Set in the early 1950s, follows sixteen-year-old Billy after his father moves him from Albuquerque to Fort Worth and then abandons him, as Billy finds work at a local country club and learns about golf and life from two golfing legends. Adult/High School-Fort Worth, 1951, is the setting for this coming-of-age novel in which Billy learns about life and love through the Zen of golf. Having just lost his mother to cancer, the 16-year-old and his handsome, drunken, irresponsible father leave Albuquerque, NM, and settle in Texas. Within a short period of time, Billy is on his own, his father having first gambled away everything they owned and then gotten killed in an accident. Shrake weaves real personalities into this novel-champion golfer Ben Hogan, deceased golf-course builder John Bredemus (taking the form of an angel), and famed golf instructor Harvey Penick. Billy learns to confront his poverty, his parents' deaths, and his future through the wise intervention of the eccentric angel and fortuitous opportunities. Having landed a job as a caddie at the famed and prestigious Colonial Country Club, the teen has to earn his place in the caddie yard, deal with class-conscious members, a snooty beauty, and the club's junior champion. Through Hogan and Bredemus, Billy learns to apply the skills of a talented golfer to the business of life. This is really a fairy tale with a feel-good ending, but there is enough teenage angst and golf to appeal to reluctant young adult readers. Carol DeAngelo, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Is it so much to hope for? A golf novel in which none of the characters turns out to be sent from heaven? Shrake, coauthor of the best-selling Harvey Penick's Little Red Book , nearly avoids the heavenly curse in what might have been a straightforward coming-of-age novel set at Fort Worth's legendary Colonial Golf Club in the years just after World War II. Sixteen-year-old Billy, reeling from the death of his mother, lands in Fort Worth with his hard-drinking father. Billy gets a job caddying at Colonial, home course of the great Ben Hogan. So far, so good; then Billy finds a pristine seven-iron in the weeds and makes the acquaintance of a mysterious stranger who seems to know a lot about golf (watch for the halo). Soon enough, Billy has caught Hogan's eye and incurred the wrath of one of Colonial's young hotshot players. The plot is predictable, and the heavenly intervention irritating, but along the way, there is some accomplished writing here: fine Texas ambience, way better than average golf scenes, and a good feel for the postwar era. Bill Ott Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Don Meredith I love this book. It touches me deeply on several levels. -- Review Bud Shrake is the coauthor of Harvey Penick's Little Red Book and the author of many novels and screenplays. He lives in Austin, Texas. Chapter One The boy awoke to the snuffles of a woman softly sobbing in the bed across the room near the open window. For a moment he thought he was dreaming of his dead mother. Then he heard snoring and saw his father's undershirted back turned toward the woman, who was whimpering, "Where am I? Oh God, what has happened to me?" She looked at the boy, surprised to see him. He rolled off his foldaway cot already dressed in Levi's and a white cotton polo shirt and white socks. He kept his eyes away from her as he tied the laces of his black tennis shoes and combed his hair with his fingers. The room stunk of whiskey and cigarettes. "Who are you?" she said. "Where am I?" "You came here with him," the boy said. "He's my daddy." "He's too young to have a son your age. Why are you here?" "This is our room," the boy said. "I've never done anything like this before." The boy nodded. He had pretended to be asleep when his father brought her to their hotel room after the saloons closed. A half bottle of bourbon lay on the floor on top of her white cotton dress and her earrings and her white gumsole shoes. The boy figured she was a waitress or a nurse. A cool breeze blew across his father, who slept nearest the window. They heard from down below a street-sweeping machine blasting water into the gutters. "Please tell me you wasn't laying there watching me all night," the woman said. "I was asleep." "You promise?" "We drove all night and all day and into the night again to get here. I was tired." "Your daddy wasn't tired." "He didn't do the driving." With a snort, the boy's father slapped at a fly on his face, sat up and opened his eyes. He had the look of a cowboy, wide shouldered, lean, blond hair rumpled, firm jaw that needed a shave. He licked his lips and wiped his mouth with the back of a golden hairy wrist. He shook a cigarette out of a pack of Camels on the windowsill. Using the lucky Zippo he had carried through France and Germany during World War Two with his old artillery unit, he lit the cigaret