book data
88 ratings,
3.97
average rating, 38 reviews
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published
November 6th 2007
by Hyperion
binding
Hardcover, 256 pages
isbn
1401302785
(isbn13: 9781401302788)
description
"Eddie Lowery left his first imprint on the game of golf in 1913 as the 10-year-old caddie to underdog U.S. Open champion Francis Ouimet. Best-se...more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 130)
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avg 3.97
editions: all | this edition
editions: all | this edition
Read in January, 2009
If you are into golf, "The Match" is a wonderful narrative. Golf writers tend to romanticize the game and Frost is no exception with endless over the top descriptions. He has canonized his subjects, Nelson, Hogan, Ward and Venturi to such an extent that it interferes with the flow of the story. These men were great golfers at one time and Nelson was a revered idol of the sport, but Hogan, Venturi and Ward were not. That they happened to play a great four ball match at Cypress Point in ...more
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Anyone who has played a round of golf on or for those who have just visited the Monterey Peninsula in California with no intention of stepping on one of the many great courses that populate it knows that it is one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
That gorgeous yet usually benign setting is the backdrop to one of the most dramatic golf matches in the history of the sport.
So much so that it is worthy of simply being called The Match.
Nice title. Drinks at...more
That gorgeous yet usually benign setting is the backdrop to one of the most dramatic golf matches in the history of the sport.
So much so that it is worthy of simply being called The Match.
Nice title. Drinks at...more
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Read in January, 2009
This is fun for anyone who has ever played any sort of competitive golf, even if its just the $5 nassau at your local muni. I marveled at how well these guys performed, granted there was no title at stake, but sometimes playing for pride with your best friends creates even more pressure. Without giving too much away, all 4 players were well under 70 (at Cypress Point) for the day, and the winning difference was a holed-out-from-the-fairway eagle. Other highlights include the history of Bing C...more
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This really isn't a book that I would pick up to read. However, I really enjoyed it! I'm new to the game of golf, so none of the men in the book were immediately recognized. I have heard a few of these names associated with the game, but didn't know anything about them, or how they pursued the game of golf. Much of this book is a history lesson about the game of golf and how it changed as a result of a few individuals. Learning about these men was actually quite interesting. Harvie Ward was the ...more
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Read in May, 2009
An excellent book about a golf match that I am sure most people never knew occurred. A wager between two rich golf patrons, Eddie Lowrey (Francis Ouimet's caddie when Ouimet became the first American to win the U.S. Open) and George Coleman is settled when two amateurs, Harvie Ward and Ken Venturi, play two professional legends, Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan. For any fan of golf, this book is a must read. Switching between the match itself and historical vignettes about the players, golf's trans...more
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Read in May, 2009
Compelling for the portions of history this book captures from the standpoint of golf and half the 20th century. The author finely captures the men, their match, and assorted other characters of the time. A glaring omission, however, is a map of the course. All readers should obtain an aerial view of the course (easily done via an internet mapping service) to follow The Match hole by hole. While the book's descriptions are excellent, a good view only serves to enhance and fulfill the full po...more
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Read in January, 2008
By the same author as Greatest Game Ever Played...this book details a somewhat mythical best ball golf match sad to have occurred at Cypress Point Golf Club in California between the top two professionals of the day Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson (although Nelson was retired from competitive golf at the time of the match) and then amateurs Ken Venturi and Harvy Ward. The book is interesting in the detail of the lives of each player, the match itslf and the events of the surrounding golf world such a...more
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Read in December, 2007
Describing in epic detail a match pitting professionals Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson against amateurs Ken Venturi and Harvie Ward, Mark Frost's third golf history book succeeds just as admirably as his first two. Intricately weaving hole-by-hole accounts of the match with biographies of the four competitors, Frost expands a meaningless exhibition into something that represents the shifting state of 1950s golf (hence the somewhat pretentious subtitle, "The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever"...more
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Read in February, 2008
recommended to Adam by:
Kylerecommends it for: Golfers
This is a compelling story about a best ball match between two famous pros and two famous amateur golfers of their day. If you play golf, this is a very entertaining book and story about some well known greats in the game. If you don't play golf, don't bother reading this one. You probably already knew that just from the title, but you never know. For instance, one of my wife's favorite movies is "Legend of Bagger Vance" and she isn't a golfer. However, she enjoys the philosophy and th...more
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Read in January, 2008
Well, last year I didn't read a golf book until the third book of the year. This year, earlier. Mark Frost is the author of one of my all time favorite golf books, The Greatest Game Ever Played. (Don't watch the movie; I quit halfway...) His new book is called The Match: The day the game of golf changed forever. Again: awesome golf book. Frost gives us the blow by blow on a bestball match played just before the 1956 Bing Crosby between professionals Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson and then amateurs K...more
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Read in May, 2008
Great depth into the history surrounding Hogan, Nelson, Venturi and Ward. I have a better appreciation of what the early pro's went through, thanks to this book's accounting of their hard times. Even though this book didn't focus on the mechanics of golf, reading about how these incredible players played this match has helped me improve my own course management techniques. Frost cleverly leads you into the player's minds on the day of The Match, a journey that surveys each one's background and m...more
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Read in May, 2009
It was fun to read and if I liked golf I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more. (my husband loved it) Since I don't golf the pages describing the holes in great detail were a bit numbing. I did, however, like learning about the main players and what life was like before the PGA tour was as lucrative as today.
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Read in March, 2008
This is a great history book if you're interested in the origins of golf, some of the greatest golf players of all time, and how professional golf took the place of the high-class amateur golf. I wasn't as thrilled with the writing and found the speed of the narrative lagged at times. I also didn't find the subject as interesting as promised, and it was tough to understand certain parts if you don't know everything about how the game is played. But overall, an interesting and informative history...more
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I've always been intrigued by golf as it was played through the 50's by the great legends and this book was not a dissapointment in its description of that era; what fun to hear about Bing Crosby's golf parties before his invitational! Organized to drift between bios of the players, descriptions of the current match, and flashbacks, the book did become difficult to get through toward the end as the back-and-forth writing style made it hard to keep track of what was happening to whom and when. ...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in November, 2007
recommends it for:
golf fans!
Awesome, awesome book. Just like Frost's other golf books, you almost can't read it fast enough. The story has tremendous flow, the descriptions make it very easy to picture the round of golf being played, and just like 'The Greatest' it is a true story. Would make a great holiday gift for all the golf fans out there. Frost needs to come out with another golf history book now! As soon as i finished it i wanted to read it all over again so i could soak up more of the images and story. If yo...more
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Read in October, 2008
recommends it for:
anyone who likes golf and has never heard of Harvie Ward
Frost does a great job of weaving the biographies of the book's principals into the story, offering rich sociological context that helps the reader understand and appreciate their lives and legacies. Frost also succeeds in covering the evolution of the sport as it comes of age in the 30s, 40s and 50s. However his descriptions of Cypress Point were often too grandiose for my taste, and made the actual progression of The Match difficult to follow. I had to go back and read just the chapters about ...more
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Read in February, 2008
Some great golf history. Really well written. Humanizes characters that are talked about as legends.
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Fascinating true story - excellent read for fans of golf and golf history.
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quotes from this book
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body. But rather, to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up,totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming .... WOW what a ride."
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