The Sports Bookshelf

Just as Wimbledon has the capacity to make temporary tennis fans from spectators and television viewers who at most other times have no interest in the sport, so the Ryder Cup can stir the normally golf-averse to acquire at least a fleeting fascination with foursomes and fourballs, birdies and bogeys.  It has a special appeal for some players, too, enabling them to escape from the insular, isolated pursuit of glory as an individual to work with familiar rivals towards a common goal, develop camaraderie and experience the singularly uplifting joy of shared success. One who falls into that camp is Sam Torrance, who won 21 tournaments on the European Tour between 1976 and 1998 but will recall two moments in the Ryder Cup as the high points of his career. The first came at The Belfry in 1985 when his 15ft birdie putt at the 18th clinched Europe’s first victory over the United States, ending a run of 13 consecutive wins by the Americans (one shared) since the last outright success by

Not even a hint of a fairytale this time for Tom Watson, who missed the cut after two rounds of the Open at St Andrews.  Perhaps the veteran champion will use his unwanted free time to relive his dramatic near-miss in 2009, which so nearly ended in one of the greatest sports storied of all time. He hardly needs to read a book to know what happened, of course.  Others not so familiar with every detail from Turnberry a year ago could do much worse than pick up a copy of Robert Winder’s Open Secrets: The Extraordinary Battle for the 2009 Open . Winder, a former literary editor of the Independent and author of two novels,  made his first venture into sports writing in the 1990s, culminating in an acclaimed book, Hell For Leather: A Modern Cricket Journey , that was based on the 1996 cricket World Cup in Pakistan. He could not have picked a better year in which to turn his attentions to golf.  Winder followed every turn of the 2009 Open championship, from the qualifying process throu

It is with good reason that St Andrews, on the eastern Scottish coast a couple of hours north of Glasgow, is known as the home of golf.  According to the oldest known historical documentation, the game has been played there at least since 1552.  Although the Scottish Reformation was just around the corner, nothing much could happen at that time, even in the way of leisure pursuits, without the say-so of senior clergy and it was Archbishop John Hamilton who apparently declared that it was okay for the folk of Scotland’s oldest university town to indulge in “playing at golf” on land adjacent to the “waters of [the river] Eden”. There is some evidence to suggest that as early as the 12th century, before even legendary commentator Peter Alliss was born, shepherds in the area amused themselves by knocking stones into rabbit holes. No one then saw the need to adopt formal rules.  That came 600 years later when, in 1754, a group of 22 enthusiasts, “being admirers of the ancient and hea

No instruction manual could teach a golfer to play the extraordinary trees-to-green shot that Phil Mickelson produced at the 13th on the way to winning his third US Masters in Augusta. There is much a player can learn, nonetheless, from the winner of the 2010 green jacket and his phenomenal skills with wedge and putter in Mickelson's Secrets of the Short Game , which can now expect a spike in sales. Mickelson believes that even a golfer of only average ability can become a highly effective short-game player by paying proper attention to mechanics and set-up and combining that scientific approach with a willingness to be imaginative. Published last autumn, the 224-page manual passes on some of the wisdom Mickelson has acquired over 35 years, since his first steps in the game as a small boy. By holding off Britain's Lee Westwood, Mickelson joined the company of Nick Faldo, Sam Snead and Gary Player in having won three Masters titles.  But for the presence of four-times win

Tiger Woods' upcoming return to the golf course will be good news for authors Steve Helling and Robert Lusetich, who have been racing neck and neck to have their tales of the world number one's fall from grace hit the book shops. So far, it seems that Helling, a Florida-based writer for People Magazine, might get to tee off first, although only by a matter of days. Helling's Tiger: The Real Story (Da Capo Press) reckons to provide "a never-before-seen portrait" of the troubled star, drawn from interviews with "intimate sources, many speaking out for the first time". Lusetich, a senior columnist for FoxSports.com who reported on Woods throughout 2009, describes how the player "built a public persona at odds with his private life" in his account, Unplayable: An Inside Account of Tiger's Most Tumultuous Season (Simon and Schuster). The Helling version is due out on May 20th, a week ahead of Lusetich's. Click on the links to pre-