The Ball in the Air: A Golfing Adventure

by Michael Bamberger

After a lifetime of writing about the professional sport, Michael Bamberger, “the poet laureate of golf” (GOLF magazine), delivers an exhilarating love letter to the amateur game as it’s played—and lived—by the rest of us.

Over Michael Bamberger’s celebrated writing career, he has written a handful of books and hundreds of Sports Illustrated stories about professional golf and those who play it—that is, the .001 percent. Now, Bamberger trains his eye on the rest of us. In his most personal book yet, Bamberger takes the lid off a game that is both quasi-religious and a nonstop party, posing an age-old question that is answered over its Why does the game cast such a spell on us?

Here is the story of modern golf that is not on TV. This is our story, we who pay to play, who can’t wait to get another crack at the game, even when golf doesn’t love us back. And just as every round is an adventure, every life in golf is, too. The golfers Michael Bamberger introduces will leave you inspired and moved. You’ll meet Sam Reeves, a golf-loving US Army soldier who becomes captivated by a fellow soldier, Cliff Harrington, a gifted Black golfer who’s cruelly robbed of the chance to show the world all he can do. You’ll meet Ryan French, who plays on a college golf team out of Animal House. You’ll get to know Pratima Sherpa, who grew up in a maintenance shed at the Royal Nepal Golf Club in Kathmandu and took up the game with a stick whittled by her father.

The Ball in the Air is reported with Bamberger’s you-are-there intimacy and captures the sweep of time. Pratima finds her way from Nepal to a university golf team in Southern California. Ryan and his father caddie in minor-league events while sleeping in tents, a preamble to Ryan’s becoming the godfather of the popular Monday Qualifier Twitter feed. Sam Reeves, born in rural Georgia during the Depression, becomes a cotton king, the oldest amateur to make the cut at the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, and the ultimate man for all seasons.

And there are Bamberger sightings, too, as he finds his own path in the game. You’ll make joyful side trips with the author, who’s spent more than forty years exploring golfers and golf, a way of life that captivates him down to his bones. You’ll visit the golf course at Balmoral Castle in Scotland and compete with Bamberger and other purists at the National Hickory Championship in rural Pennsylvania. At St. Andrews, you’ll get up close and personal with Lee Trevino, one of the few professionals in these pages, because Trevino, when you really get to the core of the man, is one of us. He can’t get enough of it.

The Ball in the Air is Bamberger’s valentine to golf. The modern world, obsessed with fame and fortune, has infiltrated professional golf—but it hasn’t infiltrated golf. Bamberger is here to highlight the distinction and to celebrate the game and all who play it.

Genres: Sports, Nonfiction

269 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 28, 2023

About the author

Michael F. Bamberger is a senior writer for Sports Illustrated and the author of multiple books.

Reviews

[Chase Wagner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Follows a lot of different golfers but doesn’t go deep enough to form a real connection with any of them. Feels like a long sports illustrated article

[Rachel May · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF around 50%. Really wanted to prove to myself I could read nonfic and enjoy it but this just wasn’t the book. Loved the idea behind it but the writing was so disjointed jumping around between 3 different stories constantly which was confusing and hard to feel connected. Also spent a lot of the time wondering what the point was (would have been more compelling if you explained why the people chosen were chosen rather than reading 50 pages of basically their biography of what seems like a totally average normal random person). Overall I would like to try to read some more golf related nonfic but this was just not it for me, would not rec sadly

[Turk B · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not much into golf, but Bamberger is a terrific writer who does an amazing job profiling the three individuals the book focuses on. Recommend for the writing and stories, though you may not care for it if you don't like golf.

[Bookreporter.com Biography & Memoir · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE BALL IN THE AIR is not your typical golf book. It doesn’t revolve around tour players, exotic trips to majestic courses, or the majors. Instead, Michael Bamberger introduces us to three individuals who love playing golf for the joy it brings them.

