The Caddie Who Knew Ben Hogan

“Tragedy, triumph, and Ben Hogan, all in one. For those who enjoy a good read about golf, [this novel] is perfect.” —J. Michael Veron, author of The Greatest Player Who Never Lived

Returning as an honored guest to the exclusive country club where he worked in his youth, Jack Handley remembers the summer of '46 when he caddied for Ben Hogan in the last Chicago Open. Now a respected historian, Jack recounts to the assembled sons and daughters of members he once knew the dramatic match between the mysterious and charismatic Hogan and the young club pro he idealized.

The Caddie Who Knew Ben Hogan is filled with dazzling descriptions of hole-by-hole match play drama, and laced with anecdotes from that golden age of sports. This bittersweet novel of friendship, lost love, and great golf is told through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old boy whose life is forever changed by one of the greatest players of the game.

“Remarkable. . . . John Coyne has managed to employ golf as a lens through which aspects of Midwestern daily life in the 1940s, of thwarted love, of social class, are revealed with stark and unsettling clarity.” —Norman Rush, National Book Award winner author of Mating

“A helluva great story.” —Kinky Friedman, author of Texas Hold Em and Cowboy Logic