HOT CORNER

A consumer’s guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it’s in play here.

What: “Balls! Confessions of a Rural Golf Course Owner”

Author: Gail W. Braman

Publisher: Author

Price: $16 (paperback)

Books on golf are commonplace. But here’s one with a different angle, written by a middle-aged woman who, with her husband, owned a public nine-hole golf course in Vermont for eight years.

It all began for Gail Braman, a Boston high school guidance counselor with two master’s degrees, after her husband, 57 at the time, retired from his accounting business. Gail, then 44, told Herb she didn’t want him home for lunch every day.

Herb saw a newspaper ad that the White River Golf Club and Driving Range in Rochester, Vt., were for sale and thought this could be a business investment.

Herb Braman was a weekend golfer, but not a fanatic. His wife was not a golfer and still isn’t.

During the costly adventure of owning the course, the driving range, a pro shop and, for two years, a clubhouse restaurant, Gail Braman kept telling herself and others, “I could write a book about this.” So she did.

The result is an easy 162-page read. The book will bring a smile to your face and amaze you at times as you read what it is like to be on the other side of the golf-course counter.