A couple of recommended books on the British Open. Bothare in my personal library:

Curt Sampson is one of my favorite golf writers, and although Royal and Ancient: Blood, Sweat, and Fear at the British Open isn’t his best effort, it still offers many interesting insights into the game. It’s especially interesting this year, as it focuses on the 1999 Open at Carnoustie—also the site of the 2007 event.

The best part of the book is at the end, when he takes the reader through the notorious collapse of Jean Van De Velde.

Duel in the Sun: Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus in the Battle of Turnberry by Michael Corcoran offers a look at the Open Championship through the lens of the 1977 duel between Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson at Turnberry.

Tommy’s Honor: The Story of Old Tom Morris and Young Tom Morris, Golf’s Founding Father and Son

by Kevin Cook

Grade: A
Teacher’s Comments: The tragic story of golf’s founding father and son. An excellent read.

If you have even a passing familiarity with Old and Young Tom Morris, then you know that their story is—at its core—a tragedy.

Old Tom was the game’s first true club pro, whose innovations in greenskeeping, course architecture and management still resonate today. His son, Young Tom, was the game’s first touring pro—a full time golfer who never stooped to caddy or tend greens. Together, they dominated the game’s early years, winning eight of the first twelve Open Championships., as well as numerous other early golfing events.

In Tommy’s Honor, Kevin Cook offers readers a pair of compelling biographies and an account of the barnstorming days at the dawn of professional golf. It is beautifully written easily transporting the reader to a different time and place.

Old Tom was an ambitious man, beginning his career as an apprentice maker of “featheries”, the early feather-stuffed, leather golf balls. He also was an accomplished player, upon whom “gentlemen” bet large sums of money during matches (he received but little of this, though, apparently thought of more as a “racehorse” than anything else.)

After being fired from his featherie job for playing one of the new gutta percha ball, Old Tom moved to Prestwick to build and maintain a new golf course there. It was the first of many of his designs.  Later, he would return to St. Andrews, where he turned the ancient sheep pastures in the linksland into the “home of golf.”

Son Tom (actually the second son by that name, the first having died as a toddler), brought up at St Andrews, was a natural and bold golfer who played the game in ways that the old guard—his father included—had never conveived. Tom played for money, and by winning bets and staging exhibition matches, earned as much in a month as a working man Scot earned in a year. Still, his choice of career apparently disappointed his mother, as Young Tom was relatively well educated for the day. After spending a considerable sum on Young Tom’s education, Nancy Morris hoped that her son might take up a profession that would move him up the social ladder.

And moving up the social ladder was an important consideration, for there were enormous class differences at the time.To his dying day, Old Tom Morris, who made St. Andrews what it is today; who virtually created golf as we know it, never once set foot inside the R&A Clubhouse. He was a servant, and nothing more. (It was not until 1920 that professional golfers were allowed in the locker room at a club that sponsored the US Open. That door was opened by Walter Hagen and the members of Inverness Golf Club in Toledo.)

The class system also extended to the middle and lower classes, where the sons of book keepers would never stoop to marry the daughters of coal miners. On this point, too, Young Tom bucked the system. He married Margaret Drinnen, daughter of a miner, a woman of questionable reputation who already had borne a child out of wedlock. Old Tom did not even attend the ceremony.

I’ll not spoil the ending for those who are not familiar with the story. But I will say that it moved me.

Tommy’s Honor is more than a straight biography, though. While telling the stories of Old and Young Tom, Cook also manages to offer great insight into their time and place. It’s my favorite kind of history—a book that illuminates an entire era through a single event or biography (such as the 1913 US Open in The Greatest Game Ever Played . (Another favorite is a book that takes a single invention, product or idea, and traces its impact through all of history, as in Salt: A World History ).

One of the most interesting things to me—as a golfer—are the accounts of the various matches played by Old and Young Tom. Golf in the mid 1800s was a considerably different game. Strategies were different; distance were shorter; courses were much rougher; expectations were different. Cook’s descriptions are vivid and informing, and I learned quite a bit.

Tommy’s Honor is a must read if you have any interest in the history of golf.

The Plane Truth for Golfers Master Class

Grade: A
Teacher’s Comments; A vital addition the Plane Truth series.

The Plane Truth for Golfers: Master Class is another in Jim Hardy’s excellent series of books and DVDs explaining his theories about the golf swing.

For the uninitiated, Hardy’s premise is that there are two basic golf swings: the “One Plane” and the “Two Plane.” Either, Hardy says, is a perfectly acceptable—and championship winning—form. The trouble comes when a golfer mixes elements of the two. The One Plane tends to be too shallow and too wide, so the setup, grip, and other elements have to work to make the swing a little more steep and a little more narrow. The Two Plane tends to be too steep and too narrow, so the golfer using this must adopt tactics to make the swing a little wider and a little more shallow. Therefore, if One Plane elements slip into your Two Plane swing, that’s just going to exacerbate the bad tendencies of the Two Plane.

