GolfBlogger’s 2022 Golf Gift Guide: Books

GolfBlogger’s 2022 Golf Gift Guide: Books

I have long thought that the next best thing to playing golf is reading about golf. I enjoy watching golf on television, but if forced to make a choice between golf tv and golf books, I would choose books every time.

Here are a few good books (and one magazine) that I have enjoyed over the past year.

The Golfers Journal

If I was forced to choose a number one recommendation for a gift for the golfer in your life, it would be a subscription to The Golfers Journal.

website

TGJ is unlike any other golf publication I am aware of. It is a quarterly literary magazine for golfers. Within its pages you will find a collection of essays and photographs exploring the game of golf in a thoughtful and erudite — often poetic –fashion.

What you won’t find (or at least I have not yet seen) are blurbs on the latest equipment, fashions, or travel destinations. There are no tips and lessons from the pros. Interviews with the latest up and coming PGA Tour pro do not seem to be on the editorial calendar.

I have thoroughly enjoyed every issue I have received and look forward to the next quarter.

The Long Golden Afternoon: Golf’s Age of Glory 1864 – 1914
by Stephen Proctor
Grade: A
Teachers’ Comments: A detailed and compelling narrative of the development of golf from 1864 to 1914.

On Amazon

The Long Golden Afternoon is a must read for anyone at all interested in the history of the game. The period 1864 to 1914 when much of the modern game developed, from the Majors to the first Professional Golfers Associations to deliberate golf course architecture.

Phil: The Rip Roaring Biography of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar
by Alan Shipnuck
on Amazon
Grade: A
Teachers’ Comments: Entertaining, enlightening and ultimately quite even-handed

I don’t know that there has been a more contentious golf book published in the last ten years than Shipnuck’s Phil. Much has been made of the parts of this book that cast a negative light on Mickelson. Ultimately, however, I think it is quite even handed.

Early Golf: Royal Myths and Ancient Histories
by Neil S. Millar

Publisher’s Website
On Amazon

Early Golf is a mostly scholarly look at the history of the game from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. As it turns out, a lot of what golfers think they know about the origins of the game turn out not to be true. Millar not only sets the story straight but also traces how many of the myths came to be.

I found it fascinating.

Tiger & Phil: Golf’s Most Fascinating Rivalry
By Bob Harig
Grade: B
Teachers’ Comments: Well written, but I struggled to identify any new ground being covered here.
on Amazon

While I struggled to find any new information on golf’s two megastars, Harig’s book does a good job of bringing a lot of information together in one volume. I enjoyed the read.