The late George Plimpton—a renowned writer, editor and aristocrat—once developed what he called “A Small Ball Theory,” in which he posited that “the smaller the ball, the more formidable the literature.” He wrote that “there are superb books about golf, very good books about baseball, not many good books about football or soccer, very few good books about basketball and no good books at all about beach balls.”
Who are we to argue?
So now that we are hunkered down without tournament play to satisfy our voracious appetite for televised golf, it is a good time to turn to golf literature to fill the void, while testing Plimpton’s small-ball theory.
This then is an arbitrary list, in no particular order, of interesting, entertaining and informative golf books worth reading, most from this century, two of them recent. (Disclosure: One from this list is one of my own, included here not as a shameless plug but at the suggestion of an editor noting golf’s role at another time our nation was united in facing down a scourge.)
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