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The historical Mason-Dixon line has more meaning to most golfers than the traditional colloquial boundary between the Union and the Confederacy. For many of us it also denotes the line between year-round golfing locales and those communities that suffer from some period of below-freezing climate that makes visits to the golf course difficult if not impossible. For those who find themselves frozen out of golf for a portion of the year, the days from the end of the Super Bowl in early February until mid-March are when the virus better known as the "golf bug" begins to manifest itself. Weekend afternoons normally spent on the course are instead spent in the den watching tournaments from balmy locales such as Hawaii, California and Florida. Information about the annual merchandise extravaganza held in Florida is eagerly sought because all golfers firmly believe that this year's new equipment will finally cure all the ailments of their game.
The transition period from winter to spring also proves to be bountiful for publishers of golf books. Taking advantage of increased interest in the sport, publishers seem to find March and April to be the prime time to release multiple tomes on the subject. Coinciding with these months is the added interest created by the first of golf's major championships, The Masters Tournament, held each April at the Augusta National golf course in Augusta, Georgia. The Masters has cultivated its own legends and history, and many writers take advantage of that lore to publish books relating to that championship event.
For those who treat golf as something akin to religion, the great golf courses of the world are the temples of the game. Augusta National Golf Club is surely one of those shrines. The history of Augusta National is well-known to every avid golfer. Upon his retirement from competitive golf, Bobby Jones sought to establish a golf course that would reflect in its design many of the philosophies of the game that had been instilled in Jones during his playing days. Once the course was established, a spring tournament was created to help publicize the location and to allow the game's great players, both professional and amateur, to spend time together in a competitive event.
 A half-century later, Augusta National and the Masters are a cornerstone of golfing mythology. Golfers from around the world pray for an opportunity to walk the hallowed grounds of Augusta National and see the beauty of the course and its design. The opportunity to play the course is beyond the wildest dream of most golfers. While it can never compare to an actual visit to Augusta, THE AUGUSTA NATIONAL GOLF CLUB: Alister MacKenzie's Masterpiece, by Stan Byrdy, may be as good a written substitute as could ever be accomplished.
In detail that is both meticulous and entertaining, Byrdy traces the creation of Augusta from its days as the Fruitland Nursery. While Augusta may have been the creation of Bobby Jones, there were other significant contributors to its establishment. In 1929, Jones traveled to the U.S. Amateur at Pebble Beach. Prior to the tournament, Jones played Cypress Point, a course designed by Alister MacKenzie. Jones was eliminated from the Amateur in a first round upset. With unplanned extra time he ventured to another MacKenzie-designed course, Pasatiempo. There he met the architect and they shared thoughts on course design. When it came time for Jones to create his dream course, MacKenzie was the architect he wanted for the task.
Byrdy gives the reader far more than a history of Augusta and the Masters. Hole by hole, in elegant detail, the various changes in strategic design, bunker location, removal and planting of trees, and the reason for each decision are presented to the reader. Historical occurrences on each hole, along with photographs of the holes through the years, all serve to make this book an Augusta and Masters encyclopedia. If you have been to Augusta you will want this volume to remind you in words and pictures how awesome the experience was. If you have not had the pleasure of walking the course, this book may be one of the best substitutes available.
 As a tournament the Masters and Augusta National have not been without controversy. In recent years debate has raged over female membership. In the 1960s, debate often arose over the absence of African-American golfers. In 1968, the Masters may have suffered its most famous on-course embarrassment: a scoring dispute that cost golfer Roberto De Vincenzo the symbolic green jacket awarded to the tournament champion, perhaps sports most recognized item of clothing. Curt Sampson, an accomplished golf historian, has chronicled the tragedy of that Masters championship in THE LOST MASTERS: Grace and Disgrace in '68. His effort is a fascinating and detailed account of a memorable golf championship played during a turbulent moment in American history.
If sports are a vehicle by which most of us forget the day-to-day troubles of the world, the 1968 Masters never could have come at a better time. The country was divided over the ongoing war in Vietnam, a debate that had recently led to the decision of President Lyndon Johnson not to seek re-election. A bitter civil rights debate raged across America, as protests and violence were common occurrences. In early April, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, and communities across the country burned. Masters week began with the country very much in need of a sports distraction to take its minds off of the political strife swirling across the land.
Professional golf of the late '60s was the bailiwick of golfing legends Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. They had dominated Masters tournaments throughout the decade, each achieving multiple-year victories. But neither Nicklaus nor Palmer would be a factor in 1968. Instead former University of Illinois football player Bob Goalby and Argentina's Roberto De Vicenzo, the 1967 British Open champion, dominated the tournament. They battled to the final holes with victory determined by an error on De Vincenzo's scorecard. Sampson sets the stage for the final round and vividly portrays all that was occurring, on the course, in the scoring tent, and in the cabin where an ailing Bobby Jones would ultimately decide the tournament winner. THE LOST MASTERS is an invaluable addition to the library of any golf reader.
 Golf's continued popularity has resulted in greater attention to the early days of the game. The professional careers of Nicklaus, Palmer and Tiger Woods owe their success to early golfing legends who established the game before television regularly brought tournaments to America's homes. Long before golfers achieved the status of multi-millionaire athletes, there was a golden era of the game when true amateur golfers regularly competed with their professional counterparts and often emerged victorious. Even those with a minimal knowledge of the game recognize amateur great Bobby Jones and his contributions to golf. But America's first great amateur champion was Francis Ouimet. In 2002, author Mark Frost recounted the story of Ouimet's U.S. Open victory and its impact on golf in THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED. This month Charles D. Burgess has presented readers with a wonderful companion piece to the Frost book, GOLF LINKS: Chay Burgess, Francis Ouimet, and the Bringing of Golf to America.
