Rich Poggi - Fairways and Greens - Part 2

In Part 2 of this engaging interview, Rich Poggi shares his journey from a reluctant reader and sports enthusiast to a published author and golf aficionado. Discover how his diverse experiences in writing, sales, and golf shaped his debut novel 'Fairways and Greens.'

"Once destined for PGA Tour stardom, Doug Parker's career was cut short by injury and his own self-destruction. He retreated to Windsor Hills, the New Jersey golf club where he grew up, and quietly rebuilt his life — teaching the game with discipline, purpose, and the wisdom passed down from his father.

Decades later, Doug is fighting to keep the prestigious, golf-only club alive in the rapidly changing world. But a phone call from his past delivers shocking news — forcing Doug to confront choices from a life he thought he'd left behind and face a future he never imagined.

What follows is a story of family, rediscovery, and the strong women who push Doug to confront who he was, who he is, and who he can still become—all set against a game that has a way of revealing the truth about people when it matters most."

For more info - including how to get a discounted, signed copy of Fairways and Greens: a Novel - please visit www.richpoggi.com

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Buy The Philly Phenoms - https://www.amazon.com/Philly-Phenoms-Nate-Oxman/dp/B0F7NSDD78

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Hello and welcome back to That's Good Pick It Up. This is Robbie, founder of Best Ball and producer of this podcast. In today's episode, we are rejoined by Nate, chatting with Rich Poggy to talk about his book Fairway and Greens. This podcast is a part of the Best Ball Network where you can find all the different podcasts at bestball.com. If you like it, be sure to like and subscribe so that we continue growing this and the other podcast in the Best Ball Network. And now let's get back to part two of Nate's Conversation with Rich Podium to talk about a book, Fairway and Green. On That's Good, Pick It Up.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Another thing that I thought you did a great job of, and this is something that I was super focused on when I was writing, was um helping the reader visualize what's going on in the story. Is that something that comes natural to you, or is it something that you, you know, like me, really have to keep in mind as you're writing?

SPEAKER_02 1:06

You know, uh the golf stuff specifically, I wanted to make sure, you know, while I I say it's not a golf book, there is golf in it, whether it's a lesson or um, you know, them sitting at, you know, on the patio and and someone, you know, almost uh holes out for an eagle. Yeah. So I just wanted to paint pictures. Um, you know, I I think at the end of the day, I'm a much better screenwriter, even though I've never really had a script become a movie. I just am more comfortable in that um that type of writing, in that genre. Um, you know, you asked me about people I read, you know, William Goldman is the gold standard in terms of script writing, but he started as a novelist. And I've read all of his books. But, you know, what I really did was I took his um uh one of the best movies I think ever made, you know, was uh Butchcasting a Sundance Kid, and I watched that movie like 50 times and read the script over and over again. And he would really, even in the screenplay, over-describe the scenes and the settings. And I wanted to make sure I did that in the book because, like I said earlier, when I did my first pass in the adaptation, I only had about 70 double spaced pages. So in addition to giving the character some depth, I had to be descriptive. And I wanted to make sure that I was descriptive, whether it's the you know, the Italian restaurant they frequent, whether they're you know doing this or doing that. Um, I wanted to make it descriptive. So I'm I'm pretty anal about that. Um, and my editor cut out a lot of it. So I appreciate that you thought it was well done.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Oh, yeah, it was really, really, really well done. Was there a battle um when you were writing maybe the first draft or maybe from the editor of there being too much, you know, golf stuff in there? Because I I don't think you in it definitely wasn't too much golf play by play. Was that something that you were aware of, you know, Cognis and of when you were writing is hey, I don't want to bore them with too much, you know, this hole looks like this, and you know, what shots these guys are hitting in each in each hole in each you know round or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

