The Match - The Day the Game of Golf changed Forever - Available in HardBack

The Match

Synopsis:

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.

Review:
Frost has done it again! A superb retelling of American golf history, this time a sudden come together dream match brought on by two titan entrepeneurs pitting pro golfers versus amateurs. The last surviving of this foursome, Venturi, called it a dream match so good even fiction could not touch.

He was right. It is a magnificent event, with Eddie Lowery of Ouimet fame (Frost's other excellent golf book) and George Coleman arranging a bet pitting Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson against Ken Venturi and Harvie Ward. He sets up the match at renown Cypress Point by setting the stage with all the characters and their development, weaving a fascinating stream of characters such as Bing Crosby into the showdown.

He gives the replay hole-by-hole interspersed with the background development of each player, such as would haunt most of us walking to play the next shot. This makes for rather dramatic reading as one can't wait to hear what unfolds on the next swing and hole.

For the avid reader of golf as this reviewer, I knew most of the background on all the players except for Harvie Ward, whom I could not recall ever hearing about, but he certainly was a remarkable player. All three thought this of him. Venturi said one time at Augusta when asked about Ward, "Take Nicklaus at his best, and Ward at his best. I'll take Ward." Quite the compliment.

This is treasured golf lore, which will serve our sport well. Certainly hope that Frost will follow this one as well with a movie version. Please?