A book review of Josh Karp's Straight Down The Middle

Me, Hoss, Scruffy and Father “O” were enjoying a few beers the other day after giving Hoss all our money. We were rehashing all of my bad shots and Hoss’s good shots when Scruffy brought up this book he has been reading by Josh Karp called Straight Down the Middle: Shivas Irons, Bagger Vance, and How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Golf Swing

Scruffy said it is a great book about learning how to play golf, not work golf; and that I should read it, it might help me. Hoss, made some sort of comment about I might as well add it to the hundreds of other books I have in my library on the subject of golf and how to tame the “golf devils” and make peace with the “golf gods”. Fr. “O” just looked at me with his loving piercing Irish eyes as if he could see into my soul and said…I hope you can find what it is you are looking for Knothead.

Well, I got a copy and read it and here is my review…

In Josh Karp’s “Straight Down The Middle”, he mentions he loves effortlessness, I immediately fell in love with this guy. But, there is no lack of effort in his adventurous journey to discover the illusive feeling that can only be felt when the club head makes a precision perfect impact to an un-expecting, but willing, golf ball which simultaneously emits an intimate orgasmic reverberation from the club head through the shaft to the hands and into the golfing soul. If one can capture and domesticate the illusive “perfect” swing it would make playing golf “like a bowl of cherries.”

Josh is a lovable hack who you would happily welcome in your foursome. His knack for writing along with his determination that, in some hidden corner of the earth lives a spiritual guru inflicted by a golf addiction, who has been anointed by the golfing gods, and has discovered the formula that will quiet the demonic voices within and sooth his boggey laden soul.

“Straight Down The Middle” is his humorous, descriptive and fascinating chronicle of his odyssey to find the Zen zone and master it. It is a fun easy read and once you start the first chapter, you quickly realize Josh is just like most of us who think there is a single handicap golfer living someplace deep within us…we just have to reach a level of Zen that will release the reluctant captive from it’s eternal bondage.

I highly recommend you read Straight Down The Middle, it will enlighten you, entertain you, encourage you and educate you; leaving you to decide if it is life or golf that is “like a bowl of cherries”. Click on the link below to get your copy.