Striking It Rich: Golf in the Kingdom with Generals, Patients and Pros

Review Striking it Rich: Golf in the Kingdom with Generals, Patients and Pros is a one-of-a-kind non-fiction experience that is riveting and boggling in its wide spectrum of subject matter. It's a year in the life of Sheftall, 48, an American surgeon in Cambodia who has rediscovered golf after decades and is intent to prove he can, with dedication, qualify for a professional tour. Along the way Sheftall reveals his past as a former athletic prodigy, MIT physics grad, an expert casino card counter and a plastic surgeon. It's all deliciously incongruous; presented against the exotic backdrop of impoverished Cambodia and rife with grisly and moving anecdotes of Sheftall's years of work in burn reconstruction. Any way you slice it, Striking it Rich is ambitious and unique. But Sheftall doesn't slice. Without intending to, he provides golfing tips, as well as some real life wisdom, throughout his quixotic chase for an elusive tour card. The book has an all-time classic opening: Sheftall on a slipshod paddy field golf course betting money he doesn't have in a wildly high-stakes game with the highest ranks of the Cambodian military. With self-effacing aplomb he creates an unforgettable scene that jumpstarts the plot like a 300-yard drive. Later, this is rivaled by his accounts of surgeries performed on mutilated prostitutes in shower stalls and a chaotic time spent as a professional gambler. Sheftall, an accomplished UN-accredited physician, has a heavyweight background, but he never loses an almost childlike wonder for the world, and his own place in it. One learns of Phnom Penh's raucous nightlife, as well as precise surgical procedures, blackjack strategies and tournament golf pressure within a never-put-down 264 pages. Equal parts golf book, travel guide, surgical tutorial and gambling primer, Striking it Rich is interesting, accessible and entertaining.--Charles McDermid-Copyright 2007 All rights reserved.