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The Match: The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever (Hardcover)
by Mark Frost
| Category:
Golf, History of golf, Top golf players |
| Market price: ¥ 258.00
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¥ 238.00
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Author: Mark Frost
Publisher: Hyperion
Pub. in: November, 2007
ISBN: 1401302785
Pages: 272
Measurements: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA01162
Other information: ISBN-13: 978-1401302788
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- MSL Picks -
It is difficult to remember or appreciate what the game of tournament golf was like some fifty or so years ago. Before Tiger Woods, before Jack Nicklaus, before Arnold Palmer, before network television and the Golf Channel.
This book will open a window on those times and does it in a very entertaining way.
It is the time of the Crosby Clambake, an event started by Bing Crosby which brought together touring pros and wealthy and well known amateurs and has now evolved into what we know as the AT+T National Pro-Am, played on golf courses on the Monterey Peninsula.
In 1956, the premiere kick off party for the week long event was a party held at George Coleman's. Coleman, is a millionaire many times over and an avid and accomplished golfer in his own right. Attending the party that night was Eddie Lowery, another golfing millionaire and a person known to have engaged Coleman in several sporting wagers over the years.
Lowery owned the most succesful Lincoln-Mercury dealership in the country and was also a ardent supporter of amateur golf. In order to support some of the most promising ones, he gave them jobs as car saleman which meant they were to sell his cars in the morning and be available to play golf in the afternoon.
On this particular evening he is singing the praises of two of "his boys" who he has arranged to have play in the golf tournament, Ken Venturi and Harvie Ward.
At dinner he proclaims to all who will listen that there are not two players in the world that can beat them when they play as a team. Coleman's ears prick up and he inquires, "Including pros?" "Any players breathing," comes the reply. "Well, I've got a couple of fellas in mind," "Fine. Bring 'em on. Name your price."
The amount of the wager differs according to those with memories of the evening, but it was substancial for 1956 and perhaps as much as twenty thousand dollars.
"So who are your players?" Eddie asks after the bet is arranged. "I'll tell you in a minute," Coleman replies as he leaves the room and places a call to Ben Hogan. He agrees. Byron Nelson is already at Coleman's house and after a quick conversation the match is agreed to.
Those at the dinner are sworn to secrecy, but are told the match will be at Pebble Beach where Hogan has a tee time arranged for 11 AM.
The players gathered the next morning at Cypress Point to commence one of the most amazing golf matches ever played. As the match progresses, the author uses it to also describe aspects of the careers of the participants, give interesting insights into the times and describe the wonders of one the the world's finest golf courses.
For golfers, it is a trip back in time not to be missed.
(From quoting John R. Linnell, USA)
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Mark Frosts other books include the bestselling novels The List of Seven and The Six Messiahs, and the nonfiction bestsellers The Grand Slam and The Greatest Game Ever Played. He lives in Los Angeles and upstate New York.
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From Publisher
The bestselling author of The Greatest Game Ever Played returns with the story of the little-known match that forever changed the history of golf.
The year: 1956. Four decades have passed since Eddie Lowery came to fame as the ten-year-old caddie to U.S. Open Champion Francis Ouimet. Now a wealthy car dealer and avid supporter of amateur golf, Lowery has just made a bet with fellow millionaire George Coleman. Lowery claims that two of his employees, amateur golfers Harvie Ward and Ken Venturi, cannot be beaten in a best-ball match. Lowery challenges Coleman to bring any two golfers of his choice to the course at 10 a.m. the next day to settle the issue.
Coleman accepts the challenge and shows up with his own power team: Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson, the game's greatest living professionals, with fourteen major championships between them.
In Mark Frost's peerless hands, complete with the recollections of all the participants, the story of this immortal foursome and the game they played that day - legendarily known in golf circles as the greatest private match ever played - comes to life with powerful, emotional impact and edge-of-your-seat suspense.
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Publishers Weekly (MSL quote), USA
<2008-02-19 00:00>
In 1956, millionaires Eddie Lowery and George Coleman made an off-the-cuff bet on a golf match and inadvertently set up one of the sport's most climactic duels; this one casual game has become the sport's great suburban legend. Frost (The Greatest Game Ever Played) diligently covers the two pros slightly past their prime, Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson, who squared off against two top amateurs, Harvie Ward and Ken Venturi. It happened in the last hours of Hogan's playing career, and ten years after Byron had left the stage, but at the near pinnacle of the amateurs', whose personalities couldn't have been more diametrically opposed (Venturi the classic up-and-comer, and Ward the inveterate playboy who performed hungover on two hours' sleep). The match itself, scrupulously teased out by Frost for maximum drama, is less interesting than the people involved and the historical backdrop. The match happened near the sport's great cusp, as it transitioned from something for amateurs to a professional career, from a pastime for wastrel aristocrats and entertainers (and Bing Crosby, with his annual booze-soaked Clambake charity matches) to a mainstream suburban obsession. Frost has a penchant toward the florid, but as he writes, Because he was Ben Hogan, and it was just past twilight, and his like would never pass this way again, he captures an elusive magic in this improbable matchup and what it meant for those who played and witnessed it. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Ken Venturi (MSL quote), USA
<2008-02-19 00:00>
The Match was a dream I never thought would come true. If I hadn't been there I wouldn't believe it myself, and if you know anything about sports or the game of golf, once you pick up this book you won't put it down. No one will ever see an event like this again. Fiction can't touch it. |
Rsb (MSL quote), USA
<2008-02-19 00:00>
Written in the same exciting and engrossing style as his earlier book "The Greatest Game Ever Played", Mark Frost brings to life what may have been the greatest golf competition every concieved. Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson paired against Ken Venturi and Harvie Ward in a best ball match by Eddie Lowery, the smart-mouthed middle-aged former caddie for Francis Ouimet who carried the bag at nine years old when Ouimet became the first amateur to win the U. S. Open in 1913.
Frost's organization for the book makes it impossible to put down, and easy to read in a day or so. He weaves the hole-by-hole descriptions of the match with interlaced stories of each of the main characters, in a style that is humorous, poignant and informative.
This match marked the beginning of the end of amateur golf as Bobby Jones envisioned it and the end of the beginning of professional golf as we know it today.
Anyone who loves golf and wants to understand its rich history in America must read Frost's books. |
Donald Mitchell (MSL quote), USA
<2008-02-19 00:00>
Golf is a game whose attraction is built in part from legendary events like Ouimet's historic win in Brookline. You need to add this story from Cypress Point to your after-round repertoire.
Two wily veteran pros, Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson, help accept a challenge on behalf of George Coleman made by Eddie Lowery, Francis Ouimet's caddy at The Country Club in the U.S. win, that no one can beat Eddie's two amateur employees, Ken Venturi and Harvie Ward. Bets are placed and the game is on.
To make the story even more interesting, Mark Frost gives us the histories of the people involved against the backdrop of the switch from an amateur focus for the game to a professional one. You'll also learn about how Cypress Point was developed.
Working primarily from the memories of Byron Nelson and Ken Venturi, Mark Frost captures the scene almost as though he were an eye witness. Needless to say, the match contained some remarkable golf. I won't go into it, but I found my heart pounding many times as the competitive situations unfolded in the high stakes Nassau.
I've never seen Cypress Point in person, and the story also interested me for its fine explanation of the course's layout in 1956.
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