A Good Walk Spoiled: Days and Nights on the PGA Tour
A classic golf book and a must read remains John Feinstein’s A Good Walk Spoiled, first published in 1995. Scott Feinstein follows competitors on the PGA tour in the 90s, diving into the highs and lows of professional golf.
Who’s Your Caddy?: Looping for the Great, Near Great, and Reprobates of Golf
Sportswriter Rick Reilly convinced 11 players and media personalities, including Jack Nicklaus, David Duval, Deepak Chopra, and Donald Trump, to let him caddy for them. As one reviewer writes on Amazon, “This book should come with a guarantee: at least one laugh per page. His wit, observations, and revelations about golf and the men and women he caddied for are priceless.”
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Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf
Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons is another classic. Hogan, one of the sport’s greatest athletes, believes that any golfer can succeed and he breaks down his teaching method step-by-step. “Every serious golfer should read it,” one reviewer writes; another adds “the best instruction from the best ball striker in history.” The book covers grips, swings, posture, foot positions, and more.
Making the Masters: Bobby Jones and the Birth of America’s Greatest Golf Tournament
All eyes are on the golf world every April when the Masters takes place at Augusta National Golf Club. David Barrett’s Making the Masters reveals the origin story of the iconic tournament, bringing readers back to the 1930s when retired pro Bobby Jones built the Masters from scratch.
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The Golf 100: A Spirited Ranking of the Greatest Players of All Time
Who is the best golfer of all time? Michael Arkush seeks to find out in this essay collection that the publisher describes as a “joyride through golf history.”
Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect
Performance consultant Dr. Bob Rotella aims to help golfers with their mental game—and in doing so, promises to better their performance on the course. “We have a lot of content out there on how to swing a golf club, different shots around the greens, etc. but we don’t have a lot of content on how to think on the course,” one reviewer notes. “This book serves as an authority for me on how to think properly.”
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A Course Called America: Fifty States, Five Thousand Fairways, and the Search for the Great American Golf Course
Author Tom Coyne has played golf all over the world, but one year, he set out to play a round in each and every state in a search of America’s best golf course. As Ben Crenshaw blurbed, “Tom Coyne gives a fresh perspective on many places I’ve been, and I had to pause a number of times to relish the way he reflects on what he encounters—the people, the history, and the humor. Here is a soulful and thoroughly entertaining journey that will give people a sense of what golf means to so many of our friends who love the game.”
A Life Well Played: My Stories
No man has defined American golf quite like Arnold Palmer. In 2020, St. Martin’s Press re-released his memoir, A Life Well Played, in this commemorative edition, which features a foreword by Jack Nicklaus, anecdotes from his life, and Palmer’s sage advice and wisdom.
Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump
President Donald Trump is an avid golfer, and sportswriter Rick Reilly dives into Trump’s game, writing, “Golf is like bicycle shorts. It reveals a lot about a man.” As The New Yorker wrote in their review, “Relying on testimony from playing partners, caddies, and former Trump employees, Reilly pokes more holes in Trump’s claims than there are sand traps on all of his courses combined. It is by turns amusing and alarming….P.G. Wodehouse would have approved.”
Together We Roared: Alongside Tiger for His Epic Twelve-Year, Thirteen-Majors Run
Steve Williams caddied for Tiger Woods for 12 years, and in his book, written in collaboration with journalist Evin Priest, Williams recounts their partnership. “It’s humbling to know that I was part of history and that we’ll always have that chapter together,” Williams said.
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Golf Beneath the Surface: The New Science of Golf Psychology
Raymond Prior’s Golf Beneath the Surface “shares fresh, practical insights into how golfers think, train, and play, both on and off the course.” Prior, a performance consultant and psychologist, aims to help golfers lower their mental barriers to success. One reviewer writes, “Highly recommend for golfers who want to improve their mental game.”
Seven Days in Augusta: Behind the Scenes At the Masters
Ever wonder what the Masters is really like? Mark Cannizzaro’s Seven Days in Augusta goes deep behind the scenes of the famed Augusta, Georgia competition, offering insight into everything from green jacket rituals to stories about the Crow’s Nest.
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Tales from Q School: Inside Golf’s Fifth Major
“It is the tournament that separates champions from mortals. It is the starting point for the careers of future legends and can be the final stop on the down escalator for fading stars…” John Feinstein’s Tales from Q School is a close look at the annual PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament (he focuses in on the 2005 edition) and how golfers compete for the slots available in the PGA tour.
Golf in the Kingdom
Michael Murphy’s 1971 cult classic novel is about a fictional Michael Murphy who stumbles upon a mystical golfing expert in Scotland. Per Golf.com, “The book is so fundamental to how some golfers feel about the game that it has spawned the Shivas Irons Society, a nonprofit that brings together fellow travelers for golf trips and deep discussions about the book.”
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The Legendary Caddies of Augusta National: Inside Stories from Golf’s Greatest Stage
The little-known history of the Black caddies of Augusta National is the subject of Ward Clayton’s fascinating book highlighting their stories. As the publisher notes, “The Black caddies of Augusta National also endured, in their own ways, the racist social order of the sport and at the same time participated, albeit vicariously, in its many thrills.”
The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods
Hank Haney coached Tiger Woods from 2004 to 2010, and The Big Miss offers unprecedented insight into the athlete and behind the scenes of one of the greatest to ever play the game. As one reviewer writes, “we get not only golf insights (which you would expect) but maybe the closest thing we’re going to get to a peek inside the innermost circle of the world of Tiger Woods.”
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Searching in St. Andrews: Finding the Meaning of Golf During the Game’s Most Turbulent Summer
Golf journalist Sean Zak traveled to St. Andrews to understand the “true essence” of golf during the summer of the 150th Open Championship in 2022. Along the way, he got a front-row seat to the new LIV Golf, and the changing sport. “Sean’s trip to St. Andrews is a fascinating peak behind the curtain of professional golf and the history of golf more broadly and for golf fans this will be a very interesting and timely story considering the turmoil in the golf world today,” writes one reviewer.
Rainmaker: Superagent Hughes Norton and the Money-Grab Explosion of Golf from Tiger to LIV and Beyond
Speaking of LIV, Hughes Norton’s Rainmaker—Hughes Norton as in Tiger Woods’s agent Hughes Norton—is a fascinating look at the world of sports management. As CBS Sports’s Jim Nantz blurbed, “This is the most amazing ‘behind the curtain’ view ever written about the world of sports management. Hughes was the guru to some of the greatest golfers in the world—it wasn’t by accident.”
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The Match: The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever
In 1956, millionaires Eddie Lowery and George Coleman made a bet: Could Lowery’s employees, amateur golfers Harvie Ward and Ken Venturi, beat any two golfers of Coleman’s choice? Coleman selected professionals Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson, and what resulted was one very memorable match up at Cypress Point.
Men in Green (A Golf Bestseller)
Longtime sportswriter Michael Bamberg writes about the golden age of golf in Men in Green, and the cohort of competitors including Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Curtis Strange, Fred Couples, and Ken Venturi, asking the question: “Was golf better back in the day?” You’ll have to read to find out.
Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, celebrities, the royals, and a wide range of other topics. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram.
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