Golf Biography

When he set out to play each of Golf Digest’s 100 greatest American golf courses in one year, Jimmie James knew he was attempting the impossible. But then again, he’d spent his entire life defying the odds. Playing from the Rough is a remarkable memoir of race, class, family, and the power of perseverance, as James braids his love of golf with reflections on the path that took him from childhood poverty to the most exclusive and opulent golf courses in America.

In this funny, perceptive memoir, Golf Digest writer and ESPN commentator Darren Kilfara lives the dream of many American golf enthusiasts. While a student at Harvard, Kilfara convinces the school that he needs a year of study in Scotland. Once there, he purchases a student pass to the courses of St. Andrews for a mere $150. Taking full advantage, Kilfara plays the most legendary courses in the world and gains an entirely new perspective on life.

Bringing to life golf's founding father and son, Tommy's Honor is a stirring tribute to two legendary players and a vivid evocation of their colorful, rip-roaring times. Tommy's Honor is both fascinating history and a moving personal saga. But this audiobook isn't only for golfers. It's for every son who has fought to escape a father's shadow and for every father who has guided a son toward manhood, then found it hard to let him go.

In 2009, Tiger Woods was the most famous athlete on the planet, a transcendent star of almost unfathomable fame and fortune living what appeared to be the perfect life - married to a Swedish beauty and the father of two young children. Winner of 14 major golf championships and 79 PGA Tour events, Woods was the first billion-dollar athlete, earning more than $100 million a year in endorsements from the likes of Nike, Gillette, AT&T, and Gatorade. But it was all a carefully crafted illusion. As it turned out, Woods had been living a double life for years.

One night in a Chicago restaurant, Michael Bamberger draws up a list of golf heroes. Nine are living legends, like Arnold and Jack. Nine are secret legends, like Dolphus "Golf Ball" Hull: a windblown tour caddie from Jackson, Mississippi. What they all share is a game that courses through their collective veins like a drug. Accompanied by a sidekick and friend, a former tour player who is a secret legend himself, Bamberger seeks to locate and get to know these luminaries.

He was a small-town boy who burst onto the international golf scene with a dramatic hook shot from deep in the woods to win the Masters - before the game he loved almost killed him. Opening up about the toll that chasing and achieving his dream of being a champion golfer took on his mental health, Bubba Watson shares his powerful story of the breaking point that gave him clarity.

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, this natural, self-taught player conquered the British Amateur Championship, the British Open, the United States Open, and finally the United States Amateur Championship.

★ THE KIWI GOLFER WHO TOOK ON A RIDICULOUS AND BEAUTIFUL CHALLENGE ★ Bestselling author Justin Brown ('UK on a G-String' and 'Bowling Through India') has the idea to tour the U.S and play golf with whoever is on the front page of the newspaper in every town he visits. Amazingly, he's not arrested. With charm and wit, Justin blags his way into meeting clowns, a young Beto O'Rourke, Stevie Wonder impersonators, crocodile wranglers and drunken beauty queens. His journey is full of mayhem, self-discovery and as it turns out, very little golf. You'll laugh and cringe at the situations this ...

When Tiger Woods went on an extraordinary majors run between 1999 and 2008, one man stood at his side: his caddie Steve Williams. Together Steve and Tiger dominated the PGA Tour and won an astonishing 13 major championships, their sights set on breaking Jack Nicklaus’s record 18 majors. Before they could overtake Nicklaus, however, their partnership ended abruptly, and a 12-year period without talking began. Years later, the two reconnected. Together We Roared offers an inside look at what it is like to ride alongside greatness.

Filled with delightful and insightful stories about golf and the golfers Rotella works with, Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect will improve the game of even the most casual weekend player.

The amazing and blessed life of popular ESPN reporter and correspondent for College GameDay Marty Smith, whose mission in this thoughtful and funny memoir is to return fans to the true soul of sports in this country. Never Settle is the funny but oh, it's true story of how Marty got here, and a revealing look at his journey. Never Settle includes all the best stories and behind-the-scenes moments from Marty's wild life, covering topics including: college football, racing, fathers and sons, and how sports can bring us together.

William Sidis, 1897-1944, was the world's greatest child prodigy. His IQ was an estiamted 50 to 100 points higher than Einstein's, the highest ever recorded or estimated. His father, a pioneer in the field of abnormal psychology, believed that he and his wife could create a genius in the cradle. They hung alphabet blocks over the baby's crib-and within six months little Billy was speaking. At 18 months he was reading The New York Times; at three, Homer in the original Greek. At six he spoke at least seven languages.

An unlikely champion. An unprecedented accomplishment. A powerful story of a man on the verge of becoming a legend - at a time when the nation needed every hero it could get. In the 1930s, Bobby Jones did what no golfer had done before - and what no golfer has done since - he won all four major championships in one year.

Arnold Palmer taught world-class pro golf instructor Brad Brewer how to play golf. But that was just the beginning. For more than 30 years, Palmer taught Brad how to live. As a businessman, a father, a celebrity, a philanthropist, and a friend, Palmer showed those around him that true success has nothing to do with the final score - and everything to do with how you play the game.

Timothy M. Gay writes that four-time major champion Rory McIlroy is "golf's ageless Opie Taylor," a superstar whose charm transcends national boundaries and enlivens the game. His swing is so powerful that Tiger Woods is teaching his own son to mimic Rory's action. But a charismatic persona and a pretty swing don't translate into winning championships. Rory has failed to win another major and fallen short of achieving the career Grand Slam. Rory Land tells the saga of a compassionate superstar living in a world where "money has no conscience."

It is very rare that we are fortunate enough to encounter an individual whose life has had an impact on past and present generations, and will have an even greater impact on the future. As William J. Powell shares his trials and triumphs with us in his biography, Clearview Golf Club: America’s Course, we are inspired and given hope that dreams can come true, if we are willing to stay the course. This is the story of an American hero who believed that in America anything was possible, and set out to prove just that. Throughout his entire journey in life he faced obstacles that could have ...

In 1942, the United States Golf Association (USGA) cancelled its four golf tournaments for the duration of World War II. But then it did something different in only that year - it sponsored the Hale-America National Open on the same weekend as the cancelled US Open. The great Ben Hogan won that tournament and went to his grave believing he had therefore won a record five US Open titles. In The Open Question, Peter May turns his attention to this controversial, colorful Hale-America National Open of 1942.

In One Magical Sunday, Phil Mickelson takes us on a magical journey inside a life few have seen up close, but a life whose lessons can be cherished forever. As we travel hole-by-hole through that triumphant Sunday at the Masters, Phil looks back at the influences that made him the man he is today: his mom and dad, who mentored him on the balance between family and golf; his wife, Amy, who has given him so much happiness and fulfillment; and their three children, who remain their top priority.

Was there ever a year in golf like 1960? It was the year that the sport and its vivid personalities exploded on the consciousness of the nation, when the past, present, and future of the game collided. Television, still a new medium, provided a fresh window to this fascinating show and enabled this "rich man's sport" to win over millions of new fans.

Over the past sixty-five years, millions of golfers have studied Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons, making it the bestselling golf book of all time. Now, Hogan’s masterpiece has received the definitive edition it deserves. Widely regarded as one of the greatest golfers in the history of the sport, Hogan is especially known for his mastery of the golf swing. At the start of his career, he played with a hook that threatened to ruin his game, until he dedicated himself to correcting it—and in doing so, he gained a rare and hard-fought understanding of the fundamentals.