*** WINNER OF INTERNATIONAL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AT THE SUNDAY TIMES SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2023
***'fascinating informative and revealing' Mail on SundayBeloved bestselling author and golf
aficionado Rick Reilly channels his insatiable curiosity trademark sense of humour and vast
knowledge of the game of golf in 80 original pieces about what it has meant to him and to
others and all the reasons we love it.This is the book Rick Reilly has been writing in the
back of his head since he fell in love with the game of golf at eleven years old. He unpacks
and explores all of the wonderful maddening heart-melting heart-breaking cool and
captivating things about golf that make the game so utterly addictive. We meet the PGA Tour
player who robbed banks by night to pay his motel bills the golf club maker who takes weekly
psychedelic trips and the caddy who kept his loop even after an 11-year prison stint. We learn
how a man on his third heart nearly won the U.S. Open how a Vietnam POW saved his life playing
18 holes a day in his tiny cell and about the course that's absolutely free.We'll visit the
eighteen most unforgettable holes around the world (Reilly has played them all) including the
hole in Indonesia where the biggest hazard is monkeys the one in the Caribbean that's
underwater and the one in South Africa that requires a shot over a pit of alligators not to
mention Reilly's attempt to play the most mini-golf holes in one day. Reilly will admire and
unload on all the great figures in the game from Phil Mickelson to Bobby Jones to the simple
reason Jack Nicklaus is better than Tiger Woods. Reilly will explain why we should stop hating
Bryson DeChambeau unless we hate genius the greatest upset in women's golf history and why
Ernie Els throws away every ball that makes a birdie. Plus all the Greg Norman stories Reilly
has never been able to tell before. Connecting it all will be the story of Reilly's own
personal journey through the game especially as it connects to his tumultuous relationship
with his alcoholic father and how the two eventually reconciled through golf. This is Reilly's
valentine to golf a cornucopia of stories that no golfer will want to be without.
