Fairways and Greens

"Tell me about plumbing, fine. Tell me about carpentry, terrace gardening, the timer on VCRs. Go ahead and explain cellophane. Tell me about all of these things, but don't try to tell me about golf, okay? Golf I know." After four decades of covering golf - not to mention, as he puts it, "playing scratch from the blues and gambling for my own money when I didn't have any" - Dan Jenkins definitely knows golf. He may, in fact, know the game better than anyone on the planet, and when it comes to writing about it he's the acknowledged grand master. Now, in this long-awaited collection, he brings together his best writing on the game, from serious pieces on timeless classics like the 1954 Masters and the 1960 Open to humorous takes on everything from "The Best Things in Golf" (the best bar is Club XIX in the Pebble Beach Lodge) to the most annoying: "A man who knows his exact slope, " "Shorts and anklets, " and "The 23-handicapper who goes out in 37." Jenkins also lends his sage advice on what to avoid when taking up the game after a ten-year layoff: "It's no big secret that the game of golf requires grave concentration to be played decently, so it is not altogether to your advantage while you're standing over a 5-iron shot to be thinking, 'I've got to remember to get some Freon in the Toyota.'" With a cast that includes everyone from Hogan, Palmer, and Nicklaus to all of the lurkers and spoilers on the PGA tour, Fairways and Greens is a timeless addition to great golf literature and will surely be embraced by anyone with even the slightest passion for the game of golf.