Diamonds in the Rough: Championship Golf on the Senior PGA Tour - Hardcover

Shaw, Mark

9780345417459: Diamonds in the Rough: Championship Golf on the Senior PGA Tour

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345417453 ISBN 13: 9780345417459

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1998

We are living in the golden age of golf, and some of golf's finest players are celebrating their golden years. Legends such as Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Raymond Floyd, and Gary Player still make headlines, competing for $40 million on the Senior PGA Tour with fellow "over-fifty" newcomers Hale Irwin, Dr. Gil Morgan, David Graham, and Johnny Miller. In Diamonds in the Rough, journalist Mark Shaw spent a year on tour with these grand masters of the game, privy to their private thoughts and inspiring sense of play. The result: Shaw captures their dry wit, uncommon wisdom, and unforgettable personal stories of triumph and tragedy, bringing the 1997 Senior PGA Tour, now in its twentieth year, to dazzling life as never before.

It was a magical season featuring remarkable moments, including a miracle win by Vietnam veteran Buddy Allin, the spine-tingling ninth-hole playoff victory for the affable Irishman Bob Murphy, Japanese Isao Aoki's mystical round of 60, and colorful Chi Chi Rodriguez's quest for victory aided by lamb hormone shots, snake rings, and supercharged golf balls.

It was also the year Arnold Palmer, Jim Colbert, and Larry Gilbert announced they were battling cancer, recovering alcoholic Dana Quigley won his first tournament victory on the same day his father died, Gary Player achieved an inspiring win at the Senior British Open, and Dr. Gil Morgan and Hale Irwin went down to the wire for the much coveted Player of the Year honors.

It's all here--in vivid detail--the victories and bittersweet defeats. Filled with incredible play, fascinating stories, and hilarious anecdotes, Diamonds in the Rough is a true golf treasure.

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Review:

What John Feinstein did to the PGA Tour in A Good Walk Spoiled, Mark Shaw does to the Senior Tour in Diamonds in the Rough. By chronicling an entire season, he peels off the public persona to find the personality underneath, and if there's one thing the Senior Tour is full of, it's personality. Golf's greatest mulligan, it is the ultimate in second chances in professional sports, and while the competition is every bit as intense and ego-driven as it is on the regular tour, there's also a congeniality and camaraderie that seeps into its atmosphere. Shaw captures that sensibility nicely, offering an open window into the ribbing and by-play. But the 1997 season was one of inspiring drama as well--with Gary Player winning the British Senior Open on the course and Arnold Palmer and Jim Colbert battling prostate cancer off of it. Shaw explores these worlds within a world quite well, capturing in the process the complex characters of such fairway legends as Chi Chi Rodriguez, Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus, and Hale Irwin. --Jeff Silverman

From the Publisher:

If you think John Feinstein captured all the action there is to professional golf, think again. Mark Shaw spent the 1997 season following the Senior PGA Tour. Okay, so there's no Tiger or Greg or Ernie, but there's Jack and Arnie and Hale and Chi Chi. Some of the most interesting people on the Senior circuit are not the big stars, but the club pros struggling to make the best of their second shot at the Tour. Non-household names like Simon Hobday, Bud Allin, and Dana Quigley are right up there with Gil Morgan, Jim Colbert, Isao Aoki, J.C. Snead, Johnny Miller, and other Senior Tour regulars. They're all here, warts and all, in a fun inside look at how the Over 50 Gang struggles to keep shootin' straight.

Doug Grad, Editor

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