No book that fails to offer tee times to the prose of Bernard Darwin and Herbert Warren Wind can truly call itself the "Best" of golf writing; you might as well try navigating Riviera or Oakmont with no driver or putter in your bag. Still, given its handicap, A Passion for Golf posts a respectable score. Its selection of pieces is wide-ranging and surprisingly eclectic: fiction by the hard-boiled James Ellroy, the aristocratic J.P. Marquand, and the mystical Michael Murphy hit as straight and true as essays by Bobby Jones, Thomas Boswell, Harvey Penick, John Updike, and Rick Reilly. Selections from Arnold Haultain's 1908 classic The Mysteries of Golf almost make up for the lost strokes of no Darwin and Wind, and Alistair Cooke's delightful commentary on the tribulations facing the builders of the (then) Soviet Union's first golf course more than cancels out the inclusion of a bit from Bob Hope's sappy Confessions of a Hooker. --Jeff Silverman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
A member of the editorial board of Sports Illustrated for 20 years, Bishop is well equipped to pick the most memorable golf writing. Included here are an astute analysis of the Masters by John Updike, reprinted from Hugging the Shore; a low-key but hilarious excerpt from J.P. Marquand's novel Life at Happy Knoll about retaining a pro who doesn't appear to be very competent; and a touching piece from Michael Murphy's Golf in the Kingdom about how deeply meaningful the game is to Scots. And there are some surprisesAfor instance, an excerpt from Sam Snead's Education of a Golfer on the importance of keeping one's temper on the course. Another article takes readers back to the 1960 U.S. Open when the young Arnold Palmer decided that boldness is the key to winning and so gave rise to the galleries' cry of "Charge!" whenever he played. Bishop also includes selections about prejudices that have impeded the game, from Gene Saraceni's name change in 1918 to Sarazen so that he would not be mistaken for an Italian to Marcia Chambers's analysis of 1995 in The Unplayable Lie, concluding that gender bias still exists at the country club.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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