Tuesday 21 May 2013

That Match: The Day Golf Changed Forever - Booklet Review.

Mark Frost's The very best Game Ever Played, a free account of the legendary 1913 USA Open, in which amateur Francis Ouimet beat the fantastic Harry Vardon is one of the best golf books ever written. More than a forex account of a tournament, it uses case to cast a light on the era's problems of social class and distinction. In the, it's not just a good golf book—it's simply a great book that has been enjoyed by everyone I've propagated it with, golfers and non-golfers alike.

The Match in some ways picks up concerning that story. Years following your Open, Ouimet's former caddy Eddie Lowry brain west, where he is a multi-millionaire car car dealership, and a golf customer. In particular, Lowry "sponsors" an amount of outstanding amateurs by giving them jobs at his motorbike shops. The amateurs, including Ken Venturi together with Harvie Ward, work at selling cars at dawn and golf in your afternoon. In this, Lowry skirts a superb line between amateur and professional—a ruse which has tragic consequences later.

Lowry even offers become friends with Bing Crosby, and it's on a party for Crosby's 1956 Clambake (now this AT& T Pebble Beach Pro Am) that he makes a bet with fellow millionaire George Coleman: that Venturi and Ward can beat anyone on earth. Coleman takes Lowry high on the bet (the size which still is unknown) and rounds up their own pair of players: the one and only Byron Nelson and Mary Hogan. A private match is usually scheduled before a practice round in the Crosby Clambake.

It's an idea so fabulous—so phantasmagorical—that I'd, and still have, trouble believing it. It's one particular tales that is so outrageous it could only be true. Look at it: a private match between the teams of Hogan in addition to Nelson, and Venturi and Ward to be in a bet made simply by Francis Ouimet's caddy.

Far more amazing is that I actually don't ever recall reading about this before. The Golf Blogger is quite well read on bicycles of golf, but i thought this was off the radar display.

I won't tell you the actual end result of The Match, for that would spoil the suspense in the hole-by-hole account. But in fact ,, it really doesn't matter. Win or lose, the Match represented one more gasp of the amateur golfer being contender on golf's most significant stages. As the book's subtitle advises, the Match was a metaphorical "Day Golf Changed Forever. " Prior to a era of The Go with, there still was some hope that her brilliant amateur would return the game to the realm associated with Bobby Jones and Francis Ouimet. That it was rapidly becoming clear, nonetheless, that wouldn't happen.

The majority of the book covers that match itself, but Frost even offers brief backgrounds on a principals: Lowry, Hogan, Nelson, Venturi in addition to Ward. The material on the initial four offered nothing we haven't already read in other biographies these players (although when you've got not read their biographies, this book covers basic principles well). I was more intrigued by the fate of Harvie Ward, who suffered through a number of difficulties connected to his involvement with Lowry. The backdrop, however, does not equal that within the Greatest Game. And in the, The Match is some sort of somewhat lesser book—and a bed that may not appeal as much to non-golfers.

I recommend this book wholeheartedly so that you can golfers, and especially to help those for whom a names Nelson and Hogan nonetheless carry some magic. Fans of The Greatest Game also should find it interesting as sort of sequel. But I can't see it reaching the greater studying audience.

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