Sports Biographies Golf

To the Linksland is the captivating memoir of Bamberger’s golfing pilgrimage/extended honeymoon. From an all-night caddie bus on the back roads of southern Europe to Stark’s secret six-hole course in the Scottish Highlands, Bamberger takes you on a journey into the heart of golf. This thirtieth-anniversary edition of Bamberger’s classic, lyrical tale of discovery is bookended with a new introduction by Michael Murphy and a new afterword by Bamberger.

Arnold Palmer changed golf - and sports - forever. The winner of more than 90 tournaments, including four Masters, the numbers on his resume don't do justice to the greatness of his achievements. Because Palmer wasn't just a golfer in the golden age of the sport, knocking heads with other greats like Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player - he also was one of the first sportsmen to understand the marketing possibilities of his, and all, sports.

In the middle of Oliver Horovitz's high school graduation ceremony, his cell phone rang: It was Harvard. He'd been accepted, but he couldn't start for another year. A caddie since he was 12 and a golfer sporting a 1.8 handicap, Ollie decided to spend his gap year in St. Andrews, Scotland - a town with the UK's highest number of pubs per capita, and home to the Old Course, golf's most famous 18 holes - where he enrolls in the St. Andrews Links Trust caddie trainee program.

The remarkable true story of a lone genius whose quest to unlock the science behind the perfect swing changed golf forever. In 1939, Homer Kelley played golf for the first time and scored 116. Frustrated, he did not play again for six months; when he did he carded a 77. Determined to understand why he was able to shave nearly 40 strokes off his score, Kelley spent three decades of trial and error to unlock the answer and to recapture that one wonderful day when golf was easy and enjoyable.

In 1997, as every schoolchild knows, Tiger Woods won the Masters by the largest margin in history, becoming the first Black player to win a major championship. Four years later, the world watches with breathless anticipation as he returns to Augusta National, aiming for a milestone no other golfer has ever achieved: four professional Grand Slam triumphs in a row. In The Tiger Slam, Kevin Cook delivers a gripping, inside-the-ropes account of an astonishing streak of victories that left Woods’s rivals scrambling to keep up.

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.

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."

Bob Harig's Tiger & Phil provides an in-depth chronicle of the decades-long rivalry that drove the success of golf's two biggest stars, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.

Best Seat in the House, written with New York Times best-selling author Don Yaeger, gives us 18 valuable lessons that Jack Nicklaus II learned from his father, PGA champion Jack Nicklaus. Although the “Golden Bear”, as he is known by fans, is widely regarded as the best golfer of all time, with a record number of PGA major championships, his life and values show that true legacy lives on through your children, grandchildren, and others we are blessed to call family and friends.

Coming into 2016, the Americans had lost an astounding six out of the last seven Ryder Cup matches, and tensions were running high for the showdown that took place in October 2016 in Hazeltine, Minnesota, just days after American legend Arnold Palmer had died. What resulted was one of the most raucous and heated three days in the cup's long history. Award-winning author John Feinstein takes listeners behind the scenes, providing an inside view of the dramatic stories as they unfolded.

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.

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.

Verne Lundquist's remarkable broadcasting career has placed him at the center of major sporting events in America for more than 50 years, from Jack Nicklaus' final victory at the 1986 Masters to Tonya Harding's attack on Nancy Kerrigan at the 1994 Olympics to the Auburn-Alabama shocker of 2013. In his first memoir, he replays highlights from his career, taking sports fans behind the scenes of some of the most dramatic moments in modern sports history.

Tiger Woods’ long descent into a personal and professional hell reached bottom in the early hours of Memorial Day in 2017. Woods’ DUI arrest that night came on the heels of a desperate spinal surgery, just weeks after he told close friends he might never play tournament golf again. The former paragon of discipline now found himself hopelessly lost and out of control, exposed for all the world to see. That episode could have marked the beginning of Tiger’s end. It proved to be the opposite.

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.

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.

Gary Player's Black Book contains 50 questions and detailed responses from 18-time major winner Gary Player. The book, divided into three parts, focuses on specific scenarios and problems that arise in golf, life, and business.

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.

In 1997 Tiger Woods was already among the most-watched and closely examined athletes in history. But it wasn't until the Masters Tournament that his career would definitively change forever. Woods, then only 21, won the Masters by a historic 12 shots, which remains the widest margin of victory in the tournament's history, making it an iconic moment for him and sports.