Golf: My childhood dream came true when I became a member of the Canadian Professional Golfer's Association (CPGA). In 1989, three years into what looked like a promising future as a CPGA golf professional, my world was turned upside down with a devastating diagnosis of manic depression (bipolar disorder), and I ended up as a patient in the psychiatric ward for six weeks. This was my first fullblown manic episode. I was able to resume my career and achieve my goal when I was employed as a head golf professional in 1993 at a golf course in Alberta. Mental Health: Over the years, I made several trips to psych wards to treat manic episodes. After every episode, I would have a period of severe depression that would last for several months. My last time in a psych ward was at the infamous Riverview Psychiatric Hospital in Port Coquitlam, BC, in 1999. In 2000, I was finally put on the right combination of psychiatric medications, which I still take every day. Learning how to live a low-stress lifestyle and having Ellen as my wife for the last two decades have been extremely important in maintaining my wellness. I have now been well for twenty years with my bipolar disorder. To make things more difficult, I was diagnosed with seasonal affective disorder (SAD) in 1996 and diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in 2007. I write about these two additional mental illnesses in my book. Spirituality: I'm not religious, but I have had countless spiritual experiences over the last thirty years. Most of my amazing experiences happened when I was in a state of mania. Over the last twenty years, I have read many books about the spiritual realm and some about the brain, soul, consciousness and bipolar disorder itself. As a result of this, I have come up with my own "mania spirit theory" and describe this in my book.

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.

Favorites from course and clubhouse will crack up any duffer.

The perfect golfing gift: A book that is a complete, working 9-hole miniature golf course, with miniature golf balls and putter included. The first book you can play through. The book that's a true original. Featuring nine themed courses, from pirates to dinosaurs to the classic windmill, The Miniature Book of Miniature Golf celebrates the silliness and the golf-for-everyone! attitude of Putt-Putt. Each page in the book is a cleverly designed hole, modeled on real mini golf courses. Tap the ball through the grooves and make sure to avoid the obstacles. Then see if you can get it in the clown's mouth on the last hole. Every hole is par fun.

The beloved author of Ms. Bixby’s Last Day and Posted returns with a humorous and heartwarming story of family, friendship, and miniature golf. For as long as he can remember, Malcolm has never felt like he was good enough. Not for his parents, who have always seemed at odds with each other, with Malcolm caught in between. And especially not for his dad, whose competitive drive and love for sports Malcolm has never shared. That is, until Malcolm discovers miniature golf, the one sport he actually enjoys. Maybe it’s the way in which every hole is a puzzle to be solved. Or the whimsy of the windmills and waterfalls that decorate the course. Or maybe it’s the slushies at the snack bar. But whatever the reason, something about mini golf just clicks for Malcolm. And best of all, it’s a sport his dad can’t possibly obsess over. Or so Malcolm thinks. Soon he is signed up for lessons and entered in tournaments. And yet, even as he becomes a better golfer and finds unexpected friends at the local course, be wonders if he might not always be a disappointment. But as the final match of the year draws closer, the tension between Malcolm’s parents reaches a breaking point, and it’s up to him to put the puzzle of his family back together again.

Adventure writer Jessica Maxwell loves a challenge and decided to tackle golf the way she had tackled skiing and fly-fishing, two demanding sports she took up in her early thirties after a life as a confirmed "non-jockette." Surely golf couldn't be that much more difficult?could it? In this irreverent memoir we have a front-row seat as Jessica struggles to learn golf's etiquette, traditions, and complex rules—from her first comical attempts to coax practice balls out of a golf ball machine, to just hitting the damn ball, to acquiring her own set of Nancy Lopez clubs! Among her coaches are Peter Croker, a revolutionary Australian teaching pro, Cindy Swift Jones, his partner and putting guru, and Al Mundle, the Harvey Penick of the Northwest, as well as seventy-eight-year-old American women's golf legend Peggy Kirk Bell and the queen of golf herself, Nancy Lopez. A willful celebration of what one golf coach called "the atrocious first year," Driving Myself Crazy is an often hilarious, always inspiring tale of one woman's obsession with proving to herself that golf—played right—is a beautiful game ... at least for that moment.

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.