Without question. So um, you know, we can get into the give and take with the editor. I'd like to hear about yours as yours as well. But you know, to net it out, there's there's the one chapter, chapter 15, where there's the match, right? Because there has to be a match. Yes. So so that was cut down tremendously. I literally had every hole. And the funny thing was, you know, I was looking at a couple, I'd go over to Barnes and Noble. My book's not there. It's in a couple other bookstores in New Jersey, but Barnes Noble refuses to stock me, which is fine. Um, but if your book ends in Ridgewood or or the Little Point bookstore in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, they have my book. Awesome. Um, for you Jersey people. But, you know, I couldn't figure out how to describe a golf shot anymore because there's only so many ways you can say thwack or the ball this or the ball hits the cup and it kings and all this other stuff. So that's when um that I think we talk in that chapter. I haven't read the book in a long time, but um, in that chapter, let's say there's maybe seven holes are described. Yeah. But when we when I first did it, there was like almost all 18. And he's like, Rich, there's too much golf. I'm like, you're so right. My wife basically said to me when she read the book, she said, How much how many more holes are chapter 15? I said, just go to the end when they shake hands. Yeah. But so that was one thing um that was a give and take. And also um, you know, the opening scene, um, with when the uh, you know, every it's a caddysh, it's a throwback to caddyshack. And you know, we talked about I I'll I'll throw stick under the bus. You know, I think stick is a bad attempt at Ted Lasso. It's got some good stuff in it, but he's not a golfer. Right. Um, you know, uh in my mind, outside of the Hanukkah song and what he did uncut gems in the hustle, Adam Sandler is is not very funny. But why make, you know, uh why make um uh Happy Gilmore 2? I don't know, but if you're gonna do it, you have to have Hunter Mayhan as his stunt double. Uh there's plenty of guys, Billy Krude up, Josh Dualmel, John Hamm, Jason Bateman. There's plenty of guys to play golf. Yeah. I mean, if it anyone that's older than 50, if you remember Goldfinger in the 70s, the Bond movie, Sean Connery is playing golf and he and it's not a body double as him. Right. So so put a guy who can play Dolph Golf in it. So if anyone wants to buy the book or option a book, give it to one of those guys. But yeah, with with all that stuff, it was just I I was really focused on that, definitely, as I was writing.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Yeah, I had a similar story. And when my wife read mine, she said, you know, I'm not gonna lie to you, I had uh, you know, skip through some of the the play-by-play.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

So but that first chapter where you where the you know the the sprinklers come up and the golf course comes to life is I know you know you know when you get to uh eronomic at 6 a.m. Yes, that will that was like seven pages. And I cut it down and he's like, Rach, this is too long. And then I'm like, I know. He goes, No, what happens in a golf course? And and that's what was great about my editor. I had interviewed a bunch of editors, and this book would not have been, you know, listen, I don't know what it what it is on a scale of one to ten. I think it's a pretty good book, and I think it what I'm most proud about with the book is that everyone that reads it thinks it was written by a guy who's written more than one book. So that tells me that I did it right. And a lot of that had to do with Pete from not necessarily from a from a line editing perspective, definitely from a line editing perspective, but just giving it a little more depth. We only edited about 70 or 80 percent of it. But what we did and the rewrites he made me do, and some of the tips he gave me were just stellar. I mean, that whole, you know, the beginning um, you know, with the fox and the rabbit, that was gonna be a dog and a Canadian goose. And you know what? The Windsor Hills deserves a fox and a rabbit, not a Canadian goose. So that was a great process. And a lot of that had to do with, you know, that rejection that I got from the other writing I did working with Pete. Pete's Pete's aces.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

The was the the task of going back to the story over and over again difficult for you, you know, after getting some guidance from the editor? Because it was really hard for me.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Um, you know, we we we we battled on a couple of things. Um I I didn't look at it because, you know, when I approached Pete, I approached him as a friend first. And I I had coached his son in football. And Pete is a uh a nationally acclaimed USA Today columnist who has written historical fiction, edited historical fiction, and he's written golf. Um he was part of the Gannett you know news service up in Westchester, so he was always doing the Westchester classic, always did that. So he knows golf and he plays golf. So when we sat down, I said to him, listen, I think this is okay. I know the script was pretty good. I know the story's solid. I just don't know if I pulled it off. So when you do your first pass, let me know if I should throw it away. Let me know if if I want to finish it, what you think it's gonna take. Because, like you said, you know, this is a marathon, not a sprint. But I was this is a year of my life doing this. And it's, you know, some of it was done at four in the morning. And then I got to go to a meeting or fly to California.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

