The Culture of Golf - Isn't It Just a Game?
The Culture of Golf - Isn't It Just a Game?

Author: Laurence A. Hirsh

Publisher: Bookbaby

Published: 2021-10-06

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 9781098386887

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My purpose in developing this book is twofold. As a golf and club industry consultant I hope to help more clubs thrive economically by providing food for thought about how to make the game grow. As a lifelong and socially sensitive golfer, I hope to help the game grow while making it more inclusive and look more like society in general. Golf has been my avocation and my vocation for nearly 40 years. It's the greatest game there is and I feel like its culture is the game's own worst enemy. The Culture of Golf - Isn't it Just a Game? is intended to provoke thought among golfers, golf leaders, course owners, club leaders and others about how the game can grow while preserving the game's best traditions and evolving beyond some of the others. I believe golf should be reaching a broader segment of the population, not be elitist and aspirational. It's the game of a lifetime and its virtues can be shared more widely and benefit more people, all while making the game healthier.

Seven Games: A Human History
Seven Games: A Human History

Author: Oliver Roeder

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2022-01-25

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 1324003782

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A group biography of seven enduring and beloved games, and the story of why—and how—we play them. Checkers, backgammon, chess, and Go. Poker, Scrabble, and bridge. These seven games, ancient and modern, fascinate millions of people worldwide. In Seven Games, Oliver Roeder charts their origins and historical importance, the delightful arcana of their rules, and the ways their design makes them pleasurable. Roeder introduces thrilling competitors, such as evangelical minister Marion Tinsley, who across forty years lost only three games of checkers; Shusai, the Master, the last Go champion of imperial Japan, defending tradition against “modern rationalism”; and an IBM engineer who created a backgammon program so capable at self-learning that NASA used it on the space shuttle. He delves into the history and lore of each game: backgammon boards in ancient Egypt, the Indian origins of chess, how certain shells from a particular beach in Japan make the finest white Go stones. Beyond the cultural and personal stories, Roeder explores why games, seemingly trivial pastimes, speak so deeply to the human soul. He introduces an early philosopher of games, the aptly named Bernard Suits, and visits an Oxford cosmologist who has perfected a computer that can effectively play bridge, a game as complicated as human language itself. Throughout, Roeder tells the compelling story of how humans, pursuing scientific glory and competitive advantage, have invented AI programs better than any human player, and what that means for the games—and for us. Funny, fascinating, and profound, Seven Games is a story of obsession, psychology, history, and how play makes us human.

A Course Called Ireland
A Course Called Ireland

Author: Tom Coyne

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2010-02-02

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 1592405282

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The hysterical story bestseller about one man's epic Celtic sojourn in search of ancestors, nostalgia, and the world's greatest round of golf By turns hilarious and poetic, A Course Called Ireland is a magnificent tour of a vibrant land and paean to the world's greatest game in the tradition of Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods. In his thirties, married, and staring down impending fatherhood, Tom Coyne was familiar with the last refuge of the adult male: the golfing trip. Intent on designing a golf trip to end all others, Coyne looked to Ireland, the place where his father has taught him to love the game years before. As he studied a map of the island and plotted his itinerary, it dawn on Coyne that Ireland was ringed with golf holes. The country began to look like one giant round of golf, so Coyne packed up his clubs and set off to play all of it-on foot. A Course Called Ireland is the story of a walking-averse golfer who treks his way around an entire country, spending sixteen weeks playing every seaside hole in Ireland. Along the way, he searches out his family's roots, discovers that a once-poor country has been transformed by an economic boom, and finds that the only thing tougher to escape than Irish sand traps are Irish pubs.

Commander in Cheat
Commander in Cheat

Author: Rick Reilly

Publisher: Hachette Books

Published: 2019-04-02

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 031652784X

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Reilly pokes more holes in Trump's claims than there are sand traps on all of his courses combined. It is by turns amusing and alarming."-- The New Yorker "Golf is the spine of this shocking, wildly humorous book, but humanity is its flesh and spirit." -- Chicago Sun-Times "Every one of Trump's most disgusting qualities surfaces in golf." -- The Ringer An outrageous indictment of Donald Trump's appalling behavior when it comes to golf -- on and off the green -- and what it reveals about his character. Donald Trump loves golf. He loves to play it, buy it, build it, and operate it. He owns 14 courses around the world and runs another five, all of which he insists are the best on the planet. He also claims he's a 3 handicap, almost never loses, and has won an astonishing 18 club championships. How much of all that is true? Almost none of it, acclaimed sportswriter Rick Reilly reveals in this unsparing look at Trump in the world of golf. Based on Reilly's own experiences with Trump as well as interviews with over 100 golf pros, amateurs, developers, and caddies, Commander in Cheat is a startling and at times hilarious indictment of Trump and his golf game. You'll learn how Trump cheats (sometimes with the help of his caddies and Secret Service agents), lies about his scores (the "Trump Bump"), tells whoppers about the rank of his courses and their worth (declaring that every one of them is worth $50 million), and tramples the etiquette of the game (driving on greens doesn't help). Trump doesn't brag so much, though, about the golf contractors he stiffs, the course neighbors he intimidates, or the way his golf decisions wind up infecting his political ones. For Trump, it's always about winning. To do it, he uses the tricks he picked up from the hustlers at the public course where he learned the game as a college kid, and then polished as one of the most bombastic businessmen of our time. As Reilly writes, "Golf is like bicycle shorts. It reveals a lot about a man." Commander in Cheat "paints a side-splitting portrait of a congenital cheater" (Esquire), revealing all kinds of unsightly truths Trump has been hiding.

