A memoir of fairways, fraudsters, and pharmaceutical shenanigans

Stories you’d swear were made up…
until you realize they weren’t.

Golf is supposed to be quiet. This one isn’t. People I Met Playing Golf is a fast, funny collection of larger-than-life characters, bizarre detours, and the kind of encounters that live forever in your group chat.

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Humor / Memoir Golf culture Business & pharma war stories

About the book

Golf is supposed to be a quiet game. A stroll across manicured lawns, a polite clap here and there, and maybe—if the golf gods are smiling—a birdie or two. But People I Met Playing Golf is not that game. This is the version with larger-than-life characters, bizarre detours, unforgettable encounters, and more stories than any clubhouse bar could possibly hold.

Across 120 pages of humor and color, Thomas Johnson takes you along on a journey not just across golf courses, but through the oddities and personalities that make the game endlessly entertaining. Each chapter is like reaching a new hole on the course: different terrain, unexpected hazards, and just enough drama to keep you swinging.

Front Nine: Introductions
These early stories tee things up with a colorful cast. There’s the shoe collector who could outfit a small army, the marketing “legend” whose résumé somehow always comes up before the appetizers arrive, and a waitress who delivered a one-liner strong enough to silence a table of self-proclaimed big shots. In these opening chapters, you’ll meet the people who remind you that golf is rarely about golf—it’s about who’s standing beside you on the tee box.

Back Nine: Escalations
The stakes rise as the book moves deeper into the round. Here, Johnson encounters characters who could have been pulled from a novel—only they’re real. The man who turns the rules of golf into a personal religion, the friend who insists on bringing high drama to every foursome, and the stranger whose single-armed swing left everyone questioning what “limitations” really mean. The fairways might be straight, but the stories take some serious doglegs.

Beyond the Ropes: The Observers
Not all the stories happen inside the ropes. Some unfold in the gallery, the parking lot, or the dark corners of a casino after a round in Las Vegas. In these chapters, Johnson introduces us to characters who hover at the edge of the game: the self-styled influencer, the mysterious doctor with a golf bag full of secrets, and a gambler whose idea of a side bet could bankrupt a small nation

People I Met Playing Golf is not a swing manual, not a travel guide, and definitely not a sermon on etiquette. It’s a collection of stories—funny, strange, and sometimes a little unbelievable—about what happens when you chase a little white ball around the world and meet the people doing the same.

If you’ve ever walked off a course thinking, “I’ll remember that foursome forever,” this book is for you.

Inside the Book

Some of the people. Some of the places. All of the trouble.

What you’ll get

Short, bingeable chapters — each one like a new hole: different terrain, different drama.
Characters you can’t un-meet — the legends, the hustlers, the "experts," and the accidental philosophers.
Golf… and everything around it — parking lot stories, travel chaos, and off-course detours.

Humor with bite — clubhouse-level storytelling without the three-hour round.
“Did that really happen?” energy — the best kind of memoir is the kind you argue about afterward.
Perfect gift — for golfers, former golfers, and people who tolerate golfers.

Reviews

What readers are saying

“Hours of giggles.”

— Stephen Christopher for Readers’ Favorite

Thomas Johnson has spent most of his professional life on or around golf courses. He’s made and lost friends, found work, and been fired. He’s also been involved in business meetings that had little to do with actual business, and were more about how much golf can be played, alcohol can be consumed, and merchandise can be bought. Along the way, he’s met a bevy of characters that seem so unbelievable that they have to be true. From former baseball and current basketball stars to a dead body in a lake to one of reality TV’s Bachelors, he really has met them all on the golf course. His years of work in the pharmaceutical industry appear to mesh perfectly with the game. If you thought playing golf was a long, slow day, think again. People I Met Playing Golf will open your eyes to the true reason it exists as a networking sport.

Some memoirs act as cathartic releases for the author, and others are designed purely to entertain their readers. People I Met Playing Golf falls firmly into the latter category; it’s laugh-out-loud amusement from cover to cover. I love Thomas Johnson’s vivid, somewhat flowery descriptions; “perfumed by the agricultural realities of bovine digestion” sounds so much nicer than cow poop. One of the many highlights of the book is the photographs in each chapter, somehow summarizing what’s just been read in a single image. I feel that the author beautifully sums up his business life around the golf course as “moments of pure joy disguised as professional development.” For the real golf players out there, his list of the best golf courses in Appendix A is a must-read inclusion. People I Met Playing Golf is a couple of hours of giggles that every reader will appreciate.

“His comedic skill kept me turning the pages.”

— Jon Michael Miller for Readers’ Favorite

Thomas Johnson’s People I Met Playing Golf is accurately titled, though the book is anything but the bland topic it suggests. Johnson’s account is nothing less than hilarious from start to finish. He is a fine comic writer stylistically, with sardonic analogies and alliterative chapter titles (Surgeries, Swings, and Second Chances), and his sage observations about golf being better than therapy. Each chapter is a laugh-out-loud story about a character he ran into during his lifetime so far on the links. Though most of these personages have handicaps other than for their golfing scores, he presents them with an all-accepting heart, each vignette accompanied by a snapshot. With each encounter, the author grows not only in his compassion for the misfits of the human race (in which he might include each of us) but also in his love of golf, which he presents as an environment in which to survive our lifetime trials.

I enjoyed the perspective of life-long learning, as well as the wry comedy, the most. The writing is breezy and full of wit. Johnson makes more fun of himself than any of his golfing buddies and his often-assigned playing partners. A success in the medical pharmaceutical world, he has made golf a lifetime passion, and his knowledge of the game and his wry perspective made the book an instant hit for me as a reader who has spent minimal time on the links. He calls golf ridiculous, frustrating, hypnotic, and thus a metaphor for life. He says it promises perfection and delivers humility. The variety of humanity that we meet in his “demented trip” combined with his comedic skill kept me turning the pages and, yes, laughing out loud. Anyone into golfing or simply into understanding what this crazy life is all about should immediately read Thomas Johnson’s People I Met Playing Golf.

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About the author

Thomas Johnson is a golf enthusiast, a passion that has provided him with not only a hobby but also a unique lens through which to view the world. While he previously oversaw the development of a book on relationships, People I Have Met on a Golf Course marks his debut as a solo author, a project he has seen through from conception to publication. The stories within its pages are a direct reflection of his own journey, and he hopes they will inspire readers to find meaning in their own everyday interactions. Thomas lives in Las Vegas but his soul remains in Cleveland Ohio as a devoted fan of the Browns, Indians (yes, Indians) and the Ohio State Buckeyes.

Stories you’d swear were made up…until you realize they weren’t.