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The Bogey Man cover art

The Bogey Man

Written by: George Plimpton, Rick Reilly - foreword
Narrated by: Jeff Bottoms
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Publisher's Summary

George Plimpton chronicles his month spent on the PGA tour in The Bogey Man, now recorded and including an introduction by Tom Wolfe.

What happens when a weekend athlete - of average skill at best - joins the professional golf circuit? George Plimpton, one of the finest participatory sports journalists, spent a month of self-imposed torture on the tour to find out. Along the way, he meets amateurs, pros, caddies, officials, fans, and hangers-on. In The Bogey Man, we find golf legends, adventurers, stroke-saving theories, superstitions, and other golfing lore and, best of all, Plimpton's thoughts and experiences - frustrating, humbling, and sometimes thrilling - from the first tee to the last green.

This intriguing classic, which remains one of the wittiest books ever written on golf, features Arnold Palmer, Dow Finsterwald, Walter Hagan, and many other golf greats and eccentrics all doing what they do best.

©2016 George Plimpton (P)2016 Hachette Audio
Essays & Commentary Golf Sports Comedy & Humor
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What the critics say

"Humorous but also agonizing and also unfailingly fascinating regardless of one's interest in golf. For the psychology of the sport - and this is what Mr. Plimpton is probing - there is nothing more revealing around." ( The New York Times)
"Plimpton will interest even the man who can't tell a pitching wedge from a putter.... This is really a book about a kind of madness with rules, and anyone can appreciate the appeal of that." ( Newsweek)
"Golf is a lonely and private game, lacking the natural drama of football, but Plimpton, by substituting improvisation for plot, has caught its mad comedy and bizarre effects on people in a book just as charming, in its own way, as Paper Lion." ( Life)

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Profile Image for J. Ryan

So many years ago, I laughed and laughed reading

So many years ago, I laughed and laughed reading this book. Now I prefer to listen to books. And I find I am enjoying many good laughs once again, listening to "The Bogey Man." So many funny stories. Plimpton has a strange outlook on life, but it makes for hilarious episodes, like the "Port-o-Let Guy." LOL I got to meet Palmer one time when he was opening a course nearby. He played a practice round on his own, with his caddy, and hundreds of fans. On one hole, I saw my chance, and walked up to him. I said I just wanted to shake his hand and thanks for all the memories. He was so gracious, eye contact, a good hand shake, a Thank You back, just so, so nice to the fans. Not a surprise. But I did feel a bit of that Palmer mystique: What to say next? So I just let it go, and it was fine. In the book I recall how fans would watch him practicing and one would work up his nerve and ask a question of the great man. "Hey, Arnie, you got some alums there?" (Aluminum shafts were new at the time.) When Arnie started to answer the crowd would lean forward, expectantly. Arnie would answer: "No, just steel." And the crowd would lean back, satisfied. LOL Next I will listen to the other Plimpton classic that I had read way, way back, decades ago: "Paper Lion."

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