When golf novelists reach for profundity, they invariably trot out either God or Ben Hogan. Often, there is little distinction between the two, with Hogan dispensing wisdom in godlike fashion.

Coyne builds his novel around the revered Hogan, too, but he loses the fantasy element. The frame story has an author speaking to a gathering of country-club members in Chicago about his experiences caddying for Ben Hogan in 1946, when the Chicago Open was held at the club. His tale involves a talented assistant pro, whose romance with the daughter of the club president threatens his chance to compete against Hogan. Our narrator caddies for Hogan in a practice round and then finds himself forced to choose between a job with the great man and his loyalty to the assistant pro. The interpersonal story line descends quickly into melodrama, but Coyne nails the golf scenes. Whether describing Hogan's surgeon like style, or relaying the shot-by-shot drama of a match, he never makes a bad swing — no sloppy metaphors, no wrong-club howlers, only precise prose in service to that most precise of athletic motions, the golf swing.

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