The Player of Games
The Player of Games

Author: Iain M. Banks

Publisher: Orbit

Published: 2009-12-01

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0316095869

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The Culture — a human/machine symbiotic society — has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board, computer and strategy. Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game. . . a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh accepts the game, and with it the challenge of his life — and very possibly his death. The Culture Series Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons The State of the Art Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata

The Passion of Tiger Woods
The Passion of Tiger Woods

Author: Orin Starn

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2011-12-12

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 0822352109

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Starn examines the career of Tiger Woods, from child star to global sports celebrity. The author shows that the scandal following the revelation of Tiger's infidelities was like many similar media-generated scandals of recent years, and he brings an anthropologist's perspective to bear on Tigergate.

A Course Called America
A Course Called America

Author: Tom Coyne

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2022-05-17

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 1982128062

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In 'A Course Called America', Tom Coyne plays his way across the United States in search of the great American golf course. Packed with fascinating tales from American golf history, comic road misadventures, illuminating insight into course design, and many a memorable round with local golfers, this book is an epic narrative travelogue brimming with heart and soul.

Extraordinary Golf: the Art of the Possible
Extraordinary Golf: the Art of the Possible

Author: Fred Shoemaker

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 1997-04-01

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 9780399522765

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Most golfers approach the tee with a complex mental package: worries and judgments about their swing, the other person's swing, the course, the weather, looking good, looking bad. They think about what's wrong instead of what's possible, and this is what Extraordinary Golf teaches: the art of the possible. Drawing on his experience teaching both amateurs and professionals for more than fifteen years, in his clinics around the country, in his Golf in the Kingdom seminars at the Esalen Institute, and at his own School for Extraordinary Golf in California, Shoemaker shows how extraordinary golf can be coached, learned, and practiced, with results not only in people's scores but in their sheer pleasure in the game. Combining a host of practical exercises with an entirely new point of view, he demonstrates how to focus not on the voices in your head but on the reality of golf: the club, the ball, your body, the course - the elements that actually make up your game. He shows how to approach shots creatively, instead of mechanically; how to read greens simply by staying awake; how to develop a powerful and consistent swing by rediscovering trust for your instincts; and how to improve yourself in competition by determining what you're competing for. He also gives simple guidelines on how to coach yourself, your spouse, and your children successfully.

Preferred Lies
Preferred Lies

Author: Andrew Greig

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2007-12-10

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9780312372996

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A memoir of recovery by a Scottish novelist, poet, and golfer describes how he nearly lost his life before a last-ditch operation, his inspiration to resume playing golf after three decades, and his visits to courses on the Orkney Islands and St. Andrews.

Every Shot Must Have a Purpose
Every Shot Must Have a Purpose

Author: Pia Nilsson

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2005-09-22

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 9781592401574

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Two legendary coaches give golfers a powerful new approach to the game... and to life. As coaches to some of golf’s top players, Pia Nilsson and Lynn Marriott have designed and refined a revolutionary way of teaching the game, with phenomenal results. They don’t believe in prescribing the same stance, grip, and swing to everyone, followed by hours of purposeless drilling. They don’t even believe in beginning with physical technique. Their success has proven to them that a great game begins with a great vision. Unlike any other golf book, Every Shot Must Have a Purpose offers cutting-edge techniques for integrating the physical, technical, mental, emotional, and social parts of a player’s game. The book’s revolutionary pre-shot routine will improve your focus, leading to a golf swing that is not only successful but can be repeated under extreme pressure. Emphasizing the individual golfer rather than a rigid set of mechanics, their VISION54 method takes the frustration out of the game. Why 54? Because they believe it’s possible to shoot a 54 (making a birdie on every hole of a par-72 course) if you have the right mind-set and well-honed intuitive power. An engaging read for the beginner or the seasoned golfer, Every Shot Must Have a Purpose is inspiration for life, not just the links.