The Greatest Game Ever Played: Harry Vardon, Francis Ouimet, and the Birth of Modern Golf |
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In 1913, golf's first superstar went up against a green 20-year-old amateur. It was the birth of modern golf. Harry Vardon and Francis Ouimet came from different worlds and different generations, but their passion for golf set them on parallel paths that would collide in the most spectacular match the sport has ever known. Vardon had escaped a life of poverty in Britain to achieve universal recognition as the greatest champion in the game's history. Ouimet, a virtual unknown from Massachusetts, was only three years removed from his youthful career as a lowly caddie and worshipped Vardon. When these unlikely opponents finally came together in their legendary battle at the 1913 U.S. Open, the world's reaction to its remarkable drama and heart-stopping climax gave rise to the sport of golf as we know it today. |
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The Wicked Game : Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, and the Story of Modern Golf |
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Sounes approaches a journalistic exposé of the modern business of golf from a biographical perspective. Through riveting portraits of Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, the author of biographies on Charles Bukowski and Bob Dylan turns the spotlight on the game's evolution, from country club pastime to a multibillion-dollar business, with multimillionaire players holing out and cashing in. The "wicked" in this game is in its documented history of discrimination against minorities, women and the less-than-rich who can't afford the country club dues. (The "Caucasian clause" existed in the rules of the PGA of America from 1934 until 1961.) In modern parlance, it also refers to being wickedly difficult to play and wickedly fun. With the advent of charismatic players such as Palmer and Woods, and the rise of sports marketing pioneered by the late Mark McCormack and IMG management, golf became accessible to the average player and attractive to big business by way of endorsements. McCormack realized that "most people who follow golf also play the game." He figured they would pay to own equipment and clothing endorsed by their favorite players, pay to get advice from them and pay to watch demonstrations. With his handsome, folksy charm, Palmer created a new type of golf image and, with McCormack calling the shots, readily cashed in. Nicklaus's prodigious talent and latent appeal upped the odds and the purses. Now Woods has run with the ball further than anyone could have imagined. Sounes, who lives in London, chastises the PGA and the players for not being more politically active or correct; he chastises Woods for being the only player not to give him a personal interview. A slightly sensational style can be forgiven in light of the thoroughness of the research. For those tired of the numerous golf books written by players and coaches, or of those written by sports magazine journalists (many of whom depend on their good relationships with the players to get a story), this no-holds-barred history will be a breath of wickedly fresh air.
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Grounds for Golf: The History and Fundamentals of Golf Course Design
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Golfers dream of playing the legendary courses of the game: St. Andrews, Augusta National, Pinehurst, Pebble Beach. And anyone who has played the royal and ancient sport is an armchair architect at heart. From alterations for their home course to visions of their very own backyard dream course, most golfers would love to test their hands at course design.
What makes certain courses timeless? Unlike the venues of other popular recreational sports like tennis and racquetball, whose playing fields are bound by strict measurements that do not vary, each golf course is unique. Offering an endless topographical variety, from short to long, flat or hilly, wet or dry, every course represents a compelling blend of risks versus rewards, with decisions and challenges to test every golfer’s game and mental toughness.
Combining Geoff Shackelford’s informative narrative with detailed illustrations by architect Gil Hanse, Grounds for Golf explains the fundamentals of golf course design in an understandable and entertaining style. Modern photographs, anecdotal sidebars, and witty quotations augment a course design primer that will enhance readers’ enjoyment of golf's lore while introducing the fundamentals of course design. By explaining the golf course from the ground up, Grounds for Golf will not only help readers in their understanding of the game, but will help their games themselves. |
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Down the Fairway: The Golf Life and Play of Robert T. Jones, Jr |
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Originally published in 1927, Bobby Jones' Down the Fairway has become what Sports Illustrated calls "an incontestable classic."
Amazingly, Bobby Jones- along with sports journalist O.B. Keeler- wrote this book when he was only 24 years old. His thinking was that, having just become the first golfer ever to win both U.S. and British Open titles in one year (1926), he would never perform at such a high level again. It seemed a good time, then, to tell his story.
Of course four years later, at age 28, Bobby Jones won the Grand Slam (the U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur, British Open, and British Amateur), the so-called "Impregnable Quadrilateral" of golf, which many consider the outstanding sports achievement of all time.
