Old School Tuesday - "The Match" is a GREAT read.....

If you have not read Mark Frost's great book "The Match", I highly recommend you do one of two things immediately:
(1) Click this LINK and order it right now, or
(2) Get up from whatever you are doing, and motor down to the local bookseller and snag a copy.

Whether you are a "golf historian" or just a casual golf fan, this book completely rocks. It's the tale of a match play contest between two teams - Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson - two of golf's greatest players vs. two up and coming amateurs - Kenny Venturi and Harvie Ward. In addition to some very cool background info on the "Crosby Clambake" (now the ATT Pebble Beach Schlepapalooza), the book also includes a hole by hole account of this epic throwdown/showdown.

"The Match" was played at Cypress Point (the uber-exclusive Monterrey Peninsula private club), and really makes you feel like you are there - complete with detailed descriptions of some of the most beautiful and breathtaking holes in all of golf. The backdrop of the entire story,however, is the collision/conflict between the emerging Professional Tour and the whole "gentlemen's amateur" scene - very interesting and enlightening for anyone who cares about golf.

I'm reading the book now for the 3rd time, and it's as good as it was the first time. If you haven't read this one, get busy - you will enjoy the trip.


Sidenote - One of the really interesting things is to compare the REAL celebrities who used to play in the "Clambake" vs. some of the uh, "celebrities" that you saw last weekend. Let's just say that fat dude from "Mall Cop" and "Shankapotamus" Romano would not have been drinking martinis with Bing and his crew...

Golf's Heroes - Major Winners by Decade

                                   

Ask anyone to name the best PGA players of all time, and you will get a predictable list of names : Woods, Nicklaus, Palmer, Hagen, Sarazen,Hogan,Snead,Watson,Player,Faldo,Nelson,etc...  However, ask them who won the most majors in each decade since the 1930's, and expect a blank stare.  Maybe this topic is a little to geeky for some of you, but I though it would be interesting to survey 25 people on this topic, and compare their "average" responses to what the actual results were.  Shown below are the results of this little experiment:

• 1930's: Consensus:    Bobby Jones     Actual: Gene Sarazen (4)
• 1940's: Consensus:    Ben Hogan     Actual: Sam Snead (4)
• 1950's: Consensus:    Sam Snead    Actual: Ben Hogan (6)
• 1960's: Consensus:    Arnold Palmer    Actual: Jack Nicklaus (7)
• 1970's: Consensus:    Jack Nicklaus   Actual: Jack Nicklaus (8)
• 1980's: Consensus:    Jack Nicklaus    Actual: Tom Watson (5)
• 1990's: Consensus:    Tiger  Woods Actual: Nick Faldo (4)
• 2000's: Consensus:    Tiger Woods     Actual: Tiger Woods (10)

Pretty interesting that the '70's and the '00's (Jack's 8 and Tiger's 10) were the only decades that the consensus was correct on.  Also noteworthy is the "flip flop" of Hogan and Snead in the '40's and 50's - reflecting that Hogan's prowess in Majors came rather late in his career.  When I asked the group about this, most of them did not think of Snead and Hogan as peers, believing that Snead played a bit later than Hogan.