Then you know, you know, sometimes you don't save your work and you lose it. It's like so it's it's a really tedious, you know. A lot of people tell me, you know, I want to write a book. I'm like, well, you better, you know, read a book about writing a book because it's not easy. Or call me. But but to net it out, um, he came back and he said, Rich, this is really good. I think we can make this sing. And I don't think it's gonna take us very long. So once I had that um as his guidance and his perspective, Nate, it wasn't as tedious as if he would have said, you know, you gotta throw out three quarters of this.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Right. It was probably motivating, right? Like I, you know, I'm gonna see this through and give it my best, you know, if I have to go back in and rewrite some parts or, you know, find some things to cut out because you've gotten some, you know, positive feedback from somebody with a ton of credibility.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Incredibly motivating. Like I again, you know, you got to realize I mentioned it earlier. I was a bartender for on and off for four years, and I worked in a college bar. And, you know, the jukebox would be on. And every every scene, there's a lot of music in my in my in this book. I'm a big music guy. There's a lot of music. And I would just do a simple thing like, you know, they're in the bar and you know, sweet Carolina is playing. Yeah. And then I wouldn't go back to it. And he's like, Rich, now you got to add some, add some, add some of the lines. Add some of this, add some of that, because you know, he's gonna walk through the bar. And you know what the song is still playing. And little tips and tricks like that. It was like a master's class. So it was not tedious at all. What was tedious was the fact that I wanted to save money and not pay my publisher to do the copy editing, copy editing. Yeah. So reading the book five times in two weeks from cover to cover, that was tedious. And I missed something too. I missed one thing. Um, well, maybe we'll later we'll talk about it offline, see if you caught it.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Okay. Yeah, because you know, I'm sure this annoys you too, but one of the most annoying things, especially when you read books by, you know, that are published by big publishing houses and you catch, you know, spacing mistakes or, you know, spelling mistakes or something, you're like, how did this get passed through? You know, probably multiple editors, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Without question. Yeah. No, we we wrote, I wrote this in Google because I come from the tech world. So I'm an Apple Google guy. We wrote this in Google Docs. And even when I had to submit it to the publisher in Microsoft, it made mistakes. Yeah, yeah. So just on the conversion from Google Docs to Microsoft Word, it made mistakes. Are you kidding me? Yep.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

I'm glad you mentioned the music because that was something I wanted to talk to you about. Um because I thought you did a great job with including that too. Is music a big part of your life? And has it always been?

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Yeah. So, you know, my sister um went um to net it out. Uh my mother always had music playing in the house, you know, and and my parents got divorced, but my father's like my one of my best friends. He, you know, they weren't great together, but they're great parents. Um, they're both alive, thankfully, still. But they always had music going on. And when, you know, my sister and I were the only ones in the house because my father was in there and my mother was doing her thing. We listened to music. So I was definitely my sister got me started on music, you know, the good 70s rock. And I always went to concerts at the Burn or the Meadowlands or down by you at uh Veterans Stadium. Yeah, I've been to hundreds of concerts. I'm not an audiophile, but I just love good music. My kids love music, they love the old stuff. I get to learn and learn some of the new stuff. I love Zach Zach Bryan. I went to one of his shows recently. So I love, love music.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Yeah, we we share that in common too. And that started for me. I remember I was at basketball camp. I was probably 12 years old, and we were one of the um stations was you would go into like an auditorium and watch like a Michael Jordan documentary or something. At the end was um they played, I forget what the highlights were, but um it was to Steely Dan's reeling in the years, and oh my god, what is this song? And I purposely stayed after everybody left, um, after like the screen went blank and the credits started to roll to see what the song was. And then I went home and I asked my dad about it, and he's opened up the cabinet under our TV and there were all these cassette tapes of Steely Dan. There you go. And then I just fell in love with classic rock after that.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

So you've been telling me you were genius since you were 17, and all the times I've known you, I still don't know what you mean.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

That's right, that's right. Such good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

What was your first concert? Oh awesome. Yeah. I saw him a couple times. He's great. The thing with uh with James Taylor is is like he's one of the few people, not not not that, but all those old guys, those those guys, even Seeger, um Bruce, they they sound the same in concert as they do uh on tape or audio or anything. They're just professional performers.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Yeah, that's one of my favorite things for sure. Um let's get let's get back to the book. One of the things that um again you did really well was tie in um the different storylines and you know, kind of drop some bombshells on the reader at the end. Were those those late additions to the story, you know, connecting the different characters' lives, was that something that you had from the get-go, or did you write some of those things in as you were going along, say, hey, this would be cool if I did this, or this would be, you know, more engaging for the reader if I tied these characters in this way?

