What happens when a man leaves home for a year to pursue his dream? One day, playing a particularly spectacular round of golf, husband and father John Paul Newport suddenly tastes what it's like to be a pro. Deciding to take a year off and hit the road playing golf's mini-tour circuit, Newport embarks on a wild trip through America's fairways. Over the course of his journey inside the somewhat shady, often hilarious underbelly of professional golf, he uncovers a world of people so totally addicted to golf, to the delusion of achievable perfection, that they sacrifice everything else to the quest. He also discovers the nature of his own obsession with the game, and how this constant pursuit of perfection on the golf course reflects the same challenges and frustrations one encounters in life. What does it take to master such an intricate, unpredictable game? In golf, as in life, why is one so consistently incapable of acting up to one's clearly established potential? As Newport struggles to cross that Fine Green Line--the infinitely subtle yet critical difference between the top golf professionals and those who never quite make it--he realizes that life, like golf, doesn't let you get away with anything. This is a story about letting go of fear, facing challenges, and embracing risks--a compelling personal journey that captures many of the frustrations and elations of midlife both on and off the course.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Reilly pokes more holes in Trump's claims than there are sand traps on all of his courses combined. It is by turns amusing and alarming."-- The New Yorker "Golf is the spine of this shocking, wildly humorous book, but humanity is its flesh and spirit." -- Chicago Sun-Times "Every one of Trump's most disgusting qualities surfaces in golf." -- The Ringer An outrageous indictment of Donald Trump's appalling behavior when it comes to golf -- on and off the green -- and what it reveals about his character. Donald Trump loves golf. He loves to play it, buy it, build it, and operate it. He owns 14 courses around the world and runs another five, all of which he insists are the best on the planet. He also claims he's a 3 handicap, almost never loses, and has won an astonishing 18 club championships. How much of all that is true? Almost none of it, acclaimed sportswriter Rick Reilly reveals in this unsparing look at Trump in the world of golf. Based on Reilly's own experiences with Trump as well as interviews with over 100 golf pros, amateurs, developers, and caddies, Commander in Cheat is a startling and at times hilarious indictment of Trump and his golf game. You'll learn how Trump cheats (sometimes with the help of his caddies and Secret Service agents), lies about his scores (the "Trump Bump"), tells whoppers about the rank of his courses and their worth (declaring that every one of them is worth $50 million), and tramples the etiquette of the game (driving on greens doesn't help). Trump doesn't brag so much, though, about the golf contractors he stiffs, the course neighbors he intimidates, or the way his golf decisions wind up infecting his political ones. For Trump, it's always about winning. To do it, he uses the tricks he picked up from the hustlers at the public course where he learned the game as a college kid, and then polished as one of the most bombastic businessmen of our time. As Reilly writes, "Golf is like bicycle shorts. It reveals a lot about a man." Commander in Cheat "paints a side-splitting portrait of a congenital cheater" (Esquire), revealing all kinds of unsightly truths Trump has been hiding.

