What makes a guy decide to write a golf novel? They say, “write what you know,” but I can’t pretend to know golf. I’ve played with people who know golf. Pros and accomplished amateurs with phenomenal power who can perform acrobatics with a ball. That’s not me. Yes, I can get around a golf course with my crazy self-taught swing and break 80 on a good day. So what? I can also belt out “Baby We Were Born to Run” behind the wheel of my car, but that doesn’t make me Bruce Springsteen.
But while I don’t necessarily know golf, I do know golfers. My marketing career has taken me to places like Pebble Beach and Whistling Straits, and I once produced a golf video featuring Anika Sorenstam. I’ve been a guest at many country clubs in my day, and my novel’s fictitious Wannagansett Country Club is an amalgam of several noteworthy clubs I had the privilege of playing in Rhode Island decades ago.
That said, I’m most comfortable with courses at the other end of the spectrum. You know the places I mean. The cash-strapped muni that allows painfully slow fivesomes. The weird nine-hole carved out of a cow pasture with an honor-system paybox into which you slip your greens fee. Places long on blackberries and short on azaleas. Those are the courses I frequent and love.
It’s no accident that the main character in Winter Rules is named Wayne. The fictitious Squak Valley Golf Course is loosely based on a place called Wayne Golf Course, a beginner-friendly, family owned track on the outskirts of Bothell, WA. I played it a few times as a 12-year-old, brought there by my father. I didn’t return until three decades later, and was immediately hooked. Not by the course, which was something of a mess, but by the people. The pro and staff were terrific, and the players a wonderful mix. Regulars included doctors ,lawyers and even a university dean, as well as day-laborers and ex-cons. It was a wonderfully diverse crew. Somehow I got roped into becoming men’s club secretary, just like Harvey in my book.
By now you’ve probably noticed I get a kick out of inserting personal experience into my work. That’s what fiction is all about. Take real life and blow it out of proportion. Wayne’s red convertible, the manic pursuit of frozen turkeys, the diligent producer surrounded by slackers, in some way these were all part of my golfing life. Sadly, not the part about the topless Polynesian princess.
At some level my book owes its existence to dead trees. Years ago the cedars of Wayne all contracted root disease. Although dead, they retained their dense brown canopies for many years. The course left them in place as long as possible as protection from errant shots, and players used to joke about painting them green. One day I wryly suggested we paint them in holiday colors, and that kernel of an idea became chapter one.
My first draft was terrible—all setting and plot with a few vague characters sprinkled in. I made stronger characters in my rewrite, and they in turn introduced me to a few more strong characters, and suddenly all these strong characters were squabbling with each other and dictating the action. My opinion didn’t matter anymore. My job was to shut up and write it all down for them. Turned out it wasn’t much different from my marketing work.
As for the humor, well, I’ve always appreciated good comic writing, and I wanted to write a book that I would enjoy reading myself. Inspiration for me includes the funny caper novels of Donald Westlake, and of course the golf stories of P.G. Wodehouse. If you’re familiar with Wodehouse’s work, you ‘ll find a number of subtle tips-of-the-hat in Winter Rules. You could even argue that Wayne Winter is a younger version of Wodehouse’s great narrator, The Oldest Member. Although maybe that role better falls to Dr. Atherton-Hunt. On second thought, no. Atherton-Hunt is too grouchy.
Of course, comedy is inexorably tied with tragedy. Wayne Golf Course closed its doors forever shortly before Winter Rules was published. The land is a city park now, its fairways frequented by ghostly foursomes. In my garage resides the battered sign that once pointed the way to the 13th, aka “The Greatest Hole in Golf.” I yanked it from its post on the last day.
On a happier note, fictitious Squak Valley Golf Course lives on. And plenty of adventure lies ahead for Wayne, Hannah, and the rest of the crew.