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Shooting for Tiger Also by William Echikson Lighting the Night: Revolution in Eastern Europe Burgundy Stars: A Year in the Life of a Great French Restaurant Noble Rot: A Bordeaux Wine Revolution Shooting for Tiger How Golf’s Obsessed New Generation Is Transforming a Country Club Sport william echikson PublicAffairs NEW YORK Copyright © 2009 by William Echikson Published in the United States by PublicAffairs™, a member of the Perseus Books Group. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. All photographs taken by the author with the exception of: Page 1: Courtesy of Mirasol Country Club Page 49: Courtesy of the Colorado Golf Association Page 219: Courtesy of the American Junior Golf Association No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address PublicAffairs, 250 West 57th Street, Suite 1321, New York, NY 10107. PublicAffairs books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the U.S. by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail special.markets@perseusbooks.com. Designed by Brent Wilcox Text set in 12 point Granjon Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Echikson, William. Shooting for Tiger : how golf’s obsessed new generation is transforming a country club sport / William Echikson.—1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-58648-578-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Golf for children. 2. Golf—United States. 3. American Junior Golf Association. I. Title. GV966.3.E34 2009 796.352083—dc22 2009002003 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For My Eldest Son Samuel, Who Inspired This Adventure This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS preface: My Son . . . the Golfer 1 Clock Nazis 2 ix 1 Beginnings of a Beloved Pastime 13 3 A Female Tiger 33 4 Living, Breathing, and Sleeping Sport 49 5 A Quintuple Bogey 67 6 The Qualifier 97 7 Burning Out 113 8 Tenuous Ground 145 9 Younger, Better, and More Talented 161 10 A Bit of Fun 185 11 Scandinavian Surprise 195 12 End Game 219 epilogue: My Son . . . the Champion 241 251 255 Acknowledgments Index vii This page intentionally left blank PREFACE My Son . . . the Golfer Samuel Echikson, age 15, and already a 1.8 handicap. hen my son Samuel picked up a tiny tennis racket at the tender age of three, he swung it with grace. Later, he was good enough to earn a spot on a top-ranked Belgian club soccer team. On a trip to America, he hit a home run in one of his first baseball games at camp. Yet one by one his athletic passions dropped away. At tennis tournaments, parents screamed on the sidelines. Samuel tensed, and all too often he came off the court in tears. He dropped off the elite soccer team after a year, finding the sport too stressful, and proceeded to turn in what seemed a strange direction—toward golf. I couldn’t understand why a graceful, athletic child would embrace an old person’s sport. When I was growing up, my dad’s country club blocked me from venturing onto its course. Manufacturers didn’t make clubs small or light enough for kids under ten. The game seemed slow and boring. You didn’t work up a sweat. You walked. A round took up most of the day. W ix