A beloved New York Times bestselling author and golf aficionado shares his insatiable curiosity, trademark sense of humor, and vast knowledge of the game in this cavalcade of original pieces about why we love the sport, now featuring three additional new pieces. This is the book Rick Reilly has been writing in the back of his head since he fell in love with the game of golf at eleven years old. He unpacks and explores all of the wonderful, maddening, heart-melting, heart-breaking, cool, and captivating things about golf that make the game so utterly addictive. We meet the PGA Tour player who robbed banks by night to pay his motel bills, the golf club maker who takes weekly psychedelic trips, and the caddy who kept his loop even after an 11-year prison stint. We learn how a man on his third heart nearly won the U.S. Open, how a Vietnam POW saved his life playing 18 holes a day in his tiny cell, and about the course that's absolutely free. Reilly mines all of the game’s quirky traditions—from the shot of bourbon you take before you tee off at Peyton Manning’s course, to the way the starter at St. Andrews announces to your group (and the hundreds of tourists watching), “You’re on the first tee, gentlemen.” He means that quite literally: St. Andrews has the first tee ever invented. We’ll visit the eighteen most unforgettable holes around the world (Reilly has played them all), including the hole in Indonesia where the biggest hazard is monkeys, the one in the Caribbean that's underwater, and the one in South Africa that requires a shot over a pit of alligators; not to mention Reilly’s attempt to play the most mini-golf holes in one day. Reilly expounds on all the great figures in the game, from Phil Mickelson to Bobby Jones to the simple reason Jack Nicklaus is better than Tiger Woods. He explains why we should stop hating Bryson DeChambeau unless we hate genius, the greatest upset in women’s golf history, and why Ernie Els throws away every ball that makes a birdie. Plus all the Greg Norman stories Reilly has never been able to tell before, and the great fun of being Jim Nantz. Connecting it all will be the story of Reilly’s own personal journey through the game, especially as it connects to his tumultuous relationship with his father, and how the two eventually reconciled through golf. This is Reilly’s valentine to golf, a cornucopia of stories that no golfer will want to be without. **The Sports Librarian’s Best of 2022 – Sports Books**

One of the world's most sought-after golf instructors and a PGA Teacher of the Year makes it easy to be your own coach, customizing your golf swing for phenomenal accuracy. In his decades as a renowned golf coach and player on the PGA and Champions tours, Jim Hardy has attracted not only a clientele of impressive players, but top teachers from around the globe flock to his clinics as well. At the heart of his approach is a simple philosophy: There is no universally right or wrong way to swing a golf club. In fact, Hardy teaches that every person's golf swing is as unique as a strand of DNA. Of course, this creates a challenge for instructors. Now, in Solid Contact, Hardy distills his remarkable system for readers of all skill levels, teaching them how to self-diagnose their shots and correct their swings and misses on the very next shot. Packed with instructional drawings and anecdotes about lessons that spurred turnarounds for the best instructors and pro golfers in the game, Solid Contact addresses the unique aspects of each golfer's swing. Hardy's plus/ minus system draws on three actions: the swing, the swing's impact, and ball flight. Working through evidence in each of these three categories, readers can tailor their actions to address weak points for dramatically improved effectiveness. Putting the world's best instructional techniques in the hands of all readers, Solid Contact delivers lasting results in record time.

“Through this wonderful book, frustrated golfers can learn to swing like Moe [Norman] and improve their games.” —Anthony Robbins, #1 New York Times–bestselling author The mysterious and reclusive genius Moe Norman is acknowledged as the best ball-striker in the history of golf by many of the game’s greats. The Single Plane Golf Swing: Play Better Golf the Moe Norman Way reveals the secrets of the swing that enabled him to hit the ball solidly with unerring accuracy and consistency—every time. Norman’s simple, efficient, and easily understood Single Plane Swing has improved the games of thousands of golfers. Golf professional Todd Graves, known as “Little Moe” and regarded as the world authority on Norman’s swing, comprehensively teaches readers the mechanics, drills, and feelings of the Single Plane Swing that Moe called “The Feeling of Greatness.” Graves shares Norman’s brilliant insights and liberating approach to the game and demonstrates why the conventional “tour” swing is too complex and frustrating for the majority of amateurs. Illustrated with more than 300 photographs and written with Tim O’Connor, Norman’s biographer, the book also engagingly tells Norman’s bittersweet life story and explores the teacher-student bond forged between Norman and his protégé Graves. “One of golf’s greatest untold stories, Moe Norman’s life illustrated a simple and powerful truth: greatness is built from practicing the right swing in the right way. In this book, Todd Graves has given us a blueprint for that swing, for those practice habits, and most of all for a process that builds success.” —Dan Coyle, New York Times-bestselling author of The Culture Code

Favorites from course and clubhouse will crack up any duffer.

A resource for everyday golfers draws on the author's consultations with instructors, players, caddies, psychiatrists, economists, and Zen masters to share lighthearted, therapeutic advice on essential game skills.