One County Club Drive by Marty Peck is an anthology of stories that traverse three generations of greenkeepers at the private golf club of Battle Creek Country Club in Battle Creek, Michigan. Peck's family had lived on the course for three generations and the book leads with his own experiences being raised on the links in what would ultimately be the last of the Peck family's 91-year reign at the helm of the course's most important role. Peck shares stories of a childhood filled with famous encounters, water slides without mercy, and explosive chemistry experiments. While many readers will be able to identify with Peck's upbringing minus the golf course, his grandfather's and father's stories weave together a legacy that began with a men's only nine-hole course to the complete evolution of what golf in the United States is today.

The combination of photographs, newspaper clippings, correspondence excerpts, maps, documents, and a whole host of other additions elevate an anything-but standard memoir to a fantastic history lesson by Marty Peck. One Country Club Drive has a coffee table quality to it and reads so comfortably that it's easy to get lost in it. I grew up in a golfing family, my 4'9” grandmother who moved to the states from the Philippines had a handicap of four, and as a kid, I spent many, many hours complaining from a golf cart. My favorite parts of the book were actually less to do with golf and more with just the mind-blowing amount of history divulged. Sure, there's a photograph of Arnold Palmer with his name stuck to the back of his shirt with paper, but step beyond that and imagine a genuine record of genealogy and social change that spans from the horse and carriage to watching a man walk on the moon, and you get a sense of the enormity of Peck's accomplishments. This is a fantastic compilation and I'm so pleased to have read it.

For almost 100 years, three generations of the Peck family had the privilege of living at One Country Drive Club, a golf course that would transform their lives and the lives of the community. Beginning in 1919, Grandpa Andy Peck built the original course using teams of horses. Over the next few decades, Andy's son Harold would be born and face the daunting task of trying to fill his father's shoes. Harold proved to be a true visionary and, over the next 41 years, would completely transform the golf course into a true beacon of light for the community, drawing celebrities and famous golfers to its green. Follow the family's escapades, setbacks, celebrations, and tragedies through the years. From fires, armed robberies, and floods, nothing was going to stop the Peck family from realizing their dream. Filled with photographs and personal accounts, One Country Club Drive by Marty Peck is the historic journey of a family steadfast in their determination to succeed.

This fascinating story is not just an inspiration to anyone who has a vision but will also take you back to your own childhood innocence. The stories were so interesting and I loved to see how the machinery changed over the decades. I could not believe they actually weeded the entire green by hand. Harold was amazing; his ideas and dreams for the course were extremely ambitious. He achieved so much not only on the golf course but as a father and husband, a person that you aspire to be. The photograph of him staring out of the window onto the course as he neared the end of his life was an extremely powerful image. Marty's exploits with his friends were hilarious, he was a natural-born entrepreneur. From his casino idea in the basement to the slip-n-slide, but the collection of fish for the pond story was my favorite. One Country Club Drive by Marty Peck not only makes you appreciate the importance of realizing your dream and persevering through setbacks but also sharing stories with future generations so that visionary men such as Andy and Harold are not forgotten.