Walking with Jack

April 1, 2013
In order to recapture the closeness he and his son once shared before gradually growing apart, writer and golfer Snyder (The Cliff Walk) decides to become a caddie so that he can carry his son’s bags when Jack enters the pro circuit in this plodding account. Arranged chronologically according to diary entries he kept from December 2006 to February 2012, Snyder describes the hardships and the victories of his caddie apprenticeship at St. Andrews Old Course in Scotland. He endures the chill and downpours, and he walks over 1,000 miles carrying the golf bags of others, but he reassures himself, noting, “Someday you will be caddying for your son when every shot will count.... Keep your eyes open and your head up and you will always learn something new.” In 2011, after a trying college career, Jack makes it onto the Adams Golf Pro Tour, and his father proudly accompanies him, trying to stay as close as possible—cringing when his son performs poorly and offering encouragement along the way. Snyder’s tedious recap of every hole Jack plays on the tour carries the story far off the fairway, losing it in the rough.

June 1, 2013
Novelist and memoirist Snyder (The Winter Travelers: A Christmas Fable, 2011, etc.) returns with the overwrought story of his training to be a caddie so he could help his son, who hopes for a PGA career. Written in the form of a journal, the book proceeds from late 2006 to early 2012, when the author's son, Jack, after a winter's discontent with tournament golf, decided he would surrender his athletic dreams. Snyder begins by declaring he wants to stay close to his son because he never wanted "to lose him the way my father had lost me." He describes his 2007 decision to go to Scotland, where he lived frugally, often out of contact with his wife, son and daughters, to learn caddying. Jack made the golf team at the University of Toledo but was dropped from the team (poor grades), greatly disappointing the author, who wrestles throughout with this turn of events. Snyder, a talkative father, rarely misses an opportunity to preach to his son. The cliches flow in an endless stream--keep trying, don't give up, life is a struggle, "it's the mistakes that really determine the shape of our lives." Often more telling than the words are the silences. The author rarely mentions his daughters (what do they think of all this?) and writes little about his wife, even though she didn't see him for months. The author is not shy about self-promotion--we hear continually about his writing and how often his true grit has paid off--and he delivers some anti-Tiger Woods rants, as well. A golf-is-life allegory that fails to make the cut.

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January 1, 2014
Having already written about his mother's backstory in "Of Time and Memory", Snyder now turns his attention to bonding with his son, who is trying to realize their shared dream of playing professional golf. In an attempt to help Jack onto the PGA tour while getting to know the young man better, the author follows him to tournaments and, in the book's longest and most captivating section, travels to St. Andrews, Scotland, to learn from experienced and entertaining golfers how to be a better caddie for his son. This candid, poignant, and often funny memoir describes the lengths to which a father will go to support his child. The hole-by-hole details of Jack's tournaments can be a grind, especially for those not as enthralled by or knowledgeable about golf as Snyder clearly is, but the short chapters allow for easy skipping through the uninteresting parts. Narrator Graham Rowat convincingly conveys the author's wide range of emotions, sounding just like a sensitive and supportive dad. VERDICT Recommended for fathers, golfers, and especially fathers who play golf.--Douglas King, Univ. of South Carolina Lib., Columbia

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2013
It's usually the son who does most of the coming-of-age in a father-son story, but in this unusual but affecting memoir, it's the father. Snyder bonded with his son, Jack, on the golf course, which prompted a dream. Jack would become a pro golfer, and Snyder would caddie for him. To learn the caddying ropes, Snyder embarks for Scotland on a subsistence budget. There he spends the summer toting golf bags from dawn to dusk. Jack isn't quite as committed, getting thrown off his college golf team. Years later, Snyder returns to Scotland for another summer of caddying, this time at St. Andrews, hopeful that his commitment to the dream will encourage Jack to try his hand on one of golf's minitours. It happens, with Dad on the bag, but Jack eventually realizes that what he wants is a real life off the course. This memoir breaks down into two parts, Snyder's experiences as a caddiefull of vivid detail but colored a bit too much by sentimentality and his arduous journey to the realization that his son's life is his own. Rarely has the death of a dream felt so liberating.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)