Swing Vote

In may the Wall Street Journal asked me to review John Feinstein's new golf book, Inside Q School: Tales from Golf's Fifth Major, and I thought, Why not? I had read and liked several of Feinstein's books and, like many golfers, I enjoy reading about the game almost as much as playing it.

Everyone remembers Feinstein's 1986 best seller on Bob Knight's Indiana Hoosiers, A Season on the Brink. ( Coach Knight once gave me a capsule review that's unprintable.) I enjoyed A Season on the Brink as well as Feinstein's A Good Walk Spoiled, which to me ranks up there with the greats: Harvey Penick's Little Red Book; The Legend of Bagger Vance; the unforgettable Golf in the Kingdom; Dead Solid Perfect (what a great title); my fellow hoosier Pete Dye's Bury Me in a Pot Bunker; and even Rick Reilly's books, which crack me up.

Tales from Q School struck me as good but not great, with so much on-course detail that its anecdotes can blur together. "I suspect that many fans of A Good Walk Spoiled will find themselves longing for that book's adept storytelling," I wrote in my review. Still, I recommended Tales from Q School to devoted golfers, and I know from friends that I helped Feinstein sell a few books.

As for my own golf, it's a work in progress. I have loved the sport since I was eight, and while I was never a great player, I had some game--captained my college team at DePauw, won the Congressional Golf Tournament, got my handicap down to scratch. Then I had back surgery in 2004 and began shooting more 80s than 70s.

Now, at 60, I'm on the comeback trail. I have a wealth of instruction books: Ben Hogan's classic Five Lessons, Dr. Joseph Parent's Zen Golf, David Lee's Gravity Golf and books by David Leadbetter, Jim Flick and my friend Jim McLean. If you see me on TV at this week's American Century celebrity event in Lake Tahoe, I'll be working on my preset position--it's like the one Ryan Moore used to employ--and my new, improved swing using my new, improved Pings.

I call it the Swing of the Future. My golf buddies at Whisper Rock in Scottsdale call it the Swing of Futility, but I'm going to stick with it and take some of their capital.

Former vice president Dan Quayle is chairman of Cerberus Global Investments and a seven handicap.