The Loop
Have we got a golf joke (book) for you
GolfDigest.com regularly highlights golf books we find of interest to readers. This week is:
Edited by Jeff Sloane
CreateSpace Independent Publishing, $8.96, paperback, 92 pages
When 80-year-old Bob Morris, who goes by Bogey Bob, achieved a dream of doing stand-up comedy in the last two years, he moved on to his next ambition of writing his own golf book. The effort, called "Two Golf Balls Rolled Into a Bar," is backed by Bogey Bob's assurance that "the hundreds of golf jokes never before published … will knock the head covers off your clubs."
Whether "Two Golf Balls" (available in print or e-book format at amazon.com or originalgolfjokes.com) rattles your funny bone or not, it does add to something that is kind of funny: the regular flow of golf joke books, each trying to outdo the other in prestige. Just put "golf jokes" into Amazon's book search function and prepare for a steady stream of golf joke books, each of which try to claim they're the ultimate collection. Some sound downright biblical ("The Greatest Golf Jokes Ever Told"), some sound pitiful ("The World's Worst Golf Jokes"), some too accommodating ("Great Jokes for Every Golfer") while others just want to be the final say in joke-telling ("The World's Greatest Golf Jokes" and "The World's Best Golf Jokes"). Another had "501 golf jokes for almost all occasions," from the first tee to the 18th green. How would that work to tell a joke or two to the guy you just took money off of?
Golf joke books came at a slow pace until the 1970s. A vintage sampler: Golf Digest co-founder Howard Gill's "Fun in the Rough" in 1957 was a rare entry, and a pair of Golf Digest joke books in the 1970s, edited by Larry Sheehan, stood alone on that subject: "Best Golf Humor from Golf Digest" in 1972 and 1979's "Great Golf Humor from Golf Digest. But the last 30 years have seen a regular lineup of joke titles.
Checking with Amazon or alibris.com (a great used-book site) for golf joke books will give you many options. In addition to the classic books already mentioned, I'd also recommend these titles: "101 Great Golf Jokes and Stories" and "The World's Greatest Golf Jokes," both by Stan McDougal from Citadel Press; "A Round of Golf Jokes," by Helen Exley; "Golf Shorts: 1,001 of the Game's Funniest One-Liners," by Glenn Liebman; "The Official Golf Lovers Joke Book," by Larry Wilde; "1,000 Best Golf Jokes & Stories," by Ron and Sheila Stewart, and "God Loves Golfers Best: The Best Jokes, Quotes and Cartoons for Golfers," by Ray Foley.
If you're into the funnies, I recommend "The New Yorker Book of Golf Cartoons," edited by Robert Mankoff; "Golf in the Comic Strips," by Len Ziehm and Bob Hope, and the golf cartoon books of Jeff MacNelly.
Humor is subjective, so the jokes that make me chuckle might produce a yawn with others. But we leave with one of the classics that originated in various forms in English periodicals decades ago and has been handed down since:
Outraged Golfer: "You must be absolutely the worst caddie in the world."
Caddie: "I doubt it, sir."
Outraged Golfer: "Why?"
Caddie: "Too much of a coincidence."