The review that compared this book to Aesop’s fables is right on the money: The Golf Omnibus was like reading Aesop through golf-colored glasses. It is, of course, meant to be taken with a grain of salt, but the opinion of golf held by the Oldest Member and many of the other characters is a bit extreme. Golf is the greatest game in the world, the only one worth playing, and if you don’t play it you might as well not be living, and if you dare to have any other pleasures in life, like reading or writing, you ought to be committed. The stories took a bit of getting used to for me in the beginning. For the first few, every time I started a new one, I felt like I couldn’t concentrate and felt like I was about to be put to sleep, a reaction I typically experience when reading some of Hardy’s or Dickens’ lengthier geographical descriptions. But then I got into it, and it was mostly smooth sailing. Except that I know next to nothing about golf.
This collection was fun, if just a wee bit repetitive, but all of Wodehouse’s plots are pretty much identical. Nonetheless, I enjoyed most of the stories, and I have a sudden urge to go play golf, even though I’ve only played Putt Putt about four times. “Sleepy Time” was a very odd story, and ended really abruptly. I also noticed how the setting keeps going back and forth between somewhere in England and New York/New Jersey. The Oldest Member and the golf courses jump back and forth across the pond, which kind of annoyed me once I noticed it.