 Burgess has written the saga of his great-grandfather, the golf professional who mentored Ouimet in his early golf years. Burgess immigrated to America from Scotland to serve as golf professional at Woodland Golf Club in Boston, Massachusetts. In the early 1900s the Scots provided professionals to most of this country's infant golf courses. In addition to his duties on the golf course, Burgess also served as the soccer coach for Harvard College. The story of a man who helped bring two sports to America makes for interesting reading. Golf professionals of Burgess's era were more than teachers and salesmen of golf equipment. They did more than just sell golf clubs; they built them for each individual golfer. Ouimet was an early student of Burgess. His student would stun the golfing world in 1913 when he beat the greatest golfers of the world at the U.S. Open held that year at Brookline Country Club in Boston. Ironically, another young professional golfer, Walter Hagen, finished three shots behind the leaders in his first U.S. Open. In succeeding years Walter Hagen would change professional golf forever.
 SIR WALTER: Walter Hagen and the Invention of Professional Golf, by Tom Clavin, recognizes Hagen's contribution to the game by a man who permanently altered professional golf not only in America but in the world as well. As both GOLF LINKS and SIR WALTER document, early professional golfers served as employees of their respective golf clubs. They earned income from salary, lessons, and repairing and constructing golf clubs. If they wished to play in the few golf tournaments conducted during the year, they arranged with their employers to be gone for a short period of time. Other than the U.S. Open, the few professional tournaments conducted were primarily held in California or Florida during the winter when most of the northern golf courses were closed for the season. Walter Hagen changed all of that.
After achieving his first victories in the U.S. Open, he led contingents of American golfers across the Atlantic to participate in the British Open, at that time still the most prestigious golf tournament in the world. In addition, Hagen demanded that professional golfers be treated as equals to their amateur counterparts who were viewed as gentlemen and granted full access to course facilities while their professional counterparts were essentially ignored. The flamboyant Hagen recognized that the public came to see him play. He played to the crowds and established a legend that was part truth but greater part hype. His philosophy was simple: "If I can't be a millionaire at least I can live like one."
Walter Hagen became the first professional golfer to earn his livelihood completely from tournament incomes and endorsements. Along the way he helped create the Professional Golf Association, winning its championship five times, including four in succession. His exhibition matches with Bobby Jones were some of the most publicized and attended sporting events of the 1920s. During a golden era of sports, when names like Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey and Red Grange dominated sports news, Hagen was an equal member of that group of sports icons. SIR WALTER places Hagen in the proper context of those sporting legends and that extraordinary sports era, when legends were created that continue to this day.
 No spring discussion of new books is complete without a mention of new instruction books. This spring is no different. Readers will continue their never-ending exploration for that instructional nugget that will permanently improve their golf game. THE TEACHING PROFESSIONALS GUIDE TO GREAT GOLF FOR LIFE, by Jim Linkin and Patrick Livingston, offers valuable insights for those who need to start making physical and mental adjustments to their game as they age. The book has wonderful chapters on becoming comfortable with making change in your game as well as improving your game through structured practice. Perhaps most beneficial to the over-forty audience that should consider this book are the chapters that suggest and demonstrate golf stretching and exercise that will help keep those aged bones more limber. If you, like me, need that type of assistance for your golf game, this concise teaching guide is worth a look.
 Fans of golf fiction also will have opportunities to expand their library this spring. Golf novels generally follow one of two plot devices. One is followed by mystery writers who use the location of a well-known golf tournament or a general golf theme as the foundation for a whodunit. OPEN SEASON by Jim Moriarty follows that traditional structure. The sleuth of this mystery is sports photographer Nick Oliver, who happens to be staying in a hotel during Masters week that becomes the scene of a brutal murder. While covering another PGA Tour event in South Carolina, another body is discovered. Oliver starts researching suspicious deaths at various tour venues and is startled to learn that a serial killer is following the PGA Tour. OPEN SEASON is an exciting read for both mystery and golf fans.
 Dan Binchy's LOOPY follows the other traditional golf fiction journey, the "golf as a metaphor for life" story. The Irish village of Trabane is the setting for this saga of a young man, Larry Lynch, who struggles to overcome the difficulties of poverty for himself and his family. Young Lynch is a star performer on the village's hurling team. While recovering from a serious injury he accompanies his former teacher, Pat O'Hara, as a caddy on a round of golf. Under O'Hara's prodding he hits a few shots and discovers that he is a natural for the game. His hurling skills, however, have given him a golf swing with a major flaw, a loop in his backswing. It also gives him a nickname that serves as the title for the novel.
Loopy Lynch's golf is a parable for the classic confrontation of the little man against ruthless big business and upper class snobbery. There are enough matches played in the novel to pique the interest of golf fans and a happy ending that most readers will find uplifting.
--- Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman
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More Golf Roundups by Stuart Shiffman:
• 2004 SPRING GOLF BOOKS
• 2003 SPRING GOLF BOOKS
• 2002 SUMMER GOLF READING
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