Playing from the Rough

A Personal Journey through America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses

By: Jimmie James

Narrated by: Jimmie James

A “wonderful story of passion, commitment, resilience, and determination,” (Paul Gasol, former NBA All-Star) about one man’s quest to become the first person to play each of America’s 100 greatest golf courses in a single year, an odyssey that brings him face to face with the gulf between his impoverished childhood in the Jim Crow South and the successful executive he became.

When he set out to play each of Golf Digest’s America’s100 greatest golf courses in one year, Jimmie James knew he was attempting the impossible. But then again, he’d spent his entire life defying the odds.

James was born invisible. His birth certificate, long since filed away in some clerk’s office in East Texas, recorded facts about him that were deemed most relevant in the late 1950s: “colored” and “illegitimate.” His great-great-grandmother was enslaved, and his early life was confided by the privation and segregation of the late Jim Crow-era South.

Four decades later—having put himself through an HBCU and determinedly risen through the executive ranks at ExxonMobil—he embarked on his journey to play the 100 greatest golf courses in the United States. In a single year. From the first tee at Augusta National, the distance between the world he grew up in and the world of extreme privilege to which he’d now managed to gain access was impossible to ignore.

Playing from the Rough is a “delightful” (Kirkus Reviews), “beautiful story” (Andrew Campion, former COO of Nike) about race, class, family, and the power of perseverance, as James braids his love of golf with reflections on the path that took him from childhood poverty to the most exclusive and opulent golf courses in America.

how connections with strangers can get you a story of a life time !

really enjoyed the book any avid golfer would read this in a breeze!! James really makes it narrating his own book. that is my preference when picking an audio book.

Life as a minority

Exceptional story but too much information for many golf courses & each hole. But story was INSPIRATIONAL.

Bravo Jimmie!!

The author’s journey closely parallels my own story. Good blend of personal story and golf.

One of the very best golf books

So glad I picked up this audiobook. Well written and narrated. Yes, it’s about golf, but it’s about so much more. Race, perseverance, poverty, success, domestic abuse, dogged determination, and humanity. Relisten-worthy.

the determination of the author and the response by others

I enjoyed a life story interwoven by golfers and golf courses. It was also encouraging to learn that golf and respect rose above exclusivity in elite circles. I met Jimmy once on a humble public golf course and his personality shown then as it did in the book.