SPEAKER_02 14:26

So, you know, um, what happens at the end was from the beginning. That comes from, you know, like I said in the screenplay. Uh when I didn't have a screenplay, I looked up at the ceiling, had to come up with something. I knew I wanted to do something about fathers and sons. I knew I wanted to have the, you know, the the Kyle John Carter track there to kind of, you know, tie everything in together, but I was a big fan of Jack Nicholas, right? So I got that from the Gary Nicholas, Jack Nicholas thing, right? Gary failing and Nick Mickelson beating him in the playoff, uh Kevin Stadler, Craig Stadler, and then the Haas, Bill Haas and his father, right? Bill was a lot more successful than the other two. Right. But being in that shadow. Um, there was a couple of things, the whole Remy Caddy stuff. I wanted to kind of um that came to me very late. Um, my editor even didn't even think about it. That came to me very late as a potential avenue for people to think about, you know, once they get to the match and stuff like that. Yeah, that was cool. For the most part, everything was came right out of that. Everything that you see from the beginning, middle, and end, even the whole Russell stuff, how Russell connects them through the business thing, that's all from the script. Oh, very cool.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Um is there something you're most proud of, you know, now that the book is done, you know, whether it's been some feedback from somebody other than Pete or um just the satisfaction of, you know, getting that book in a mail, what's been the most satisfying part for you?

SPEAKER_02 15:58

I'm gonna be honest with you. Getting the book in the mail was like the least exciting, exciting thing to me. I think because of what I did in my career before that and what I've accomplished, like, you know, family-wise or volunteer-wise in town, or through like the successes I've had in sales or whatever. Um getting the book in the mail was I expected the book to look like it did. I mean my son Matt, my son Matt, um, who's the golfer, my both of my kids golf, and Matt's more like the Kyle character, uh womanizer, um, which is fine because he's allowed to be. He's 27, he's not married or engaged, so you should live it up. He lives in Manisquan. He was in Miami for five years. Now he lives in Manisquan. So but um yeah, that stuff really um wasn't that important to me. What has been the most important to me is like you calling me and telling me I want to be on the show because I know golf, I'm a writer, and I thought this was really good. Yeah. So people that like Taylor Zarzer, right? You know, you know who Taylor is? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So Taylor is like one of the busiest guys in the world. Yeah. And um, he read my book finally, and he apologized, and he read it in like a weekend and loved it. And then he had me on a show. Um, Greg Ducharm, who works for Michael Breed, he was my technical advisor on a couple of the golf lessons. And we would jump on a Zoom and he'd he'd read a couple pages and he'd be like, Rich, I read the book. I thought it was really good.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

And stuff like that. So that has been, you know, sometimes I'll just jump on Goodreads, and I've I got like 30 reviews, and something comes in and I don't know who it is. Yeah, and it's just a a really nice thing. So that confirmation that I pulled it off has been the most thing. Because you know, I'm in the I'm in the red on this book. I'm not never gonna make my money back. Um it's available in paperback and ebook, but I'm not gonna spend five grand to do an e an ebook good. Right. I mean, not an ebook, an audiobook. It's just not worth it. No. So, you know, I'll continue to limp along. I'm working on the sequel, but that has been Nate, the the obviously when Pete called me up and said we're close, that was important to me. But just the the journey, you know, we gave away like 10 books. Uh, Michael Breed. He does this thing called Santa Breed. He gave away 10 books, and I thought that was just such a nice endorsement because he he enjoyed the book too. And he's more of a nonfiction writer than a fiction uh reader, and he likes to read a certain genre. Uh I'll come back to that in a second. But um we gave away some books, and you know, lo and behold, seven of the people have finished the book. Maybe the other three didn't like it, but they send me a text or they send me an email, invite me to play golf and talk about the book, or go offer a drink, and they're just very happy that they got this book. And it just that's what's been great. It's not the money, it's not uh notoriety, it's that people are enjoying the book that I don't know. Awesome. Did you find that people that read your book that that you do know were too subjective?

