Book Review: The Four Foundations of Golf

A Quick Overview of Jon Sherman's Book

Sep 29, 2023

The Four Foundations of Golf by Jon Sherman has been instrumental in my improvement as a golfer, and I believe it is the best book amateur golfers can buy. Oh, and it has zero swing technique advice.

The book is laid out into four parts:

Managing Expectations
Course Strategy
Practice
Mental Game

Each Foundation is then divided into chapters focusing on a specific subject. Jon’s clear and concise writing is aided by helpful visuals and statistics that really hammer home his points. The chapters are short, usually 3 to 5 pages with the occasional 10 to 20 pager and each chapter ends with bullets highlighting the most critical points.

The book is set up perfectly for referencing and re-reading.

Buffett and Core Concepts

Legendary investor Warren Buffett is often asked what book he recommends to new investors. His answer is The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham (aka the father of value investing).

Buffett cites two chapters from Intelligent Investor that introduce the concepts of Margin of Safety and Mr. Market. Those two simple but remarkable concepts would define Buffett’s investment approach from then on.

Why do I mention this?

In my opinion, Jon’s book has three chapters that are worth the cost of the book alone. Much like the Buffett example above, these concepts shifted how I look at and approach the game of golf. They have nothing to do with swinging a golf club and are core ideas that apply to golf as a whole.

The chapters/concepts are:

Accepting the Range of Scores
Fighting the War on Double Bogeys
Approach Shot Target Selection

These themes are familiar to long-time readers of this newsletter. I won’t rehash the importance of each since I’ve written multiple pieces on each subject (see at the bottom of this post).

Unlike a book or video that explains complex swing techniques, these simple concepts are easily applied. All they require is deciding to use them, and Jon does an excellent job of laying out his case.

WWJSS?

There are a ton of great chapters outside of the three chapters highlighted above. A few that come to mind are Better Golf is Not About Birdies, What is a Good Shot?, Wedge Practice, and What Can You Control?

If you’re on the fence or aren’t much of a reader, consider this book a resource rather than a novel that must be read front to back. Pick and choose what interests you.

Soon, you’ll be on the course analyzing a shot and saying, “What Would Jon Sherman Say?” Seriously, I’ve said it.

That’s it for this week. Have a good weekend!

You can follow Jon Sherman on Twitter @practicalgolf

His book The Four Foundations of Golf can be found here

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