A Golfer's Life


Arnold Palmer - 1999
    of photos.

The Keys to the Effortless Golf Swing: Curing Your Hit Impulse in Seven Simple Lessons (Golf Instruction for Beginner and Intermediate Golfers Book 1)


Michael McTeigue - 1985
     The biggest paradox in golf is that the harder you try to "hit" the ball, the worse you do so. In The Keys to the Effortless Golf Swing, Michael McTeigue offers a simple system of sequential body movements that produces a true swinging motion with every club in the bag. The result is increased distance and greater accuracy for all sizes, shapes, and ages of golfers for a minimum of investment in learning time. The clarity and simplicity of McTeigue's frill-free approach to the golf swing leads the reader to a new experience of power and effortlessness. He truly shows "how to build a swing you can trust and keep for life."

Hogan


Curt Sampson - 1996
    Included are quotes and tributes from many of golf's greats such as Byron Nelson and a perceptive assessment of the life and legend of the man who may have been the greatest golfer ever-Ben Hogan.

On Par: The Everyday Golfer’s Survival Guide


Bill Pennington - 2012
    For years, he has traveled the globe in search of golf’s essentials—those basic principles, those elusive truths (and who are we kidding, any trick or quick fix he can pick up along the way) that will improve anyone’s game. He has consulted the world’s leading golf instructors as well as countless caddies, groundskeepers, parking lot attendants, and bartenders. He has played rounds with Tiger Woods, Annika Sorenstam, and Justin Timberlake. He has sought the advice of psychiatrists, physicists, economists, zen masters. And on a particularly bad golf outing, he has even discussed the fickleness of golf with a quite helpful raccoon. On Par captures it all: From equipment and instruction, to the rules and language of golf, to camaraderie and psychology, to the short game/long game debate, Pennington informs and entertains as he gets to the essence of this mercurial game, including golf’s holy grail, the hole in one. Part instruction, part education, part therapy, and shot through with Pennington’s trademark wit, this is a book for everyone who has ever felt the game’s distinct pull—and slice.

Golf My Own Damn Way: A Real Guy's Guide to Chopping Ten Strokes Off Your Score


John Daly - 2007
    Looking for a sure cure to bunkerphobia? It's here. A one-hour golf lesson that's 100 percent guaranteed to make you a better golfer? Ditto. Want to know why you should occasionally leave your big dog in your trunk, how to watch your weight, and what golf and sex have in common? You came to the right book.And while he's busy explaining all these and many other things, Daly also tells you why you should keep your head out of the game, let your belly lead your hands, listen to your right foot, check your ball position—and buy a hybrid (the club, not the car).Following in the spike prints of his 2006 bestselling autobiography, My Life In and Out of the Rough, Golf My Own Damn Way is an off-the-wall and intensely personal yet imminently practical and accessible tip sheet on how to cut ten strokes off your score—now.Two things are certain: you've never seen a golf instructional book quite like this one, and you'll never need another one.Fairways and greens, Pard!

A Course Called Scotland: Searching the Home of Golf for the Secret to Its Game


Tom Coyne - 2018
    When he was in college, studying abroad in London, he entered the lottery for a prized tee time in Scotland, grabbing his clubs and jumping the train to St. Andrews as his friends partied in Amsterdam; later, he golfed the entirety of Ireland’s coastline, chased pros through the mini-tours, and attended grueling Qualifying Schools in Australia, Canada, and Latin America. Yet, as he watched the greats compete, he felt something was missing. Then one day a friend suggested he attempt to play every links course in Scotland, and qualify for the greatest championship in golf. The result is A Course Called Scotland, a hilarious golf and travel adventure throughout the birthplace of the sport and home to some of the oldest and most beloved courses in the world, including St. Andrews, Turnberry, Dornoch, Prestwick, Troon, and Carnoustie. With his signature blend of storytelling, humor, history, and insight, Coyne weaves together his journey to more than 100 legendary links courses in Scotland with compelling threads of golf history and witty insights into the contemporary home of golf. As he journeys Scotland in search of the game’s secrets, he discovers new and old friends, rediscovers the peace and power of the sport, and, most importantly, reaffirms the ultimate connection between the game and the soul. It is a rollicking love letter to Scotland and golf as no one has attempted it before.

Howard Cosell: The Man, the Myth, and the Transformation of American Sports


Mark Ribowsky - 2011
    His colorful bombast, fearless reporting, and courageous stance on civil rights soon captured the attention of listeners everywhere. No mere jock turned "pretty-boy" broadcaster, the Brooklyn-born Cosell began as a lawyer before becoming a radio commentator. "Telling it like it is," he covered nearly every major sports story for three decades, from the travails of Muhammad Ali to the tragedy at Munich. Featuring a sprawling cast of athletes such as Jackie Robinson, Sonny Liston, Don Meredith, and Joe Namath, Howard Cosell also re-creates the behind-the-scenes story of that American institution, Monday Night Football. With more than forty interviews, Mark Ribowsky presents Cosell's life as part of an American panorama, examining racism, anti-Semitism, and alcoholism, among other sensitive themes. Cosell's endless complexities are brilliantly explored in this haunting work that reveals as much about the explosive commercialization of sports as it does about a much-neglected media giant.

