Golf has been called the greatest of all games, but it has also been derided by none other than Mark Twain as nothing more than a good walk spoiled. Traditional teaching holds that golf originated in Scotland around the 15th century. However, there is historical evidence of games similar to golf being played in the low countries of Europe back in the 13th century. Over the many centuries of golf's evolution, the balls used have changed greatly, as have the clubs, the holes, the courses, and the entire game itself. The Historical Dictionary of Golf presents a comprehensive history of the game through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, photos, and over 300 cross-referenced dictionary entries on places, teams, terminology, and people, including Arnold Palmer, Greg Norman, Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus, Annika Sörenstam, Lorena Ochoa, Phil Mickelson, and, of course, Tiger Woods. Appendixes of the members of the World Golf Hall of Fame, the Major Championships of Golf, the International Team Events, and the Professional Tour Awards are also included.

In September of 1951 Saucon Valley Country Club hosted its first USGA championship the 51st U.S. Amateur. The book chronicles this ground breaking event in club history. In the book you will meet the patriarch of Saucon Valley, Eugene Grace, president of industry giant Bethlehem Steel Corporation and devoted amateur golfer. You will learn how a chance meeting at the Pinehurst resort in 1909 laid the foundation for the creation of one of the greatest private country clubs in America. Robin McCool takes you back to a time when amateur golf was king, and the personalities were bigger than life. You will meet all the great players who came to Saucon Valley to compete for the coveted Havemeyer Trophy Frank Stranahan, Harvie Ward, Ken Venturi, Dick Chapman, Jim McHale and Charlie Coe, to name a few. You will witness Billy Maxwell, a young college student from Texas, rise up from among these giants of the game to capture amateur golfs most treasured prize.

In a long, award-winning career writing about golf, Bill Fields has sought out the most interesting stories--not just those featuring big winners and losers, but the ones that get at the very character of the game. Collected here, his pieces offer an intriguing portrait of golf over the past century. The legends are here in vivid profiles of such familiar figures as Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Mickey Wright, and Tiger Woods. But so are lesser-known golfers like John Schlee, Billy Joe Patton, and Bert Yancey, whose tales are no less compelling. The book is filled with colorful moments and perceptive observations about golf greats ranging from the first American-born U.S. Open champion, Johnny McDermott, to Seve Ballesteros, the Spaniard who led Europe's resurgence in the game in the late twentieth century. Fields gives us golf writing at its finest, capturing the game's larger dramas and finer details, its personalities and its enduring appeal.

Set against the background of the Great Depression, this book presents the life of Ralph Guldahl, who for a brief period in the 1930s was widely recognized as the best golfer in the world. From 1936 to 1940, he won two successive U.S. Opens, one Masters title and three successive Western Opens, held the best scoring average award and was a Ryder Cup player with a 100 percent record. After this memorable run, he "lost his game" and almost disappeared from view. This biography is the first to trace the rise and decline of his career and answer the question: "What happened to Ralph Guldahl?"

Focusing on the landscapes and memory of golf and examining the games nature and appeal, this collection of seventy-two haiku poems and essays aims to lead readers to a fuller appreciation of the culture and history of golf and a deeper awareness of a players place in the game. Be the Pine, Be the Ball also reveals the compelling beauty and power of haiku, the most popular poetic form in the world. Through the brevity of its style, precise language, and ability to reveal how ordinary moments and elements of our lives are pathways to a better understanding of ourselves and the world around us, haiku can have both a meditative and consequential effect on the reader. A key to the connection between haiku and golf is that both foster powers of concentration and detailed observation with a related reduction of distractions. Both seek to cultivate a more tranquil and disciplined mind and to translate that condition into how a life is lived and a game is played.

Golf’s Forgotten Legends provides fascinating discussions of forgotten legendary golfers. Jeff Gold has adopted a no-holds-barred writing style in which absolutely nothing is sacred. He thoroughly delves into the most interesting, controversial, and humorous incidents that have taken place in professional golf over the past one-hundred-plus years among the most famous as well as lesser-known figures in the game. We are convinced that golf enthusiasts will find Golf’s Forgotten Legends to be a thoroughly fascinating, educational, and entertaining look at the world of professional golf.

Every golfer dreams of making a pilgrimage to the British Isles, and it sometimes seems as though every golfer is in fact making that pilgrimage, especially when you're trying to book a tee time. The legendary courses of Scotland and Ireland are magnificent shrines, but their fame has obscured the greatness of the golf to be found all across the landscape of England and Wales. From the heathland in the north and center to the linksland on the coasts, England and Wales present an extraordinary variety of great golf experiences. In All Courses Great and Small, James W. Finegan treats the reader to a countries-wide survey of these golfing delights -- some famous, like the Open Championship venues of Royal Birkdale, Royal Lytham & St. Annes, and Royal St. George's; some well known, like Sunningdale, Wentworth, and The Belfry; and some gems that have long been hidden in plain sight, like The Addington (in suburban London) or Southport & Ainsdale (not ten minutes from Royal Birkdale). There are as many outstanding courses in England and Wales as there are in Scotland and Ireland combined, a shocking fact that is easily explained: While Scotland has 5.2 million people and 550 golf courses, and Ireland has 3.5 million people and 400 courses, England and Wales have 50 million people and more than 2,000 courses. Finegan provides a charming guide to the courses and the towns, the inns and the eateries to be found along the way. He highlights the best of the not quite four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire; gives advice about lunch after your round at Sandwich; raises a cup of grog at Gog Magog; and tackles the playing and pronouncing problems posed by Pwllheli. He gives full due to the best-known places such as Rye, Wentworth, Hoylake, and the royals, but he also declares such lesser-known treasures as St. Enodoc, Silloth-on-Solway, Southerndown, and Pennard to be every bit as worthy of your time and attention. His books on the courses of Scotland and Ireland, Blasted Heaths and Blessed Greens and Emerald Fairways and Foam-Flecked Seas, have become invaluable companions to thousands of travelers; All Courses Great and Small is an irresistible and even more essential addition to the touring golfer's shelf and suitcase.