Match Made In Heaven
by Bob Mitchell
Grade: B-
Teacher’s Comments: An interesting premise, but a bit trite.
In A Match Made In Heaven, Bob Mitchell offers an interesting premise: on his deathbed, a man is challenged by God to a golf match for a chance to return to Earth.
Of course, he doesn’t actually play God—or even Jesus—but rather a succession of eighteen stand-ins ranging from Leonardo DaVinci to Ben Hogan.And as you might expect, with each hole, important truths are revealed about life and golf.
It’s a nice idea, but was a bit too contrived for my tastes. The “truths” were nothing more than those offered by the typical 19th hole philosopher; the whole thing too neatly done.
Just as after watching the Wizard of Oz for the fortieth time you know that Dorothy is going home, so here you know the outcome of the match. There are no surprises and no big revelations.
On the plus side, Mitchell has a nice easy writing style and I polished the book off in a single sitting. It was fun reading about the golf games of characters who would never have played the game (Moses, Joan of Arc). And I wanted to race ahead to the next chapter to see who would show up next.
Get it at the library.
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I actually read this book in my high school library. Of course, since I’m not a golf fan, I didn’t really understand the golf terms in “A Match Made in Heaven.” But I still liked it. I even signed it out of the library so my dad could read it. He’s a golf fan, so he knew the terminology.