Literature on the Links

THE EDICT by Bob Cupp

ME THINKS THIS IS A BONNY BOOK!

by Todd Sentell

Edicts are meant to be broken ... and a novel about how golf might have began, got stopped, and begun again, was meant to be written by a real live golf course maker, writer, artist, social observer, and bon vivant. Bob Cupp, who's designed fair ways and fair greens all over the earth, has published a novel so deep in historical fact and useable information that it's enjoyable on loads of levels. In other words, do you know why we play golf with a hole? Really? You know, sausages are linked ... some crimes are linked ... but finally we get the explanation from a man who knows: Cupp's narrator tells us, in golf, what "links" really means. Cupp's narrator gives us a review of grasses ... and a review of ancient equipment. In The Edict, you get the best golf lessons. All you have to do is crack this handsome book open and start ... grinning.

The story is about a young shepherd, Caeril Patersone, who's a natural golfer and plays in matches here and there, governed by the United Golf Honours Society, against golfers who make cameo appearances under ancient names and descriptions. Cupp pays quirky tributes to memorable characters very much like Nicklaus, Hagen, Hogan, Palmer, Snead, and Jones. Caeril's handsomely crafted, too, but there's always got to be jealous character lurking around to make the story even more interesting ... and violent ... and it's the local money lender and outright grumpy fart, Mordiac Domni. In Caeril's quest to win the championship, goons get ventilated with arrows and gutted with knives ... a local bonny gal, Eta, bares it all in hopes of distracting our hero and it damn well works ... and the most unlikely creeps turn into real gentlemen. All because of this pesky sport called golf.

Look closely in The Edict ... literally: look closely ... and also enjoy something unique to any modern golf novel: Cupp's own drawings accentuate the entire book. Who is that modern golfer in ancient leggings on page vii? Could that be the great golfer from Latrobe on page 63 ... sporting a bushy beard? Could be ... sure is. And that's part of the fun of this book. The author's clever hand and mind is all over ... and in ... the pages.

The Edict is a novel ... it's fictional entertainment ... but it's a truthful book. You can feel the affection the author has for the sport and the towns and topography on which we play it ... and you can feel the affection for how he thinks golf might have started six hundred or so years ago. I say let's make a new edict up: let's make this special book the official golfer's Bible. In the King James version we're supposed to believe a dead man ... can come alive? Then let's believe a simple man ... a humble shepherd ... can play golf, a lot, and that his woman will still love him, too.

And who's to say their children became the famous ancient club makers and golf professionals we learn about in coffee table books ... those old Grey Beards whose old photographs we gaze at and wonder if they really knew what golf would become. I say let's seriously propose that idea of Cupp's, too. I won't cryit downe.