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Rating: 
Summary: Praise for David Gould's Q School Confidential
Review: "David Gould is a tremendous golf writer who really does his research. This book on golf's most pressure-packed week is sure to surprise many readers. There are many true stories that will either make you laugh or make you cry. David Gould gives you the struggle to qualify for the PGA Tour in graphic detail." - Jim McLean, The Jim McLean Golf School"David Gould is a fellow who knows his way around the world of golf and writes about it far more engagingly than most. His Q SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL lifts the veil on a seldom glimpsed portion of professional golf's complexly layered world - a place where dreams are made or dashed, where most of us wouldn't wish to visit in our darkest golf dreams. It's a brilliant job of reporting and a heap of Calvinist fun to read." - James Dodson, author of FINAL ROUNDS "The weekend golfer will appreciate and identiry with these palyers' stories of dogged perseverance, dramatically related in Gould's able account." - Publishers Weekly
Rating: 
Summary: Well-written, but a little heavy
Review: Gould is an excellent writer and researcher and this book shows it. The book definitely gives a satisfactory overview of Q School, whether you are just curious about it or a potential qualifier. The problem is that the book goes into far greater depth than the typical reader will care about and I found myself skimming large portions of it. I think most readers expected a book that dealt with today's Q School, how it works, and colorful anecdotes from the past years. However, the book is bloated with the school's history which I was not particularly interested in. In fact, the greater part of the book focused on the history, rather than the contemporary structure, which is what most of us are curious about. There isn't anything else like this out there to my knowledge, so if you are really curious about Q School then by all means buy it. But be prepared for less info about contemporary players you know and love, and more about the obscure and confusing history of Q School.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing, Difficult to read as leisure reading
Review: I picked this book up for some light, entertaining reading but the overall structure is so garbled that I gave up in the final chapter when I realized it had run out of time to improve. The beginning of this book tried to outline the history of the Q School, but jumped around in time so much that it was very difficult to get a good grasp on the chronology of events. There are lots of anecdotes as promised in the promo literature, but for the most part they each about 2-4 paragraphs long and not nearly in depth enough to get a sense of the characters involved. Some of them don't have a real point (Golfer A has 5 good rounds, he needs just one more to get his card and is very upset, he has a good round and the story becomes a non-story). They are strung together often in an unrelated way. Finally, the last third of the book is appendices showing results from all the Q-Schools in history - nice for historians, but extra weight to carry around for the casual reader. I guess it gives the book more heft when you're looking at it in the store. Some anecdotes are entertaining and I did learn a little about Q-School, so I did give up a couple stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Q Review
Review: If you've ever watched golf on television and thought "Yeah, I can do that," it's time to read Dave Gould's excellent, insightful, and entertaining account of how guys like you would really go about trying to qualify for the PGA Tour. Gould's stories and observations are funny and poignant, and his book captures all the drama and comedy of the people crazy and dedicated enough to try to earn a living playing professional golf. A must read for anyone who's ever thought that maybe, with a little more practice . . .
Rating:
Summary: Q Review
Review: If you've ever watched golf on television and thought "Yeah, I can do that," it's time to read Dave Gould's excellent, insightful, and entertaining account of how guys like you would really go about trying to qualify for the PGA Tour. Gould's stories and observations are funny and poignant, and his book captures all the drama and comedy of the people crazy and dedicated enough to try to earn a living playing professional golf. A must read for anyone who's ever thought that maybe, with a little more practice . . .
Rating: 
Summary: If you ever wondered what it is all about
Review: Most golf writing is non-fiction, often because to write a novel centered on golf would probably be one of the least interesting reads around. Much of the non-fiction writing that tells a story, though, just like a novel, has its harrowing moments where our heros battle the odds to somehow come out on top (or as close as they can get to it, which is still better than most of us).
Q School Confidential makes us wish we were reading fiction. The stories about the few greats that went through and kept fighting are few and far between. Most of the focus is on those people whose name remains only as a record held by the PGA. Gould hunted as many of them down as he could, it seems, to get as full a picture of what is termed the cruelest tournament in golf as possible.
For someone who plays to a single-digit handicap and thinks, just maybe, they have what it takes, this is good medicine. Many of the names we see on the leaderboards at tournaments never had to run this gauntlet. For those that did, and survived, their future is far from assured.
Well researched and easily read, the only weakness is that it can become monotonous to read. A chapter every few days should help to keep one's attention, but this is not something to flip through before bedtime.
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