An Eternally Good Read

The Eternal Summer

Palmer, Nicklaus, and Hogan in 1960,
Golf's Golden Year

I have recently finished reading The Eternal Summer, an excellent book by Curt Sampson, the bestselling author of Hogan and The Masters. The book chronicles the unique set of circumstances that occurred in golf during the your 1960. Sampson calls it "the golden year" because it was a time when golf was finding its way into our living and consciousness through the magic of that emerging technology: television. It was also a time in which a golfer from Western Pennsylvania, Arnold Palmer, was capturing the hearts and minds of the public via the black and white imagines on the television screens. It was also the year in which a golfing legend, Ben Hogan, was making one final attempt at greatness, while a future legend, Jack Nicklaus, was slowing making a name for himself as an up-and-coming amateur from Ohio.

Sampson takes through the year: from Palmer's heroic wins at The Masters and U.S. Open, to his near miss at The Open Championship at St. Andrew's--which put the British Open back on the map for American golfers--to Nicklaus' near miss at the U.S. Open, to Hogan's last hurrahs at the U.S. Open and PGA Championship. Only 233 pages, it is a short, but very entertaining read which I highly recommend for anyone who is interested in the history of golf as well as professional golf.