Miracle at Merion: The Inspiring Story of Ben Hogan's Amazing Comeback and Victory at the 1950 U.S. Open


David B. Barrett - 2010
    The crowning moment of Hogan’s comeback was his dramatic victory in the1950 U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club near Philadelphia, where his battered legs could barely carry him on the 36-hole final day.Miracle at Merion tells the stirring story of Hogan’s triumph over adversity—the rarely-performed surgery that saved his life, the months of rehabilitation when he couldn’t even hit a golf ball, his stunning return to competition at the Los Angeles Open, and,finally, the U.S. Open triumph that returned him to the pinnacle of the game.While Hogan was severely injured in the accident, fracturing his pelvis, collarbone, rib, and ankle, his life wasn’t in danger until two weeks later when blood clots developed in his leg, necessitating emergency surgery. Hogan didn’t leave the hospital until April and didn’t even touch a golf club until August. It wasn’t until November,more than nine months after the accident, that he was able to go to the range to hit balls. Hogan’s performance at the Los Angeles Open in early January convinced Hollywood to make a movie out of his life and comeback (Follow the Sun, starring Glenn Ford).Five months later, Hogan completed his miraculous comeback by winning the U.S. Open in a riveting 36-hole playoff against Lloyd Mangrum and George Fazio, permanently cementing his legacy as one of the sport’s true legends.

The Secret of Golf: The Story of Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus


Joe Posnanski - 2015
    Though they shared some similarities—they were both Midwestern boys who had learned how to play golf at their fathers’ country clubs—they differed in many ways. Nicklaus played a game of consummate control and precision. Watson hit the ball all over the place. Nicklaus lacked charm and theatrics, and he was thoroughly despised by most golf fans because he had displaced Arnold Palmer as king of the golf world. Watson was one of those Arnold Palmer fans. Yet over the next twenty years their seemingly divergent paths collided as they battled against each other again and again for a place at the top of the sport and drove each other to ever-soaring heights of accomplishment. Spanning from that first match through the “Duel in the Sun” at Turnberry in 1977 to Watson’s miraculous near-victory at Turnberry as he approached sixty, and informed by interviews with both players over many years, The Secret of Golf is Joe Posnanski’s intimate account of the most remarkable rivalry and (eventual) friendship in modern golf.

Jack Nicklaus: My Story


Jack Nicklaus - 1984
    Counting his two US Amateur Championships, Nicklaus was the winner of twenty major championships and more than one hundred professional tournaments around the world. He was named "Golfer of the Century" in 1988 by the PGA. Jack Nicklaus: My Story, now with a new afterword, is Jack Nicklaus's compelling, personal account of his legendary majors triumphs, along with many other competition highlights -- and some lowlights, too -- of one of the greatest sports careers of all time. Revealed with the unfailing candor and intensity that are his most distinctive personality traits, here is the Jack Nicklaus his legions of admirers, and even some of those close to him, have never known.

Power Golf


Ben Hogan - 1953
    Here the master shares a lifetime of championship secrets to help you improve every phase of your game.

An American Caddie in St. Andrews: Growing Up, Girls, and Looping on the Old Course


Oliver Horovitz - 2012
    He'd been accepted, but he couldn't start for another year. A caddie since he was twelve and a golfer sporting a 1.8 handicap, Ollie decides to spend his gap year in St. Andrews, Scotland—a town with the U.K.'s highest number of pubs per capita, and home to the Old Course, golf's most famous eighteen holes—where he enrolls in the St. Andrews Links Trust caddie trainee program. Initially, the notoriously brusque veteran caddies treat Ollie like a bug. But after a year of waking up at 4:30 A.M. every morning and looping two rounds a day, Ollie earns their grudging respect—only to have to pack up and leave for Harvard. There, Ollie's new classmates are the sons of Albania's UN ambassador, the owner of Heineken, and the CEO of Goldman Sachs. Surrounded by sixth generation legacies, he feels like a fish out of water all over again and can't wait to get back to St. Andrews. Even after graduation, when his college friends rush to Wall Street, Horovitz continues to return each summer to caddie on the Old Course. A hilarious, irresistible, behind-the-scenes peek at the world's most celebrated golf course—and its equally famous caddie shack—An American Caddie in St. Andrews is certain to not only entertain golfers and fans of St. Andrews but also anyone who dares to remember stumbling into adulthood and finding one's place in the world.

Shoot First, Pass Later: My Life, No Filter


Jeremy Roenick - 2015
    He explains why he openly considered the pros and cons of fighting a fan, opens up about tales of partying on road trips, and even how he became friends with former Vice President Dan Quayle. In one chapter, Roenick lends the pen to his wife, Tracy, to tell her side of the story. Nothing is held back as J. R. reveals his opinions about teammates, opponents, and the future of the game.

A Season in the Sun: The Rise of Mickey Mantle


Randy W. Roberts - 2018
    He was also the perfect idol for postwar America, a wholesome hero from the heartland.In A Season in the Sun, acclaimed historians Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith recount the defining moment of Mantle's legendary career: 1956, when he overcame a host of injuries and critics to become the most celebrated athlete of his time. Taking us from the action on the diamond to Mantle's off-the-field exploits, Roberts and Smith depict Mantle not as an ideal role model or a bitter alcoholic, but a complex man whose faults were smoothed over by sportswriters eager to keep the truth about sports heroes at bay. An incisive portrait of an American icon, A Season in the Sun is an essential work for baseball fans and anyone interested in the 1950s.

The Grand Slam: Bobby Jones, America, and the Story of Golf


Mark Frost - 2004
    In the wake of the stock market crash and the dawn of the Great Depression, a ray of light emerged from the world of sports in the summer of 1930. Bobby Jones, a 28-year-old amateur golfer, mounted a campaign against the record books. In four months, he conquered the British Amateur Championship, the British Open, the United States Open, and finally the United States Amateur Championship, an achievement so extraordinary that writers dubbed it the Grand Slam. No one has ever repeated it. Mark Frost uses a wealth of original research to provide an unprecedented intimate portrait of golf great Bobby Jones. In the tradition of The Greatest Game Ever Played, The Grand Slam blends social history with sports biography, captivating the imagination and engaging the reader. The Grand Slam is a biography not to be missed.