Golf History

Building on the core concepts introduced in Every Shot Must Have a Purpose and the strategic thinking in The Game Within the Game, Play Your Best Golf Now takes the mystery out of the soft skills of golf and shows golfers how to add these skills to their game for peak performance.

The history of golf is a captivating journey that spans centuries and continents, evolving from a rudimentary pastime in medieval Scotland to a global phenomenon with rich competitive traditions. Emerging in the 15th century on the misty landscapes of Scottish links, golf faced attempts to curb its popularity, only to persist and flourish. The 18th century witnessed the formalization of golf courses, with the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews standing as a testament to the game's growing stature.

Is your temper getting the best of you? Are you too timid or conservative to go for it when it counts? Is your personality keeping you from playing your best golf? Every golfer, whether amateur or pro, has a dominant golf personality: a set of traits that sometimes helps you win - but sometimes lands you in the rough. By carefully observing professional golfers' behavior and analyzing his own students' successes and failures, leading mental golf expert Darrin Gee has identified seven basic personality types.

Revered as the most prestigious tournament in golf, the Masters commands international attention, even among nongolfers. David Sowell returns to Augusta now with the third edition of The Masters, adding more history and updating each hole with additional stories of greatness and tales of woe for a new generation of golfers led by Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, and Patrick Reed, as well as from an older guard represented by Bubba Watson, Adam Scott, and Sergio Garcia. The legends of the Masters are in full force in this lively look at America's golf classic.

Deepak Chopra has discovered the delights—and frustrations—of golf, and he is passionate about the game. Confronted by the wild ups and downs of his own play, he consulted with golf professionals and developed a new approach to the game that any golfer can follow—from the novice to the...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Globe-trotting golfer Tom Coyne has finally come home. And he’s ready to play all of it. After playing hundreds of courses overseas in the birthplace of golf,​ Coyne, the bestselling author of A Course Called Ireland and A Course Called Scotland, returns to his own...

Surprisingly, one of sport’s most contentious, complex, and defining clashes played out not in the boxing ring or at the line of scrimmage but on the genteel green fairways of the world’s finest golf courses. Arnie and Jack. Palmer and Nicklaus. Their 50-year duel, in both the clubhouse and the boardroom, propelled each to the status of American icon and pushed modern golf to the heights and popularity it enjoys today. Yet for all the ink that has been spilled on these two essential golf figures individually, no one has ever examined their relationship in this way.

A rollicking ranking of the greatest golfers of all time, past and present, brimming with the intimate stories and perspective only a longtime golf writer like Michael Arkush can muster. So, who’s the best of 'em all? Tiger Woods? Jack Nicklaus? Bobby Jones? Ben Hogan? Golf fans will disagree...

From the New York Times bestselling author of K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches comes the ultimate history of the World Series—a vivid portrait of baseball at its finest and most intense, filled with humor, lore, analysis, and fascinating behind-the-scenes stories from 117 years of the...

"The best-ever account of life on the PGA tour" (Golf Magazine): John Feinstein's bestselling classic is a must-read for anyone who loves the game of golf. Traveling with the golfers on the PGA Tour, Feinstein gets inside the heads of the game's greatest players as well as its struggling...

120 Golf Lessons will show you the basics to advanced lessons. There are 120 individual golf lessons within this book, with lots of useful information to dramatically improve your golf game. The lessons start at the very beginning to give you helpful hints about playing the game and the equipment you will need. You will then progress to actually playing the game and learn how to avoid many of the problems golfers face. 120 Golf Lessons makes an excellent start to your life as a golfer.

"Sullivan has found the transcendent in the horse."--Sports Illustrated Winner of a 2004 Whiting Writers' Award One evening late in his life, veteran sportswriter Mike Sullivan was asked by his son what he remembered best from his three decades in the press box. The answer came as a surprise. "I...

In 1887 a linen salesman from New York City visited the Old Course at St. Andrews, Scotland, considered to be the oldest golf course in the world. While there, he visited the shop of golf legend Old Tom Morris. Soon after his return home, this purchase triggered a golf explosion that would soon see America not only take up the game but also take it over. America Tees Off tracks golf's impact on the country and the game since this historic purchase, with dozens of wide-ranging stories from when the game first took hold in the United States to the present day.

In this concise social history of golf in the United States from the 1880s to the present, George B. Kirsch tracks the surprising growth of golf as a popular, mainstream sport, in contrast to the stereotype of golf as a pastime enjoyed only by the rich elite.While golf retains a strong association with upper-class, male-dominated, socially exclusive country clubs, it has also boasted a dedicated following among Americans from different social classes, ethnic backgrounds, races, and genders.

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.

The Masters. For any golf fan, the words evoke the immortal greats of the game and their quest for the most prized trophy of all - the green jacket of Augusta National Golf Club. But behind the legendary links and timeless traditions is one of the most overlooked and misunderstood figures in the history of the Masters and Augusta National: Clifford Roberts, the club's chairman from its founding in 1931 until shortly before his death in 1977.

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” —Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1850 “How do I hate thee? How much time do you have?” —Joan Rivers, today, about two-ish Joan Rivers is a groundbreaking, award-winning, internationally renowned entertainment goddess. She’s also...

To mark the anniversary of his historic win at the 1997 Masters, Tiger Woods will for the first time reflect on the record-setting win both on and off the course. In 1997, Tiger Woods was already among the most-watched and closely examined athletes in history. But it wasn't until the Masters...

For over a decade, Mahendra Singh Dhoni has captivated the world of cricket and over a billion Indians with his incredible ingenuity as captain, wicketkeeper and batsman. Bharat Sundaresan tracks down the cricketer's closest friends in Ranchi and artfully presents the different shades of...

“Provocative…terrific stories” (The New Yorker) of the people who transformed sports—in the span of a single generation—from a job that required even top athletes to work in the off-season to make ends meet into a massive global business. It started, as most business deals do, with a...