Golf: The Marvelous Mania

Legendary journalist and beloved TV host Alistair Cooke shares his life-long passion for golf in this stunning collection of his best writing on the sport he loved most. On a fateful day in 1964, Alistair Cooke was dragged into Van Cortland Park in New York City to play his first game of golf. He was immediately hooked, and golf became his greatest passion, even though he called it “a method of self-torture, disguised as a game.” No one has written more brilliantly or more lovingly about golf than he does here in this collection.

Golf gathers together for the first time the best of Cooke’s pieces on what he called “the marvelous mania” and showcases the incomparable wit and mischievous charm that made Cooke one of the greatest journalists and broadcasters of the twentieth century. Languish in his prose as he describes Arnold Palmer playing in 102-degree heat in San Antonio, dapper Gary Player winning the US Open at Creve Coeur, Missouri, and Jack Nicklaus playing—and winning—almost everywhere. This is a book no golfer—pro or amateur—should be without.