Book Review: The Ball in the Air

Reviewed by Les Schupak

I've devoured most everything from award-winning golfwriter, Michael Bamberger, including his previous seven books, and his latest offering may be his finest yet. "The Ball in the Air" (Avid Reader Press, $30) is an engrossing ode to the game of golf -- played for centuries by humans of  every race, gender, and culture. Golf has embraced people in all societies and its spell is indisputable.

Bamberger, a Long Island native, writes knowing that his readers have been as smitten as he has and he has crafted a bookthat searches in a variety of ways seeking the answer to the enduring question, "Why does the game cast such a spell on us?"

In doing so, he takes the reader on a circuitous path that dissects the lives of three golfers from widely diverse backgrounds and how they were touched by the game. The first, and most extraordinary, is Pratima Sherpa of Nepal who discovered the game as a youngster living on the grounds of the Royal Nepal Golf Club where her father was the maintenance head and groundskeeper. Through a series of amazing circumstances, she ultimately finds her way to America where she becomes a member of a college golf team, had her journey from Kathmandu to California documented by ESPN, and meets Tiger Woods.

The opposite extreme was represented by Sam Reeves. Bamberger chronicles his life from his youth growing up during the post-Depression in an upper middle-class family in rural Georgia to his days as an enlisted man in the U.S. Army to his becoming one of the wealthiest men in the country. His life as a golfer began at the only golf course in his hometown, a nine hole muny where he caddied as well as practiced and played as often as he could. From that modest beginning he competed in many amateur tournaments and received invitations to play in many pro-ams including perhaps the most prized, the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. His love of golf and the financial success in his business career afforded him the honor to travel to and play on some of golf's sacred courses such as Cypress Point, Seminole, St. Andrews and dozens of others around the world.

The third golfer Bamberger highlights is Ryan French, who at the age of six began playing golf with his father at a public golf course in Alpena, MI and by the age of 12 could play well enough to be a regular in the game his father had with friends. Eventually, he played on a golf team at the community college he attended as well as being a caddie on several mini tours. 

Although loving to play golf, Ryan also had a statistical and analytics streak in him. He was not enamored with the top golfers in the world, but those who were at the bottom of the list and the ones struggling at the lower rungs of the profession. This grew into a passion and ultimately he became golf's primary observer and reporter on who was coming up the ranks of professional golf. He developed a popular social media platform under the handle Monday Q Info on Twitter, and until recently wrote for the Fire Pit Collective, a web site start-up where Bamberger's work can be found.

The author ties each of these golfers together with their love and fascination with golf. He shows how each was captivated by the game and how they overcame disappointments and celebrated accomplishments. 

Moreover, as a golfer for more than 50 years, Bamberger was not going to leave himself out of this story. There are several autobiographical accounts of his drills, spills and thrills with golf and how it has become an integral and everlasting part of his life. These personal insights add a special ingredient into a true feast for any golf lover.