In an age of big money, lucrative endorsements, TV contracts and pouting millionaires, this earnest volume comes as a breath of fresh air. Infused with Jones' deep knowledge of and pure passion for the game, it evokes a long-ago time when an amateur (i.e., "one who loves") could be the best in the world.
Part memoir, part golf instructional, part golf history-and including wonderful vintage photographs-Down the Fairway is a must read for all who care about this most fascinating sport.
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David Feherty's Totally Subjective History of the Ryder Cup : A Hardly Definitive, Completely Cockeyed, But Absolutely Loving Look at Golf's Most Exciting Event |
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The New York Times and Booksense bestselling author of A Nasty Bit of Rough and Somewhere in Ireland, a Village Is Missing an Idiot teams with golf uber-editor James A. Frank to concoct the most potent elixir of narrative history and behind-the-scenes drama of the Ryder Cup.
"As hard-bitten as we all get, the Ryder Cup is still the measure of intestinal fortitude."
-David Feherty, 1991
What began in 1927 as a friendly competition between the best golfers from the United States and Great Britain has evolved into the most action-packed, gut-wrenching, and nail-biting event in the game-and possibly in all of sport. For three days every two years, twenty-four of the world's best battle both as partners and as individuals, vying not for prize money but for national pride. It is an experience that makes them weak in the knees, and more than one grizzled veteran has admitted to spending the moments before teeing off exorcising his demons into the toilet.
This "history" of the game's most exciting tournament looks beyond the team lineups and final scores to uncover the personalities and stories that made every playing of the biennial matches a war of wits. From the practical jokes in the locker rooms to the strategic decisions that won (and lost) crucial matches, Feherty-who played on the 1991 Ryder Cup team for Europe-provides an insight and an outlook that no one else can match. Or would dare try. |
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The Making of the Masters : Clifford Roberts, Augusta National, and Golf's Most Prestigious Tournament |
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"If you asked golfers what tournament they would rather win over all the others," golfing great Sam Snead once said, "I think every one of them to a man would say the Masters." Played on the magnificent course designed by Bob Jones and Alister MacKenzie for the Augusta National Golf Club, the Masters has become the dividing line between winter and spring for even the casual golf fan -- and the hallmark of greatness for the pros who walk its fairways.
Unlike the three other major tournaments that define the golf season, the Masters is not run by a national governing body, either of the game or of its professionals. It is run by a private club, which sets the requirements for qualification. The prize is not a championship title but the club's green blazer. So how is it that this private gathering has become the most glamorous, most watched, and most imitated golf tournament in the world?
The usual answers to this question are: the prestige brought to the tournament from its beginnings by the presence of Bobby Jones, still listed on the Club's masthead as President in Perpetuity nearly three decades after his death; the beauty of the golf course, with its dogwoods and azaleas in dazzling April bloom; and the drama that develops on the back nine every annual Sunday, as the magnificent risk-reward aspects of the course permit great things to be achieved by great players.
But the hidden and greatly misunderstood figure in the history of the Masters and Augusta National is Clifford Roberts, the club's chairman from its founding in 1931 until shortly before his suicide in 1977. Roberts's meticulous attention to detail, his firm authoritarian hand, and his skill at constantly imagining improvements where others already saw perfection helped build the Masters into the tournament it is today, and Augusta National into every golfer's view of how heaven should look.
It was Roberts who saw the club through its troubled early years -- for, hard as it is to realize today, the survival of Augusta National was an open question until well after World War II. Roberts's was the most powerful voice in all club matters; business meetings were generally brief, since only one opinion mattered, and the meetings themselves were often a pretense to draw in members for friendly if fiercely waged matches. His friendship with Jones is what brought the club into being; his bond with Dwight D. Eisenhower gave the club its greatest cachet. And his dealings with CBS, which has televised the tournament since 1956, guided the network into the modern era of sports broadcasting.
To tell the story of the club, the Masters, and its idiosyncratic founder, acclaimed author David Owen was granted unprecedented access to the archives, records, and membership of Augusta National Golf Club. Owen found Roberts to be a character every bit as intriguing and vibrant as his more celebrated co-founder. And he uncovered a wealth of evidence debunking the popular perception that all that is best about Augusta National should be credited primarily to Jones. As it was written of Sir Christopher Wren, architect of London's St. Paul's Cathedral, so it may be said of Clifford Roberts on Masters Sunday at the club he built and loved: If you seek his monument, look around you.
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