Hall of Famers Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Paul Runyan and others began their iconic careers working as caddies or in other endeavors associated with golf courses. Bamberger chronicles a female version of that early connection to the game. Pratima Sherpa grew up in a maintenance shed at the Royal Nepal Golf Club in Kathmandu, and her story was featured in Golf Digest. She eventually would earn a scholarship from a California college and become the first amateur golfer from her native Nepal to achieve world recognition.

Ryan French came from a family of golfers and played on a collegiate team. He focused on the nuts and bolts of the game and recognized that there was a story behind every score. A coach of his once said, “Too bad you can’t make a living from all this random stuff you know.” It was a prescient observation considering where Ryan ended up following a major detour.

Finally, we meet Sam Reeves, a self-made millionaire in the cotton industry. Sammy, as he was known, was the son of a cotton mill owner. In 1943, at the age of eight, he began working in his father’s mill earning 10 cents for each piece of cotton remnant he stitched together. At the end of the summer he made $124, the proceeds of which went to purchasing stock in AT&T and Chrysler. Sammy also caddied at the local golf course. All the caddies there were African American, except for him. He learned how to properly grip a golf club. As Bamberger notes, “A good grip was a mark of class, like a pressed suit on Sundays.”

There is a fourth subject here: Michael Bamberger himself. Being a writer and a caddy has deeply affected his view of the game and the relationships developed through it. As he can attest, sharing a round of golf with a stranger can be a rewarding and enriching experience. An impressive supporting cast includes such greats as Tiger Woods, Lee Trevino and Jack Nicklaus.

You don’t need to love the sport to be drawn to the characters who come to life on the pages of this enthralling book.

Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman

[Thomas Hilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had trouble putting this book down. Michael is able to perfectly able to capture the joy of playing golf. I was taken back to the days of hitting PoDunks in a grassy field, using irons that had dots instead of grooves on the clubface. Graduating to saving half of my lunch money to be able to play Marquette Park (Chicago), fifty cents for nine holes. I was lucky to have been a caddy in the 1971 Western Open at Olympia Fields. I must admit, though, I am moderately jealous of the subjects of the book to have had the opportunity to play such a variety of golf courses. A wonderful book.
.l

[Chris Gladson · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’re an amateur golfer with a love of the game, this book will be a fun read. Rather than focusing on pros, it follows the stories of 3 very different people (Pratima, Sam, and Ryan) as they encounter and experience the game of golf throughout their lives and journeys. Their lives would be interesting enough to read about without golf, but tracing the narrative is fascinating. Really touches on the love of the game without professional aspirations. At the risk of sounding harsh, my least favorite parts were when the author shared his own experiences. I felt like i lost momentum during these moments, and they had a “here’s different rounds I played” feel.

[David Pfanschmidt · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Ball in the Air" is so, so much more than a golf book. Michael Bamberger is an engaging writer. He weaves three stories with his own passion for golf and interconnects three disconnected people to craft an engaging narrative. The three principal characters, all hailing from different parts of the world and having far different backgrounds, come together in a beautifully written book.

You don't have to be a golfer to love this book. You need be only a reader who loves good writing to enjoy this five star book.

[Abby · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to give this more stars, because I had so much hope when reading the first half of it. The author told stories of 3 different golfers that you thought were going to come together at the end and they definitely didn't. He stopped the story of one of them halfway and then started the story of his own life. There were WAY TOO MANY names and places that you couldn't keep track of who he was talking about. It was disappointing the story didn't come together as I thought it would.

[Andrew R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read all of Michael Bamberger's golf books. We are of similar age. "The Ball in the Air" is a great bookend to his earlier work "To the Linksland".
Perspectives change over 3o years but the soul never does. Bamberger has a way of weaving golf with places (exclusive to humble) and interesting people. I'll recommend this latest book to my friends as much as I did "To the Linksland" 30 years ago.

