Arnie, Seve, and a Fleck of Golf History

`

Arnie, Seve, and a Fleck of Golf History

Heroes, Underdogs, Courses, and Championships

Bill Fields
Foreword by Ben Crenshaw

344 pages

Paperback

June 2014

978-0-8032-4880-9

$21.95 Add to Cart
eBook (PDF)
Ebook purchases delivered via Leaf e-Reader

June 2014

978-0-8032-5526-5

$21.95 Add to Cart
eBook (EPUB)
Ebook purchases delivered via Leaf e-Reader

June 2014

978-0-8032-5527-2

$21.95 Add to Cart

About the Book

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.

Author Bio

Veteran sports journalist Bill Fields is a four-time winner of the Golf Writers Association of America’s annual writing contest. A former senior editor at Golf World, his work has also appeared in Golf Digest, the New York Times, and The Best American Sports Writing.

Praise

"Arnie, Seve, and a Fleck of Golf History is a must-read for anyone with an interest in the history of the people and events of the game of golf.."—Gary McCormick, examiner.com

"An entertaining and informative read."—Lisa Timpf, AETHLON


"Anyone who considers himself a true golf fan must add this excellent work of golf history to their literary collection."—Fred Altvater, Bleacher Report

"Engaging and fun to read."—George B. Kirsch, Journal of Sport History

“Nobody knows the game of golf and many of the quaint people who have inhabited it better than Bill Fields, and I’ve never read anyone who gets them down on paper better than he does. You’ll enjoy this book more than a string of birdies if you care anything at all about the sport.”—Dan Jenkins, author of Dead Solid Perfect and Jenkins at the Majors

 


“Bill Fields’s field isn’t golf; it’s people. With a reporter’s instinct and a writer’s empathy, he specializes in stories only he can see. Don’t read him unless you’re ready to laugh and cry. Both.”—Tom Callahan, author of Johnny U

 


Table of Contents

Foreword by Ben Crenshaw                         
Introduction                                                    

Part 1. Tall Shadows: The Greats
1. Golf’s Gray Ghost                         
2. He Came, He Won, He Died         
3. The Trials of a Trailblazer              
4. Man of the Century                        
5. A Place in Time                              
6. King of the Hill                     
7. A Golfer and a Gentleman        
8. Simply the Best                          
9. Arnie, Now and Then                 
10. Seve: Portrait of an Artist     

Part 2. Inside the Ropes: Courses and Competitions
11. Changing the Course of History  
12. The Streak                                    
13. He Went Down Swinging            
14. Homero Blancas’s 55                   
15. Lost and Found                           
16. A Champion’s Last Hurrah          
17. Surround Sound                          
18. Devil’s Island                                
19. Fortunate Son                              
20. Thoughts from Augusta               

Part 3. More Than a Score: The Characters
21. Shades of Greatness                    
22. A Fleck of History                        
23. The Gospel According to Joe Dey            
24. The Mouth That Roared             
25. The High Life and Hard Times of John Schlee    
26. Taking a Stand                             
27. The Detour of a Phenom             
28. The Journey of Jim Simons           
29. Still Driven after All These Years 
30. The Man Who Loved Golf to Death       

Epilogue: The Tiger Era                     
Acknowledgments                                         

Also of Interest