Review: Top pros help out with tips

Unless you're an absolute beginner, the best thing about golf instruction books is that you don't have to read to the end. It's far easier just to check out the chapter pertaining to your golfing problem du jour.

The new Golf Digest book What's a Golfer to do? is a classic example. It takes things a bit further with questions about various parts of the game answered by top tournament and teaching professionals. There are 343 tips across eight chapters from full-swing instruction through putting and short game to advice on equipment, playing strategy and rules and etiquette.

You'll learn from Gary Player how to add 25 metres to your tee shots, Jack Nicklaus tells you how to avoid three-putting and mental skills guru Bob Rotella gives you tips on how to make a pressure putt on the 18th green, whether you're playing for the US Open or the first round of drinks. On page 211 is maybe the greatest tip of all - how to be in a relationship and play more golf.

But if domestic demands mean your time on the course is limited, you could try the other recent addition to the oeuvre of 'golf literature'.

The Miniature Book of Miniature Golf is not really a book at all. It's a desktop game where you drop a small ball bearing through a hole on the cover, open the page and, using the supplied miniature plastic putter, you hit the ball bearing through the obstacles on the page into another hole, then you turn the page... and so on for nine pages, or nine holes.

It's possibly the silliest adaptation of golf to an inside pastime I've ever encountered but it's strangely addictive.

What's a Golfer to do? and The Miniature Book of Miniature Golf are both distributed by Book Reps. RRP $40.