A Slice of Golfing Literature Part Five: Gary Moran on a book Tom Kite regards as one of the most important golf instruction books ever written

On a Spring morning in 1990, some 67 years after he had taken up the job of head professional at the Austin Country Club in Texas, Harvey Penick sat in his golf cart near the clubhouse. He was not in great health but loved to spend a couple of hours a day being around golf and golfers, breathing in the air and dispensing a tip or two.

The best of the tips, those that had stood the test of time, were recorded in a red Scribbletex notebook which he kept locked in his briefcase. Many of the members had heard of the book as had star pupils including Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite. However, only one other person had ever been allowed to read it and that was Penick's son, Tinsley, who succeeded him as head professional in 1973.

This particular morning, Penick wondered to himself whether "maybe it was wrong to hoard the knowledge that I had accumulated. Maybe I had been granted these 87 years of life and this wonderful career in order that I should pass on to everyone what I had learned. This gift had not been given me to keep secret."

As luck would have it, his sportswriter friend Bud Shrake dropped by for a chat. Penick started wondering out loud. Would it be possible for Shrake to help him get his notes in order and find a publisher? It took a few days to get definite answers but they were positive and the results were spectacular. Harvey Penick's red Scribbletex notebook became Harvey Penick's Little Red Golf Book, spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list and is still selling well.

It is not as technical as you might expect. There are no diagrams or photographs and no logical progression through the various stages of the swing. Penick preferred to teach "with images, parables and metaphors that plant in the mind the seeds of shotmaking" and that is not a bad summary of the Little Red Book.

Whenever Penick found anything about the swing, stance or mental approach that proved to be consistently successful he wrote it in his notebook and the published version contains 88 lessons, each with its own title. They range from a few pages on technical matters to just a few lines which are more about life than swing mechanics.

The first lesson, "Golf Medicine", governs all others.

"When I ask you to take an aspirin, please don't take the whole bottle. In the golf swing a tiny change can make a huge difference. The natural inclination is to begin to overdo the tiny change that has brought success. So you exaggerate in an effort to improve even more, and soon you are lost and confused again."

If you believe in experience, it's the book for you. Penick's career-span allows him to draw on personal encounters with everyone from Bobby Jones to Crenshaw and from Babe Zaharias to Kathy Whitworth.

He took pleasure from his work with players of all standards but was understandably proud of his association with some of the best. "I love Ben and Tommy like my own sons," he said of Crenshaw and Kite, whom he coached since boyhood. Kite calls The Little Red Book "one of the most important golf instruction books ever written, if not the most important."

Crenshaw won the 1995 Masters at the end of the week in which in served as a pallbearer at Penick's funeral. Between Penick and golfers, respect was mutual.