[Steve Onoyan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would give this a 3.5. I did enjoy seeing how golf was an integral part of each of the characters lives and often the one constant that they could rely on. The ending left me wanting more - think I was expecting there to be more of a tie between the characters. Still a good read for anyone who is passionate about golf and the positives it can bring - relationships, memories, family bonding, competition, and just fun.

[John Bednarz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read all of his books, however I must say that this new book is such a mind and world expander. It is by far my favorite book he has written, and I loved each of the others! I wasn’t so sure at the start but I am so happy I kept reading.
It was so good I didn’t want it to end. I would strongly recommend it to all of my golfing friends and anyone who wants a different perspective on the game. Nothing about golf I have ever read compares to this book!
Nothing!

[Ric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Bamberger just knows how to illustrate the soul of the game unlike any other golf writer, through stories of regular people in golf as opposed to the pros you see on tv every week. I didn’t love Sam’s story as much as the other two, but I enjoyed reading about it their experiences.

And as someone who’s been struggling with my game, I find Bamberger’s writing helps me connect with the game itself and reset. It’s exactly what I needed right now.

[Christine Anderson · Rating 2 out of 5]

My husband wanted me to read this book, but we typically do not read the same books. I took a chance, considering I love golf and good stories, and Michael Bamberger usually has good articles to read. The book was very slow and a bit disjointed for me, but as always I finished it and learned about some interesting people.

[Sean Skehan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Normally a big fan of Bamberger but didn’t enjoy this one as much as his other books. The stories are pretty disjointed, with some retread of old material, and all of the FirePit Collective stuff has and will age poorly since they went belly-up earlier this year. If you haven’t read “To The Linksland”, skip this one and go there first.

[Don Gorman · Rating 2 out of 5]

(1 1/2). Three parts of life, four subjects (including Bamberger himself), with golf as a main focus. I have always liked Bamberger as a columnist and sometimes as an author. This one really did not float my boat. Some interesting information, but mostly pretty boring stuff.

[Matthew Stetz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this one. Not really about professional golfers, even though some are mentioned and talked about, even Harvie Ward and Ken Venturi, but most about 4 people, how they came into golf, where golf took them through mid-life and then how golf stayed with them as they grew older.

[Kenneth Burke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good stories, good writing, but each character’s story should be completed in chapters. There’s a ton of switching between stories (which don’t connect). Tough to toggle between them all and remember who/what/where/when/why.

[Christopher DuMont · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book could have been so much more - but the author is all over the place - he has so many people and stories and tries to keep them all moving at the same time - it is hard to keep everything straight. The material is there - it is just poorly constructed.

[Richard Walden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bamberger writes beautifully about the game he loves, and in this book he writes about enthusiastic, non-celebrity golfers. who epitomizes the nature and value of the game played the was it should be played.

[Luke V · Rating 3 out of 5]

a bit overwrought for my taste... and so many name checks throughout the book, it's exhausting. Not exactly sure why I finished the book still, I guess the author did enough to make me care about the three people around which the book revolves.

[Stuart Shiffman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and thoughtful golf book about atypical members of the golfing world. Bamberger is an interesting and thoroughly enjoyable writer.

[erik nerdalen · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love golf, you will love this book!!

[Kathleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Listened to the audio book and I thought it would never end.

[Linda Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my usual type of book. But for anyone with an interest in golf a good read.

[Sharon Mylet]

wonderful read!- after all, it's about golf! yay!

no errors.

[Patti Sproat · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of golfing characters and how the game wove through their lives

[Matt Moran · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good writer, but this book lacks clear structure.

[Wes Thrailkill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jumps make it disjointed. Found it uninteresting compared to his other works where he repeats himself.

[Tom Goyne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A series of biographies that use golf to illustrate the stages of life we all (hopefully) make our way through.

[Monte Lamb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about how golf has affected different people focusing on a small, diverse group. The writing is good and the stories are interesting. It is an enjoyable book.