Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. The author paces his story well as it moves from course to course throughout the season, and he writes with a levity that carries the narrative as though it were told as a locker-room tale.Ī nice shot for the golf fan, and a good diversion for everyone else.Ī study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.įor Bay Area writer Tsui ( American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. Beem’s very human issues with his father (a onetime golf pro) are always in the background as Shipnuck narrates his actions throughout the year, and Duplantis is overshadowed by his inability to deal with the women in his life, especially his daughter’s mother (a topless dancer he met on tour who comes in and out of the tale). Shipnuck paints a rich portrait of Beem and Duplantis, as well as the supporting cast of the PGA tour, and he manages to make the world of the PGA circuit vivid and dramatic, even for readers who have no particular interest in golf. Naturally, this put them both under a lot of pressure in the following tournaments, but they carried on bravely, and Dupantis even found the energy to court a suitable woman to serve as both wife (to him) and mother (to his young daughter). The sponsors were soon in hot pursuit of Beem, who became a media darling overnight. The pair’s season began slowly but quickly picked up momentum as Beem came out from nowhere to win the prestigious Kemper Open-along with its huge purse. Nearly washed up as a caddy, Duplantis (who had a child to support) agreed to carry Beem’s bag even though the rookie’s earning potential was not great by PGA standards. Duplantis, on the other hand, was a veteran of the circuit, freshly fired from a plum job with PGA star Jim Furyk for showing up late too many times after much partying. Journalist Shipnuck ( Sports Illustrated, Golf) takes us on a wild ride through a year in the life of rising star Rich Beem and his caddy Steve Duplantis.īeem, a 28-year-old rookie fresh out of “Q-School” (the qualifying tournament), began the tour as an unknown quantity.
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