This well‐written history of the PGA Tour has a lot to commend it and is balanced in its comments concerning US, European and Commonwealth players. Even to a non‐golfer like myself, it makes a fascinating read and certainly must make a welcome addition to golfing reference books. It is not written in the dry style of a book purely for reference, but is full of interesting anecdotes about the players and their lives. The author, Mike Gabriel, is director of Libraries at Lower Columbia College in Longview, Washington and obviously knows his stuff, as his enthusiasm for the game shows through. The introduction sets the scene by suggesting that “The marquee players of the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) Tour are a perennial source of fascination for golf fans, and the history of the sport is appreciated best if seen through the eyes and memories of the professional stars whose individual personalities and characters have coloured the sport. The lives and careers of golf superstars have supplied a loadstone of anecdote and legend. Decade by decade through the twentieth century, one charismatic player after another strove to dominate the tour ‐ Walter Hagen and Bobby Jones in the 1920s and 1930s, Ben Hogan and Sam Snead in the 1940s and 1950s, and Arnold Palmer propelling the sport to unprecedented popularity in the 1960s before being superseded by Jack Nicklaus”.
The book deals with each decade chapter by chapter. The early history of golf is chronicled up to the 1920s in the first chapter and deals with the development of golfing clubs in the USA and the rise of stars such as Walter Hagen and Bobby Jones who are mentioned in the foreword. Following on to the decade of the 1920s we read that US golf courses took great pride in the numbers and size of their sand traps or “bunkers”. However, the newly built course at Augusta, which was to play such an important part in US golfing history and became a major tournament site, differed in that it only had 29 such bunkers, compared with, say, Oakwood, which had over 200 and added more for the 1925 US Open.
The 1930s saw Jones still playing as an amateur, and the likes of Hogan, Sarazen, Farrell, Mehlhorn, Barnes and Armour competing as professionals. During the mid‐late 1920s a prosperous golf tour came into being. At first it was a winter excursion, starting in Los Angeles and then moving across the Southern USA in a pattern somewhat similar to the PGA Tour today. The chapter on the 1930s continues the story with a well researched history of US golf during this period and a run‐down of the flamboyant personalities making the tour including Gene Sarazen and Tommy Armour ‐ the latter a Scot who had served in the Tank Regiment and risen to the rank of Major in the First World War.
The chapters on the 1940s and 1950s follow on in the same vein, detailing the near fatal accident of Ben Hogan and his wife in their Cadillac, Hogan’s subsequent comeback despite his severe injuries, and his victory in the British Open of 1953. Once the war was over, the USA benefited from the strong economic conditions and this, in turn, contributed to the growth of professional golf in the 1950s. Golfers such as Arnold Palmer rose to fame, as did Orville Moody and Tony Lema and, eventually, Gary Player. The 1960s brought Jack Nicklaus to prominence ‐ he became a great rival to Palmer ‐ and they continued to be rivals until well into the 1970s. This decade featured Tom Watson along with Johnny Miller, Curtis Strange and Lee Trevino.
During the 1980s, events took a different turn and European and New World players began to dominate the Americans. Greg Norman from Australia appeared on the scene, as did Seve Ballesteros from Spain, Nick Faldo (England), Bernhard Langer (Germany), Ian Woosnam (Wales) and Sandy Lyle (Scotland), and these players took the golfing circuits by storm. The reasons for the US demise are discussed ‐ it is thought that the European and Commonwealth players were more competitive and had a greater will to win. Nicklaus felt that US players had become complacent. This situation continued into the 1990s when US players were overshadowed by such stars as Greg Norman, Nick Price, Nick Faldo and South African Ernie Els.
The Senior PGA Tour was now attracting more interest from the fans, because they could watch such crowd favourites (now into their 50s) as Sam Snead, Gardner Dickinson and Gene Sarazen. These events were great favourites on TV also and the Senior Tour became more and more successful as the 1990s wore on, completely overshadowing the original PGA Tour. However, in 1996, the Tour entered a new era with the emergence of Tiger Woods, the superstar of the decade. He was the youngest winner ‐ at 18 ‐ in the history of the US Open ‐ even Jack Nicklaus did not win this event until 19 years of age.
Discussion follows concerning the prejudice against Black and Native American golf players, which existed for over 50 years. Talented players such as Bill Spiller, Lee Elder and Charlie Sifford were often refused admittance to “whites only” clubs and prevented from entering tournaments on an equal footing with their white counterparts. Happily, matters have now improved and Tiger Woods has paved the way for more talented non‐white players to come to the fore. The next two chapters cover the history of golf course architecture in the USA and the improvement of technology and equipment. There is a concluding chapter on great US golfers and golf rivalries, a good bibliography and index.
The book is published in soft back and, at £36.60, is a trifle expensive by UK standards. However, it makes a good and well‐researched read and deserves a place on the sporting reference shelves. Recommended.