You can read a review of the original book here, and the DVD here.

A welcome addition to the Plane Truth series is the Plane Truth Master Class. It is not a stand-alone book, but rather a series of tips and drills to get you on the proper path to success. Hardy eschews theory here, and works almost exclusively on the mechanics.

The best part of the book is the “Fact versus Feel” parts of each chapter. In those sections, Hardy explains what technically must happen with the swing, and tries to convey what that feels like.

For example:

“The key fact for the two-plane golfer is that he or she must turn both the torso and the hips as fully as possible on the backswing. ... When you make the ideal two-plane backswing, it will feel as though your shoulders and hips have turned way too far in a clockwise direction.”

Assuming that you do not have a Jim Hardy trained instructor standing right beside you, how it “feels” is your primary means of determining whether you are on track.The book clears up most of the lingering confusions I’ve had on how to execute the two swings.

Hardy also lists a series of swing faults, drills for correcting them. Each drill is accompanied by photos of Hardy demonstrating the swing.

In all, I think that the Plane Truth: Master Class is an essential addition.
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The Plane Truth series is the first golf instruction book that has made an immediate and real impact on my swing. I realize that for years, I have been combining elements of the two swing types, adding bits of advice from the various teachers that I have worked with, and tips and drills from the golf magazines.The result was a mismatched swing that was horribly ineffective.

Last summer, I tried to convert to the One Plane Swing and saw immediate results in terms of consistency. But it never felt quite right, for I had always been taught to keep my weight back and my head behind the ball (correction moves for the Two Plane swing). So this spring, I reread the section on the Two Plane Swing and switched back. It has felt much more comfortable and natural. The results have been astonishing. I am 20 yards longer with each of my irons and a couple of the guys I’ve golfed with have commented on good my swing looks. Last week, I shot an 85 from the back tees.

Even better: when I mishit, I know immediately what it was that I didn’t do. My typical mishit has me striking the top of the ball, which is the natural tendency of the Two Planer. When I do that, I know to take corrective setup moves (generally, making sure that I have my weight back) to make the swing a little less narrow and steep.

My one problem with the Two Plane is that I have not yet figured out how to hit the driver. The flatter, around-the-body motion of the One Plane was very effective for me off the tee. But with the Two Plane, I am coming in too steep and popping my shots up. I can correct that, but then it feels asl though I am executing a One Plane and that’s not what I want to do.

I need Jim Hardy to tell me what I’m doing wrong. But as I can’t possibly afford even a single lesson with the Guru, I’ll have to keep studying the books and movies.

FYI. When you get the book, look on the fourth page in the beginning, under “Praise for The Plane Truth” There, you’ll find a quote from The Golf Blogger himself.  Maybe one day, I’ll have Jim Hardy do a comment in the forward pages of The Golf Blogger’s first book.

To promote his upcoming book, Sudden Death, author Michael Balkind is giving away an Odyssey Steel Putter (each month until the book comes out in October). You also can win an autographed copy of the book. Just visit the site to register: http://www.michaelbalkind.com

Tales from Q School: Inside Golf’s Fifth Major

by John Feinstein

Grade: A
Teacher’s Comments: A good, but often heartbreaking read.

In “Tales from Q School”, John Feinstein offers woe and rumors of woe.

The veteran golf writer’s account of the 2005 PGA Tour Qualifying School is easily one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve read in a long while (it might even be tops if not for the recent acount I read of medical conditions in Haiti).

I’m sure Feinstein didn’t’ mean it that way, and in fact there are a number of uplifting stories, but it’s the tragic near misses that stick in my mind; the guys who fell just short of qualifying for the PGA Tour because of an unlucky break or a mis-signed card at Q-School.

Qualifying School – or Q-School – is the PGA Tour’s annual tournament for new players, and for current players who fell outside the top 125 on the previous year’s money list. In 2005, more than a thousand veterans and talented newcomers attempted to make it through three (it’s now four) tournament stages, all vying for the thirty tour cards handed out at the end.

Tales from Q School tells the stories of a large number of individual players, some familiar, some not. Along with relative unknowns are former Masters Champion Larry Mize , Casey Martin, Bob May, and Bill Haas, son of Tour stalwart Jay Haas. 

Focusing on key points in each of the three stages, Feinstein introduces the players, tells how they arrived at Q School and reports on their performance. Not a blow-by-blow account of the rounds, it’s rather a series of revealing vignettes. The tales are full of both glory and pathos.

The Tour’s Q School makes for great drama because everyone at the tournament is playing for the realization of their dreams – membership on the PGA Tour. And it’s the dreams and the dreamers that make Tales from Q School such an enthralling read.