{"id":550,"date":"2011-09-01T18:54:05","date_gmt":"2011-09-01T18:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teemoore.com\/?p=550"},"modified":"2011-09-01T18:54:05","modified_gmt":"2011-09-01T18:54:05","slug":"a-review-of-the-swinger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/golf\/personalities\/550\/a-review-of-the-swinger","title":{"rendered":"A review of “The Swinger”"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/em>\u201cThe book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author\u2019s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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This boilerplate legalese is found on one of the front pages of The Swinger<\/em>, a novel by the respected Sports Illustrated<\/em> golf writers Michael Bamberger and Alan Shipnuck and published by Simon & Schuster and SI. Reading it, I\u2019m thinking: yeah, right. The veteran writers have used the novel as a parallel universe to explore the astounding saga of the Tiger Woods sex scandal. The swinger here is Herbert X. Tremont, aka \u201cTree\u201d Tremont, the world\u2019s no. 1 golfer and a Titan of the entire sports world.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Overall, this is a quick, entertaining read, perfect for idle consumption on the beach or during a long air flight. Bamberger and Shipnuck know the golf industry and its key players inside and out. At first, I was skeptical about the whole pretense of the book: a novel as a means to delve into Tiger Woods\u2019 cataclysmic fall from grace. But knowing how protective and insular the golf industry can be\u2014and corporate damage control reigns supreme\u2014the novel began to make more sense as I read the book. No way would current players and Tour officials and various parties ever go on the record for extensive questioning surrounding this epic scandal. Heck, Tiger and his camp have always been ruthless to nosy reporters. And it\u2019s no surprise the secret life of Woods wasn\u2019t exposed earlier. As noted in The Swinger<\/em> by the book\u2019s voice\u2014former sportswriter turned Tree Corp. communications handler Josh Dutra\u2014\u201c\u2026Nobody wanted to be first, at least not within the friendly confines of the golf world. Nobody wanted to be the person who took the cover off a great national myth.\u201d And so, rumors were dismissed and never pursued at least inside the golf industry. It would take the relentless tabloid editors\u2014electronic ones at the lead\u2014to chase down all the juicy details.<\/p>\n

The authors do an artful job of distilling the essence of their pre-scandal Tiger-like hero: \u201cHe really was one of a kind: polite assassin on the field, model citizen off it\u2026I was watching the greatest athlete in the world at the height of his powers. It was mesmerizing for the casual golf fan. For the serious aficionado…it was intoxicating.\u201d That pretty much sums up how most observers saw Tiger only two years ago. And in terms of trying to explain Tiger\u2019s, er I mean, Tree\u2019s kinky serial affairs in spite of a fetching Italian model wife, Belinda, a wily editor tells Dutra: \u201cDudes want a piece of strange.\u201d Later, Tree further explains: \u201cThe thing about Belinda, she can\u2019t give me what I need, but she\u2019s the mother of my children. I can\u2019t walk.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of humor and deft satire in the book. I liked how the authors capture Tree\u2019s Tour-speak following a post-round interview: \u201cYou know I drove it on a string today. I really controlled my traj with the irons.\u201d And Tree\u2019s agent, the nefarious Andrew Finkelman (or \u201cFinky\u201d as he\u2019s devilishly nicknamed) is repeatedly skewered like a shish kabob. (Spartan fans, however, will claim foul reading Finky went to Law School at Michigan State University. But hey, it\u2019s a novel.) I also relished how the Tree\u2019s celebrated teacher, Norman Henley, is depicted especially in terms of his new instructional aid, the Power of Oneness: \u201c\u2026a giant hot-pink rubber band that stretched from the top of the golfer\u2019s head to the bottom oh his feet, to promote \u2018the sensation of monooneness.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The section of the book describing Tree\u2019s extensive therapy sessions at Walden Pond Wellness Center at a secluded Mississippi location is well done. At WPWC, \u201ceveryone was trying to recover from some sort of addiction but the big three were LSD\u2014lying, sex and drinking.\u201d Led by a feisty counselor, Delores, Tree\u2019s therapy sessions slowly shed light on his entitled persona and skillful deceits.<\/p>\n

For those planning to read the book, I won\u2019t reveal too many plot details other to say there are some pleasant differences from the endgame of Tiger\u2019s scandal. But after reading it I wondered if in his darkest hour of his self-inflicted nightmare, Tiger ever resembled a gasping for air Tree, \u201coverwhelmed with sadness for all that he had lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

If not, it\u2019s a trag.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author\u2019s imagination… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,18,7,19164],"tags":[88382,2832,2464,53,88384,88385,86233,86234,86235,88378,88379,3934,4906],"class_list":["post-550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-lifestyle","category-personalities","category-offcourse","tag-sports-book","tag-terry-moore","tag-sports-illustrated","tag-tiger-woods","tag-simon-schuster","tag-golf-book","tag-the-swinger","tag-alan-shipnuck","tag-michael-bamberger","tag-tree-tremont","tag-novel","tag-sex-scandal","tag-book-review"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40\/2011\/09\/Swinger-image.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":557,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550\/revisions\/557"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/teemoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}