Tiptoeing Through Hell: Playing the U.S. Open on Golf's Most Treacherous Courses (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "The golf gods to which the golfer occasionally refers, in the absence of a plausible explanation for the erratic behavior of his ball, largely have..." (more)
Key Phrases: bettered par, twelfth hole, seventeenth hole, Pebble Beach, Oakland Hills, Winged Foot (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Strege, a writer for Golf Digest and the author of Tiger: A Biography of Tiger Woods, examines how the United States Golf Association (USGA) has made the U.S. Open a supreme test for top golfers. In golf, unlike many other sports, the test is not only of player against player but of player against the course. With the United States Open, the course is prepared to make any challenge to par a difficult proposition: the layout is lengthened, the fairways narrowed, the greens made faster. And, as if that were not enough, the USGA has been known to employ artifice: the Hinkle tree was an overnight answer to a gap in the trees that allowed Lon Hinkle to play the eighth hole at Inverness by way of the 17th. Strege's book provides a context for understanding the U.S. Open in terms of its yearly change of venue. It is a narrative history, with a cast ranging from Sam Snead to Tiger Woods, that includes flashbacks to the previous year's tournament or to the last Open held at this particular venue. Of particular interest is the chapter on Bethpage Black, in Farmingdale, NY, the first truly public course to host a U.S. Open. Both entertaining and informative, this book belongs on the shelf alongside recent titles like John Feinstein's The Majors: In Pursuit of Golf's Holy Grail and Salvatore Johnson's The Official U.S. Open Almanac. Steven Silkunas, North Wales, PA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

In 1951, officials of the U.S. Golf Association (USGA), concerned that new equipment gave modern players an unfair advantage, decided to toughen up Oakland Hills, site of that year's U.S. Open. Ben Hogan tamed the Monster, as Oakland Hills came to be called, but the USGA was just warming up. For the next 50 years, as Strege shows in this fascinating account, the USGA has systematically grown the rough, narrowed the fairways, and dried out the greens on each Open course, turning the national championship into an annual torture chamber. Strege provides all the grisly details, from the absurdly high winning scores (seven over par in 1974) to the unbelievable horror stories (one player, in 1955, lost his ball in the rough, took a penalty, dropped another ball, and then was forced to take another penalty when he couldn't find his ball immediately after dropping it). Golf history fans will love hearing these war stories one more time, and average players will relish the idea of pampered pros making triple bogeys. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins; 1 edition (May 7, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060188642
• ISBN-13: 978-0060188641
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,105,553 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The conspiracy lives, May 29, 2005

By	T. Enst - See all my reviews

The truth is out there: the USGA has it in for the pros. The US Open, meant to be the finest test of golf in the US, featuring the greatest of US courses, is also the ground upon which the USGA gets to stretch the limits of par. Par is, after all, supposed to be what a person recieves after flawless golf, plus two putts on the green. Birdies and, gasp, eagles are only for extraordinary play, if that.

Given the advance of players and their equipment, the USGA was forced to fight back in the era of the modern pro. Rough is grown to obnoxious hieghts, courses are remodeled to make them nearly impossible for anyone but that year's "chosen", and even the time of year (summer) can mean death by heat at some of the venues.

This book chronicles many of the most famous modern Opens. Much of the focus is on the star of the tale, the eventual winner. However, a good deal of attention is also payed to how the USGA prepared the course, by putting it in "leather and chains". At times, the writing borders on conspiracy theory, but this may not be far from fact.

Unfortunately, there are a few places that a person trips up on in the writing. The ocassional typo aside, factual errors regarding historical terms and the like also pop up (for instance, a brassie is called a 3 wood in the book, but is usually regarded as a 2 wood, a spoon being a 3 wood). The easy flowing style of the narrative, however, lets you forget about this.

Being a quick read, this may not be a keeper for the bookshelf, but does a good job of priming you for the yearly Open, if you haven't read it already.