By Mark Frost
List Price: $24.95
Price: $16.47 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com
56 new or used available from $13.00
Average customer review:
Product Description
"It's difficult to beat a good golf book, be it a good yarn or a picture book . . . The golf is spectacular, the course more so, the descriptions luminous."
--USA Today
"The untold story of golf's greatest money match, featuring Hogan and Nelson at Cypress Point, comes to life in . . . Mark Frost's gripping new book, The Match."
--Golf magazine
"Frost weaves an exceptional narrative . . . It's a gripping tale--as good as James Patterson, John Grisham, or any other contemporary novelist could create. And all true. The match comes down to the 18th hole, and you'll be the winner once you turn the last page."
--Met Golfer
"Frost masterfully puts the reader not just on the scene, but in the time, too, with terrific storytelling."
--The State (South Carolina)
"Frost captures an elusive magic in this improbable matchup and what it meant for those who played and witnessed it."
--Publishers Weekly
"The Match was a dream I never thought would come true. If I hadn't been there I wouldn't believe it myself, and if you know anything about sports or the game of golf, once you pick up this book you won't put it down. No one will ever see an event like this again. Fiction can't touch it."
--Ken Venturi
The year: 1956. Four decades have passed since Eddie Lowery came to fame as the ten-year-old caddie to U.S. Open Champion Francis Ouimet. Now a wealthy car dealer and avid supporter of amateur golf, Lowery has just made a bet with fellow millionaire George Coleman. Lowery claims that two of his employees, amateur golfers Harvie Ward and Ken Venturi, cannot be beaten in a best-ball match. Lowery challenges Coleman to bring any two golfers of his choice to the course at 10 a.m. the next day to settle the issue.
Coleman accepts the challenge and shows up with his own power team: Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson, the game's greatest living professionals, with fourteen major championships between them.
In Mark Frost's peerless hands, complete with the recollections of all the participants, the story of this immortal foursome and the game they played that day--legendarily known in golf circles as the greatest private match ever played--comes to life with powerful, emotional impact and edge-of-your-seat suspense.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #4533 in Books
Brand: Booklegger
Published on: 2007-11-06
Released on: 2007-11-06
Original language: English
Number of items: 1
Binding: Hardcover
272 pages
Features
Hard Cover
The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In 1956, millionaires Eddie Lowery and George Coleman made an off-the-cuff bet on a golf match and inadvertently set up one of the sport's most climactic duels; this one casual game has become the sport's great suburban legend. Frost (The Greatest Game Ever Played) diligently covers the two pros slightly past their prime, Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson, who squared off against two top amateurs, Harvie Ward and Ken Venturi. It happened in the last hours of Hogan's playing career, and ten years after Byron had left the stage, but at the near pinnacle of the amateurs', whose personalities couldn't have been more diametrically opposed (Venturi the classic up-and-comer, and Ward the inveterate playboy who performed hungover on two hours' sleep). The match itself, scrupulously teased out by Frost for maximum drama, is less interesting than the people involved and the historical backdrop. The match happened near the sport's great cusp, as it transitioned from something for amateurs to a professional career, from a pastime for wastrel aristocrats and entertainers (and Bing Crosby, with his annual booze-soaked Clambake charity matches) to a mainstream suburban obsession. Frost has a penchant toward the florid, but as he writes, Because he was Ben Hogan, and it was just past twilight, and his like would never pass this way again, he captures an elusive magic in this improbable matchup and what it meant for those who played and witnessed it. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"The Match was a dream I never thought would come true. If I hadn't been there I wouldn't believe it myself, and if you know anything about sports or the game of golf, once you pick up this book you won't put it down. No one will ever see an event like this again. Fiction can't touch it." -- Ken Venturi
From the Inside Flap
The bestselling author of The Greatest Game Ever Played returns with the story of the little-known match that forever changed the history of golf.
The year: 1956. Four decades have passed since Eddie Lowery came to fame as the ten-year-old caddie to U.S. Open Champion Francis Ouimet. Now a wealthy car dealer and avid supporter of amateur golf, Lowery has just made a bet with fellow millionaire George Coleman. Lowery claims that two of his employees, amateur golfers Harvie Ward and Ken Venturi, cannot be beaten in a best-ball match. Lowery challenges Coleman to bring any two golfers of his choice to the course at 10 a.m. the next day to settle the issue.
Coleman accepts the challenge and shows up with his own power team: Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson, the game's greatest living professionals, with fourteen major championships between them.
In Mark Frost's peerless hands, complete with the recollections of all the participants, the story of this immortal foursome and the game they played that day--legendarily known in golf circles as the greatest private match ever played--comes to life with powerful, emotional impact and edge-of-your-seat suspense.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Customer Reviews
Another golf masterpiece from Mark Frost
If you like golf, and I mean REALLY like golf, Mark Frost is probably no stranger to you and your bookshelf. Again, he plays out a little piece of golf history in a great story from the Pebble Beach glory days. Ben Hogan, Ken Venturi, Bing Crosby, and a host of other notables create a real cast of characters in the 1950's era of the "Clambake". If you enjoy the game, you will no doubt enjoy the book.
Terrific Read!
Bought for my son, a PGM student at PSU - per his request. Read it over the Christmas Holidays after he did; one of the best books I've read recently. Learned a tremendous amount about the history of golf, the personalities of Nelson, Hogan, Venturi and Ward. Loved the hole by hole play at Cypress Point. Descriptive language was captivating and I could envision the landscapes and the match as it unfolded. Really enjoyed the commentary about the architectural features of the course; i.e. what the architect planned for "the game". I'm new to the game (5 years) and would recommend this book to every golfer!
The Match - great read
The Match is a fantastic read for any golfer, or those who love a great story on sports involving major participants that helped make the game what it is today. This is a telling of a one-of-kind incident that will never happen again