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Oh, for sure. And you know, I don't think it's I think it's pretty much unavoidable, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 19:13

My my boss, it's funny. My boss, he's uh he belongs to like three clubs. He's like really, really, really um you know, career driven. He's very regimented, and he's an avid reader. So he he didn't even I didn't I didn't even give him a book. A lot of people have getting, you know, read a book. I didn't even give him a book. And I'm like, you know, I gotta get your book. He goes, I read your book. I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, I downloaded it on my Kindle. He goes, I read it like three weeks ago, but I wanted to tell you when I saw you. And I'm like, all right, what's your review? And he goes, You want the honest answer? I go, Yeah. He goes, I hated it. Yeah. I'm like, that's great. Why? I said to him, this is my next thing. I said, I said, Jeff, is it because you didn't think it was written by uh a person who could write a book? He knows. I thought it was very good, very well written. Is it because of you didn't believe in the ending that it was not plausible? He goes, No, the ending was very plausible. I thought it was great. I said, Why'd you hate it? He goes, Why the hell do I want to read a golf book? I read international espionage books that are based in the Cold War period. I don't want to, I I belong, I I'm with golfers every day. Why do I want to read about them? And that was, I thought that was very funny.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Where do you have a target audience? Like, have you have you had feedback from people who You know you mentioned this a couple, you know, a couple of um women um who might not be golfers, but are there others who you know don't know much about golf or not anything about golf at all, had read the book and have enjoyed it?

SPEAKER_02 20:40

Yeah, so uh a book club here in town, I've done about four or five book clubs, um, had me because um uh I'm a local guy in a small town. I've done some signings and you know, I'm very active in town. I've been here like 35 years in this town. And they had me in, and you know, they just ripped me to shreds about certain things. Like, you know, why did you you know the the in the prologue uh when when it starts in Puerto Rico?

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

They're like, what happened to the doorman? I'm like, all right, well, yeah, he wasn't coming back. Although I I mentioned it to Pete. They're like, why don't you do this? Why didn't you do that? Why didn't you do that? But they're like, listen, I did not, I don't know nothing about golf. My husband doesn't play golf. I would not have read this book if you did not read it, write it. But at the end of the day, it was a very pleasurable read. And I think you should write another one, but do this, this, this, and this. So that's the non-golfer woman. But you know, my audience is definitely golfers. But what I found, and I don't know how much you saw this with your book, is you know, you just look at the stats. Not a lot of people read books. But the people that do read books, I'm trying to get it on their, I'm trying to have them tee this one up.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Yeah, yeah, there you go. Well, that segues perfectly into uh this. How can people get a hold of the book?

SPEAKER_02 21:55

Well, Nate, there's a lot of ways. Um, as I mentioned, if you live in North Jersey, you can go. To bookends in Ridgewood, or you can live in South Jersey, you can go to Little Point uh Bookshop in Point Pleasant. But obviously, it's available online at Amazon or Barnes and Noble. It's available in ebook or uh paperback form, selling a lot more paperbooks, uh paperbacks than ebooks. It won't be available on Audible anytime soon. But um another way to get the book is just um send me an email, Rich at richpoji.com. That's P-O-G-G-I.com or at richpoji on Instagram, DM me and you get the friends and family discount with shipping, a nice signature personalization, like I sent to you, Nate. And um, you know, that's how we're that's how we're doing it. I've got uh it in some libraries. I'm doing another book club in a couple weeks. Um like I said, it's it's been going really well for me. Um I'm ahead of where I thought I would be. Um I don't know if I'm gonna get to where I'd like to be. But you know what? When um I get the next one done, um, and if anyone knows Billy Crude up, Josh Doomell, John Hammer, Jason Bateman, tell them to option this book because they're gonna get themselves a nice, a nice story, and especially when they see the sequel.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

That's right. Um was the title Fairways and Greens the title of the screenplay?

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Yes, it was. Um, Fairways and Greens is a book written by the great Dan Jenkins, um, but it's nonfiction, and it really is a summary of all of his sports illustrated stories, a lot of his newspaper stories and his musings on golf. Um, but Fairways and Greens was the title of the screenplay because I followed that metaphor, you know, um through life and and and golf, the you know, the different parallels, uh, you know, practice, the relentless pursuit of better, you know, keep out of the junk. You know, try and hit fairways and greens. Give yourself at least a putt a par.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Yes, sir. Uh the book is called Fairies and Greens by Rich Poggy. Rich, thanks so much for taking the time, and I hope you'll come back uh when you get the second one published.