring. His book is a jig in a bunker surrounded by a field of dreams. It's magical."
— Michael Bamberger, author of To the Linksland
“Part family memoir, part travelogue, Garrity offers some wry insights into the sport of golf and the often profound reasons why hitting a small ball into a hole means so much to so many people— and why they would travel to the ends of the earth (or at least to Scotland and Ireland) just to have the honor and pleasure of doing so.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Sports Illustrated senior writer John Garrity retraced his roots the old-fashioned way: by poring over documents, hunting down distant relatives and playing some of the British Isles’ finest courses. Who said you can’t mix family business with pleasure?”
—Golf Magazine
“[Garrity] is a formidable talent… After all, this is a man who, in an erstwhile SI series called ‘Mats Only,’ found entertaining things to write about his compulsion for beating balls at practice ranges. In Ancestral Links, his themes—particularly a messy family lineage and mortality—are far weightier. Garrity is more than capable of carrying that load.”
—Golfweek Magazine
“[Ancestral Links is] part memoir—the recollections of both his father and brother, both recently dead of cancer, are poignant and revealing—part golfer’s travelogue, and part search for roots…Garrity’s humility and ingratiating style softens the inevitable envy problem (Why him and not me?) that often makes reading golf travelogues a mixed blessing.”
— Booklist
“I was enthralled by this fine book… Garrity has written a heartfelt elegy to his parents and brother framing his emotions and reflections amid the rugged and inspiring links of Carne. A sense of loss shadows the book but also self-discovery, hope and redemptive love… There’s much to relish in this book and you don’t have to have played Carne or Irish links or even been to Ireland to appreciate it… Garrity has taken it all in and the reader goes along for a wonderful, insightful ride.”
—Terry Moore, Michigan Golfer
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