Review 1: Chapters 1-9

“The Legend of Bagger Vance” by Steven Pressfield takes place during the times of the Great depression. When the novel starts it describes how a wealthy business owner from Scotland is flourishing and wants to design America’s first great golf course, but when the stock market crashes the man kills himself with the course one year from being finally finished. He leaves his great creation to his daughter Adele. She is planning to host a two man golf tournament between Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen in which the winner will receive 20,000 dollars, which was absurd during this time period. In the book the town’s people talk about how the tournament will be good for the economy of Savannah (where the book takes place). I feel like the book, although is fiction, has historic accuracy describing how bad the economy is. Everyone in the town wants the tournament to happen because they said it will restart the dead economy. It describes how bad the local businesses have been doing, and how only the “old money” is doing alright. Small business owners stress the importance of this in a town meeting saying the golf tournament is necessary for them to succeed. The mayor of the town feels as if Adele is just using the nice city. One man convinces the mayor it will be good to have the tournament because they can charge for every little thing, parking, housing, and food. He finally agrees that it will help them get out of a rough time and agrees to host this huge golf tournament in Savannah as long as a local competitor is allowed to play, and Adele agrees.