A renowned, award-winning, expert golf writer gives a fresh, insider's perspective of the golf tour. Tiger Woods has changed golf - forever. His combination of power, skill, and media smarts has made him the biggest sports figure since Michael Jordan and, if his career was to end tomorrow, he'd go down as one of the top five players of all time. What he's left in his wake, however, is a game struggling to keep up. Great players, such as Phil Mickelson and David Duval, are left wallowing behind Woods, and it's going to take prodigious feats of golfing skill to catch up with him. Renowned golf journalist Curt Sampson has done for golf what John Feinstein did for basketball in A Season On The Brink, namely, write an inside, revealing narrative of a year in the PGA Tour - the Sprint, NEC, National Car Rental Classic, and the Majors - every locale where Tiger Woods has played. Sampson assesses the performances of the players who have spent the year chasing Tiger, and measures how each of them has changed as a result of the increased competition. He also charts the progress of players like Charles Howell III, a young man tipped by Nicklaus to be the next Tiger.
Curt Sampson, golf professional turned golf writer, came from a large, athletic family. Golf was something his father did. Sampson caddied for his dad for years before trying to fit the game into his crowded sports schedule. Two things piqued his interest, both occurring when he turned 12. He began to caddie full-time at Lake Forest Country Club in Hudson, Ohio; and he discovered that he could not hit a Little League curve ball.
Sampson spent the money earned caddying on plaid pants, entry fees, and travel to tournaments. His most notable win before college was in the Mid-American Junior in 1970. He accepted a scholarship to Kent State University, where he won one tournament, finished second in another, and made the All-MAC team twice. And twice during his four years at KSU, the team missed qualifying for the NCAA by one shot. Current Kent Men's Head Coach Herb Page and Women's Head Coach Mike Morrow were teammates.
Sampson toiled as a club pro for several years following graduation. He toured internationally for a short time, and played in mini-tours in Florida. In his only try to get on the PGA Tour--at Pinehurst in 1977--he missed the cut badly, and applied for and received a return to amateur status.
Following a ten year career in sales (wiring conduit, hydraulic hose, labeling machines, lumber) Sampson began writing full-time in November 1988.
Texas Golf Legends, his first book, was collaboration with Santa Fe-based artist Paul Milosevich. Researching TGL gained Sampson introductions with people he has written about many times since: Hogan, Nelson, Crenshaw, Trevino, and a few dozen others. His next book--The Eternal Summer, a recreation of golf's summer of 1960, when Hogan, Palmer, and Nicklaus battled--is still selling 15 years after its debut, a rarity in the publishing world.
Sampson's biography of the enigmatic William Ben Hogan struck a chord. Both Hogan and his next book, The Masters, appeared on the New York Times bestseller lists. Subsequent books and scores of magazine articles cemented Sampson's reputation as readable and sometimes controversial, a writer with an eye for humor and the telling detail.
