“And Then, Arnie Told Chi Chi…“ by Don Wade is part of a series of books that relate the “best true golf stories ever told”.

It all started in 1992 with “And Then, Jack Said to Arnie…“. From there, Arnie told Chi Chi, who told Fuzzy, who told Seve, who told Freddy, who told Tiger, who told The Shark, who told Justin, who finally told Sergio.

Near as I can tell, that’s all the books in the collection.

Back to that for a second. The basic premise of these books is simply a collection of great stories from every facet of golf history.

Topics cover everything from individual players to the rules to individual courses to a whole host of other topics that are related to golf.

I’ve read three books in the series, “And Then, Arnie Told Chi Chi…“, “And Then, Freddy Told Tiger…“, and finally, “And Then, Tiger Told The Shark…“. This review blankets those three books because I found them to be essentially of identical quality and style.

Let’s jump right in.

The Good

• I found the stories to be well written and told.
• Overall, each book is a good, quick read. The material is not dense (really, being a collection of small anecdotes, I wouldn’t expect otherwise).
• The material covered is fun to read. Several times, I found myself chuckling aloud. For example, the idea of Johnny Weissmuller hanging from a chandelier doing his Tarzan call at the Bing Crosby pro-am clam bake was fairly amusing to me.
• I’m a golf history nut so I enjoyed learning some little factoids and nuggets of information from the past.
• The stories covered players from the past that include the all time greats and many colorful characters that I’d never even heard of.

The Bad

• In the three books I read in the series, I can point to at least three of the stories that were repeated in some form in one of the other books. For example, there’s one about Ben Hogan sleeping and grinding his teeth so bad that it caused Byron Nelson to remark to someone that ol’ Ben was sharpening his Blue Blades (a brand of razor blades at the time). The stories weren’t straight reprints, but were essentially the same events written a little differently. However, these few occurrences were definitely the exception.
• Some of the stories were only marginally related to golf. For instance, there’s a story about President Harding who couldn’t enjoy scotch whiskey during prohibition at his club so he took his game to a friend’s private club where he could enjoy a bit every few holes. It’s an amusing story, but in reality, it’s not about golf so much.

Conclusion

I have to say that the good definitely outweighs the bad. I took enjoyment from reading these books, even as I read my three a second time in preparation for this review. In fact, had I not read them back to back in a span of a few weeks, I might not have even noticed the repeated material.

That said, I don’t know if there’s a compelling reason to go out and buy the whole series. If you get through one of them and like it enough to be interested in a second dose, I think you’ll find the books to be of similar value. I can’t speak to all of them, but my three are definitely like that.

On the other hand, if you get through one and aren’t too thrilled, then I can’t see any of the others changing your opinion.

I’d say definitely give one of them a try and then go from there.

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Further Reading:

And Then, Arnie Told Chi Chi… (Amazon.com)
Other Books By Don Wade (Amazon.com)

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