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Sunday, June 21st marks not only Father’s Day, but also the final round of the United States Open, the second major golf championship of the year. This year’s Open returns to Bethpage Black, one of the nation’s most famous and difficult public courses. In 2002, the course underwent substantial redesign and renovation in anticipation of the Open. Tiger Woods emerged victorious, and he returns to the New York course this year having won not only at Bethpage, but also at Torrey Pines in California last year. Father’s Day, the U.S. Open and summer usually signal the publication of a variety of enjoyable and entertaining books focusing on the game of golf. Once again, a number of excellent golf-related titles are available on the shelves of bookstores for golfers or for those looking for a gift for their golfing father or friend.
 John Feinstein’s name is synonymous with sports classics, and the world of professional golf is a major focus of that writing. It was Feinstein who chronicled the arduous task of designing, reconstructing and readying Bethpage Black for the 2002 Open in OPEN: Inside the Ropes at Bethpage Black. From that chronicle golf fans learned what it requires to prepare a golf venue for the United States Open. Feinstein returns to the 2008 U.S. Open held at Torrey Pines in ARE YOU KIDDING ME?: The Story of Rocco Mediate's Extraordinary Battle with Tiger Woods at the U.S. Open, an aptly titled saga of another major golf championship that leaves fans shaking their heads in amazement and incredulity. Had Feinstein written a novel instead of a factual narrative of the Open, most readers would have sloughed the book off as being impossible to believe. Instead, Feinstein reminds us all that in the world of sports, anything can, and often does, happen.
Feinstein has a partner in ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Rocco Mediate --- the hero of that Open, the golfing “David” who faced Tiger Woods in an 18-hole playoff that lasted 19 holes --- is Feinstein’s collaborator in the biographical saga of a golf battle for the ages. After the Woods-Mediate confrontation, golfers across the land asked Mediate to write about that momentous week. While there were several book proposals, none were appealing to him. It was his friend Cindi Hilfman who suggested John Feinstein as an author. It turned out to be a great match. For his part, Mediate suggested a title that, if chosen, might have revolutionized the book industry. Ultimately, ARE YOU KIDDING ME? was selected, eliminating one adjective that might have banned the cover from most bookstores. After reading Feinstein’s introduction, the missing word will be clear.
Most fans are now familiar with the David and Goliath match that was the U.S. Open of 2008. And likewise they are familiar with the career of Tiger Woods, the Goliath in the confrontation. But ARE YOU KIDDING ME? recounts the career of Rocco Mediate, which is precisely opposite to Tiger Woods in every aspect save one --- overcoming physical injury.
From his teenage years, Woods was groomed for professional golf. By his 20th birthday he had won three U.S. Amateur Championships. Upon joining the professional ranks, he secured large endorsement contracts, assuring him future wealth even if he never won a tournament. His major tournament victories have him on pace to be recognized as the greatest golfer in history. Mediate came to professional golf in a far less spectacular fashion. He is what professional golfers call a “grinder.” He was an unknown golfer who played at a small college. He came to professional golf through the rigors of the qualifying school and had to earn sufficient money in tournaments to retain his playing privileges. Throughout his career he has been plagued with back problems that have kept him away from the game for long stretches of time. Mediate has never won a major golf championship and has rarely contended in those events.
That was the stage for the unlikely confrontation between Woods and Mediate at Torrey Pines in June 2008. Feinstein portrays the battle as both a reporter and biographer. Golf fans who watched the epic match one year ago will still find the narrative of ARE YOU KIDDING ME? and its mesmerizing shot by shot and hole by hole recounting of one of golf’s classic confrontations a wonderful read. Add to the story the classic feel-good saga of Rocco Mediate, not a great athlete but a hard-working Rocky Balboa-type figure who performed nobly in his moment in the spotlight. This is an inspirational, heartwarming piece of sports history that commemorates a moment in time that will long be remembered.
 Along with the Masters, PGA and British Open, the U.S. Open is one of four major golf championships held annually. No writer has covered more of these tournaments in the modern era of sports reporting than Dan Jenkins. Writing for Sports Illustrated, Golf Digest, The Fort Worth Press and The Dallas Times Herald, Jenkins has covered nearly 200 major championships. In JENKINS AT THE MAJORS: Sixty Years of the World's Best Golf Writing, from Hogan to Tiger, the author has chosen a sampling of his various writings for each decade beginning with the ’50s and continuing into a new century. These are the stories of the greatest golfers reaching the height of accomplishment in their careers, along with many not-so-great golfers who captured lightning in a bottle for one week and will find their achievement forever inscribed on a major championship trophy.
