The Match: The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever by Mark Frost

If you are not a golfer, I don't think you could ever imagine reading a book about golf. Even more challenging this book is about one round of golf. I have played my entire life and just couldn't believe all the great reviews this book has received. In fact this is the second of three amazing golf books by Mark Frost, a novelist (The List of Seven), television producer (Twin Peaks) and scriptwriter (Hill Street Blues). The first book, The Greatest Game Ever Played deftly tells the story behind the legendary 1913 U.S. Open, in which Francis Ouimet, a 20-year-old golf amateur from Massachusetts, shocked the golf world by defeating British champion Harry Vardon, the most famous pro golfer of his time.

In his second book, The Grand Slam : Bobby Jones, America, and the Story of Golf, he re-creates another classic episode in golf history: the Grand Slam won by Bobby Jones in 1930, the only time the U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur, British Open, and British Amateur tournaments were ever won by the same person in the same year.

The third book, and the one we are now finally going to talk about, The Match is a little more obscure. It covers an event that only a few hundred people saw, but is now ledgendary among golf insiders. Basically, two very wealthy men, Eddie Lowery and George Coleman make a bet: my two guys can beat your two guys. Lowery's two guys are Harvie Ward and Ken Venturi, the two best amater golfers in the game, who have not lost a match play event as a pair in four years. Coleman's two guys are Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson, who should need no introduction. The story is enhanced by the fact that the match is played on America's premier golf course, Cypress Point. The story of the match and the descriptions of the course are gripping in and of themselves, but it is the back stories of all those involved and the understanding of golf (and life) in 1956 that is Frost's genius.

I think Ken Venturi's quote sums it up best. "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."