The Playing Lesson
A Duffer's Year Among the Pros
Published on 3. July 2025
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-1-6680-6015-5 (ISBN)
Description
You are cordially invited to join Michael Bamberger on a year-long golfing adventure-playing alongside the pros of the PGA Tour, the LPGA Tour, LIV Golf, and more-as he seeks to unlock golf's most stubborn secrets in various and surprising ways, all in the name of...improvement!
Nearly fifty years after taking up the game, Michael Bamberger made a pair of startling discoveries: golf had never meant more to him, and he knew almost nothing about it. He decided to cover himself in green in a whole new way. He spent a year inside the ropes of professional golf-playing, caddying, competing, volunteering, and interviewing-looking for a door into the sport's sanctum sanctorum.
In The Playing Lesson: A Duffer's Year Among the Pros, Bamberger goes on the ultimate golfing bender. You've read about St. Andrews before, but here you will experience the home of golf in a whole new way. You'll join the author as he volunteers in one tournament, caddies in others, plays in men's and women's pro-ams, and conducts intimate interviews with elite figures in the game. You'll mooch off the lessons Bamberger takes from instructors, famous and obscure, who teach golf in novel ways. You'll learn how to buy a better golf game.
Maybe you've had club fittings, but not like the one Bamberger experiences in various tour trailers. In a pro-am, Bamberger gets driving tips from one of the tour's longest hitters, Jake Knapp. He receives a putting lesson from Brad Faxon. He learns how to hit hook wedges from Gary Player. He lives through the intense pain of Rory McIlroy's misses and rejoices at Lydia Ko's triumphs. He plays Pebble Beach and Royal Oak, a down-home nine-hole public course in Detroit with perfect greens. He receives an unexpected hug from Greg Norman at a LIV Golf event in Miami, along with the words, "Come on in here, you asshole." He spends a lot of time at driving ranges, some of it productive.
What Bamberger has done here, when you get right down to it, is create his own tour. The Playing Lesson is a report on a real-life golfing safari, with stops inside the heads of the game's high priests, his own-and yours.
Nearly fifty years after taking up the game, Michael Bamberger made a pair of startling discoveries: golf had never meant more to him, and he knew almost nothing about it. He decided to cover himself in green in a whole new way. He spent a year inside the ropes of professional golf-playing, caddying, competing, volunteering, and interviewing-looking for a door into the sport's sanctum sanctorum.
In The Playing Lesson: A Duffer's Year Among the Pros, Bamberger goes on the ultimate golfing bender. You've read about St. Andrews before, but here you will experience the home of golf in a whole new way. You'll join the author as he volunteers in one tournament, caddies in others, plays in men's and women's pro-ams, and conducts intimate interviews with elite figures in the game. You'll mooch off the lessons Bamberger takes from instructors, famous and obscure, who teach golf in novel ways. You'll learn how to buy a better golf game.
Maybe you've had club fittings, but not like the one Bamberger experiences in various tour trailers. In a pro-am, Bamberger gets driving tips from one of the tour's longest hitters, Jake Knapp. He receives a putting lesson from Brad Faxon. He learns how to hit hook wedges from Gary Player. He lives through the intense pain of Rory McIlroy's misses and rejoices at Lydia Ko's triumphs. He plays Pebble Beach and Royal Oak, a down-home nine-hole public course in Detroit with perfect greens. He receives an unexpected hug from Greg Norman at a LIV Golf event in Miami, along with the words, "Come on in here, you asshole." He spends a lot of time at driving ranges, some of it productive.
What Bamberger has done here, when you get right down to it, is create his own tour. The Playing Lesson is a report on a real-life golfing safari, with stops inside the heads of the game's high priests, his own-and yours.
Reviews / Votes
"The Playing Lesson reveals basic truths about people and golf. . . Bamberger is wise and worldly."-Phil Landes (AKA Big Randy), No Laying Up "A cornucopia of engaging tales . . . Bamberger has never lost his youthful enthusiasm."
-Bookreporter "Pleasant golf memories abound in this refreshing, rambling paean to the game."
-Kirkus Reviews PRAISE FOR OTHER BOOKS BY MICHAEL BAMBERGER
* The Ball in the Air *
"The pleasure of The Ball in the Air is like that of an ordinary golf round. . . . Mr. Bamberger's abiding love is for golf as it is experienced by everyday people."
-John Paul Newport, Wall Street Journal
"I've devoured most everything from award-winning golf writer Michael Bamberger, including his previous seven books, and his latest offering may be his finest yet. The Ball in the Air is an engrossing ode to the game of golf. . . . A true feast for any golf lover."
-Les Schupak, The Met Golfer
* The Second Life of Tiger Woods *
"Reading The Second Life of Tiger Woods is like playing a great golf course without prior knowledge of the holes that lie ahead. You know they're going to be good, and in the end, they add up to something special. To the extent that it's possible to know what's in Tiger's mind, Bamberger delivers. . . . A terrific book."
-Gary D'Amato, Wisconsin Golf
"This may be the most insightful and evenhanded book written yet about one of the signature athletes of the last twenty-five years."
-Booklist (starred review)
* Men in Green *
"Maybe the best golf book I've ever read."
-Bill Reynolds, Providence Journal
"I wish Men in Green were about four hundred pages longer than it is."
-Jeffrey Toobin, New York Times Book Review
* The Swinger *
"An entertaining, revealing, thought-provoking, and cautionary tale . . . It provides invaluable insight into the life and times of Woods."
-Bill Pennington, The New York Times
* To The Linksland *
"One of the best golf travel books ever written . . . The book reminds us that the game of golf has many treasures yet to be discovered."
-Michael Murphy, author of Golf in the Kingdom
* This Golfing Life *
"The ultimate insider's view [from] one of the modern game's brightest observers and finest writers."
-Geoff Shackelford, Golf Observer
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Publishing group
Simon & Schuster
Illustrations
16 b&w photos t-o; endpapers
Dimensions
Height: 161 mm
Width: 237 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
444 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-6680-6015-5 (9781668060155)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
06/2025
Avid Reader Press
€14.83
Available for download
Person
Michael Bamberger was born in Patchogue, New York, in 1960. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1982, he worked as a newspaper reporter, first for The Vineyard Gazette, later for The Philadelphia Inquirer. After twenty-two years at Sports Illustrated, he is now a senior writer at Golf.com. His books include To the Linksland, Men in Green, The Ball in the Air, and The Playing Lesson. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Christine.