Jenkins is an American icon. As a sportswriter and novelist there are few writers who can match his talent. He proudly reminds us of a bygone era for sportswriters as he points out that many of his columns reproduced in this collection were written on typewriters. That comment serves as a unique metaphor for golf itself, because just as the typewriter is an example of how technology has changed reporting, Jenkins’s reporting on golf from past decades also reminds us how technology has changed the game of golf. Reading his accounts of major championships in the ’50s and ’60s reminds us that the British and U.S. Opens concluded with 36 holes of golf on the final day of championship play. The PGA tournament was a match-play event. Television has made those parts of the major championships only a memory. Writing of the 1952 U.S. Open, Jenkins recounts Ben Hogan playing a 450-yard hole with a driver and a 2-iron. By 2004, he was describing Phil Mickelson’s 146-yard shot with a pitching wedge that led to victory in the Masters. One cannot read these columns from decade to decade and not be struck by how much the game has changed.
There are many columns that remind us that the saga of the major golf championships is often about the losers as much as the winners. And they are also about those brief shining moments in the sun for a golfer who appears, claims a championship, and just as quickly disappears. The names of Jack Fleck and Orville Moody are two that Jenkins spotlights in this collection.
If you love golf, you must add this book to your collection. If you are learning about golf, you should read it to acquire the flavor of the history of the game. If your father loves golf, here is a perfect Father’s Day gift. JENKINS AT THE MAJORS is a book I will always keep on a nearby shelf. I can take it down and open it to any page to read again and remember a great moment in golf history.
 On Father’s Day weekend, many children will enjoy some time on the golf course with their parents. Golf is one of the few sports where moms, dads and kids can truly compete in an athletic contest. In FINAL ROUNDS, published in 1997, then-Golf Digest columnist James Dodson chronicled a golf trip to Scotland with his dying father. He later authored an outstanding biography of golfer Ben Hogan, BEN HOGAN: An American Life. He returns to the father-son relationship in A SON OF THE GAME: A Story of Golf, Going Home, and Sharing Life's Lessons, but now the relationship is viewed from a different perspective. Dodson is the father and through Jack, his teenage son, he hopes to reignite his passion for golf.
A SON OF THE GAME is a book to admire because more than anything else, it is about changing your life to accomplish your goals. Dodson at age 55 decides to abandon the deadline pressure of big city journalism and return to the small town where he grew up. Fortunately for him, that small town is Pinehurst, North Carolina, the home to one of the greatest golf venues in the world. Dodson continues his writing, but now his assignments are for The Pilot, a newspaper with a circulation of 25,000.
Jack, as one might expect from a teenager, is ambivalent about his golf game. In this part memoir and part factual account, Dodson shares with readers his passion for the game. Many will find in those anecdotes, as well as in the father-son relationship between the Dodsons, the reason why they also have come to love the game of golf.
 Think for a moment about Italy. Some may think of food, others of wine, and still others of beautiful churches and ancient culture. But very few will think of golf. In 2007, Roland Merullo, an avid golfer, decided to summer in Italy. Along with his wife and two young daughters, he brought his golf clubs to his rented villa near the shore of Lake Como. The result is THE ITALIAN SUMMER: Golf, Food, and Family at Lake Como, an exquisite adventure that makes me wish I had brought my golf clubs on my past visits to Italy.
From the family’s first meal in Italy at a mountain cabin aptly named La Baita, described in mouth-watering, glorious detail, to his first round at Menaggio and Cadenabbia Golf Club, his adopted home course for the summer, Merullo paints a vivid portrait of a glorious adventure for golfers and gourmets. Readers are strongly cautioned not to read THE ITALIAN SUMMER on an empty stomach. If it is possible to gain weight while reading, this is the book that can accomplish that feat.
This being a golf essay, I feel compelled to concentrate more on the golf than the dining, but there is a clear connection. Rounds of golf, just as meals, are savored and enjoyed. There is a leisure quality to golf just as with dining. One does not rush, one relaxes and enjoys. Throughout THE ITALIAN SUMMER, Merullo describes a day at one of Italy’s golf courses that proceeds at a leisurely pace. Reading the narrative, it appears that pace of play and four-hour rounds are simply a dream.
Nonetheless, Merullo is a prescient observer of the game of golf. When he says “I love the start of a round of golf, when hopes are unblemished,” I understand his feeling immediately. Describing his golfing quirks, a specific number of balls in one pocket, a set number of tees in the other, I felt that Merullo was writing about me. We golfers are a strange and superstitious lot, and Merullo knows us well.
THE ITALIAN SUMMER is simply a wonderful read. Just as the name of a great restaurant, or a wonderful recipe, I plan on sharing it with all of my friends who have travelled with me to Italy and have played golf with me in the U.S. On my next trip to Italy, the clubs come with me.
--- Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman
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