The Only Golf This Weekend Was On TV

Because I needed to get some things done around the house and to give my elbow--which has been sore most of the season--a little rest, I took the weekend off from the links. I did, however, watch the second, third and final rounds of The Open Championship; both online and on TV. I love to watch links-style golf and I was rooting hard for 59-year-old Tom Watson to win his sixth Claret Jug. This would have been one of the all-time greatest stories in the history of sports. But unfortunately, Watson bogeyed the 72nd hole at Turnberry, then lost in a four-hole playoff to Stewart Cink. What made it even cooler was on that Saturday, I had read some of Cink's "Tweets" on his Twitter page about preparing for The Open in Ireland last week. This week, I hope to go back to the practice green and work a bit more on putting as I prepare to return to the golf course next weekend.

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.