This image is the cover for the book Story of American Golf

Story of American Golf

The classic history of golf in America beginning with the first clubs to arrive on the coast—from “golf’s most respected and authoritative writer” (Golf magazine).

Widely regarded as the definitive account of America’s love affair with the world’s greatest game, this magisterial volume is Herbert Warren Wind’s masterpiece.

From John Reid, the expatriate Scotsman who imported a set of clubs and balls from St. Andrews in 1888 and built a three-hole course on a cow pasture in Yonkers, New York, to Alan Shepard’s six-iron shot on the surface of the moon, The Story of American Golf documents the iconic moments in the sport’s first century in the United States. Wind captures legendary players, including C. B. Macdonald, Bobby Jones, Byron Nelson, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Ben Hogan, and Jack Nicklaus, in all their glory, and expertly analyzes the developments in style, equipment, and technique that created the modern game.

Encyclopedic in scope and intimate in detail, The Story of American Golf is both a fitting tribute to the beautiful and fickle game that inspired a national obsession and a testament to Herbert Warren Wind’s incomparable talents as a journalist and historian.

Herbert Warren Wind

Herbert Warren Wind (1916–2005) was a longtime staff writer at the New Yorker and a writer and editor for Sports Illustrated. The dean of American golf writers, he coined the term “Amen Corner” to describe the famous stretch of the Augusta National Golf Course and co-authored books with Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, and Jack Nicklaus. A native of Brockton, Massachusetts, Wind graduated from Yale University and earned a master’s degree in English literature from the University of Cambridge. He began playing golf at a young age and competed in the 1950 British Amateur Championship. His elegant, richly detailed prose matched his meticulous golf course attire of a tweed jacket, shirt, tie, and cap—even in the warmest weather. Wind wrote or edited fourteen books during his lifetime, including The Story of American Golf (1948), The Gilded Age of Sport (1961), Herbert Warren Wind’s Golf Book (1971) and Following Through (1985). The United States Golf Association’s annual book award is named in his honor, and in 2008 he was posthumously inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. According to his friend Ben Crenshaw, “every time you read Herbert Warren Wind, you get a history lesson, a golf lesson, and a life lesson.”
 

Open Road Integrated Media