A hundred years or so ago, kids growing up in St. Andrews, Scotland, kids like Bill Kilpatrick s father, took to golf as naturally as to breathing. Accordingly, the prevailing opinion was that any layabout could play golf, whereas a greenkeeper was someone to be reckoned with. And a greenkeeper (a term much preferred to golf course superintendent ) was what Kilpatrick s father became. Kilpatrick s memoir of growing up on golf courses is at once a window on another time when golf was played mainly with balata balls, hickory shafts, and handmade spoons, mashies, and cleeks and a ground-level...