My Story

This story has been a twenty-year journey in my mind.

The characters you will meet have become my best friends. The venues for the story are my favorite spots on earth. The journey and search of the golfing pilgrims for wisdom has been my own.

The ideas in this book all started when Titleist developed the revolutionary ProV1 golf ball in the early 2000’s. It was an instant success.

I wondered, “ProV1. What a great abbreviation for Proverbs, the epic book of wisdom.” My mind began to imagine a golfer whose nickname was “ProV” searching for wisdom. I outlined eighteen themes from Proverbs and led a group of college golfers from Kentucky through a study for a few weeks.

But I also remembered the ancient allegorical novel, Pilgrim’s Progress, written by John Bunyan in 1678. Benjamin Franklin said you are not educated unless you have read this all-time best-selling classic, and I agree. Indeed, it is recommended that you read it before you open chapter one of this story.  

The style in this book is borrowed from Bunyan. Fictional characters have names which reflect the reality of their personalities. Multiple sidenotes help make the book a teaching tool. And last, illustrations from Carter Quina, just like the original Pilgrim’s Progress, help the reader see what my eyes have seen.

And then as a sign from the Almighty that I was on the right track, and just as I was finishing the final edits, a 1929 golf book by Chick Evans and Barrie Payne came across my desk. One of the funny chapters was entitled “A Golfing Pilgrim’s Progress”, which started:

“Someday I intend to write a Golfing Pilgrim’s Progress--- Telling how the Golfing Pilgrim set out to reach the Celestial City of Par over a course called Difficulty. Describing his trouble on the first hole where he dubbed his tee shot into a creek known as The Slough of Despond…”[1]

I smiled and knew that I was not the first crazy person who decided to write “a Golfing’s Pilgrims’ Progress”.

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[1] “Ida Broke: The humor and philosophy of golf”, Chick Evans and Barrie Payne, E.P. DUTTON AND CO., INC, New York, page 292 (1929).