The Match: The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever

Extremely good read but one has to question the accuracy of the shot by shot details since unfortunately only one of the participants is still alive. The most amazing thing to me is the quality of golf played on a quality golf course with irons the size of butter knives and drivers the size of today's hybrids. Not to mention balls that were like marshmallows. What could these players have done with 460cc drivers and Pro V1's?

Mark Frost is to golf writing what Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Ken Venturi and Harvie Ward were to golf....

Some golf books you read and pass along to your friends. Some you keep. This is a Keeper of the first order. Your friends can buy their own...

As with his earlier golf books, "The Grand Slam" and "The Greatest Game Ever Played," Frost can tell a story, a story of people, personalities, a story of drama on and off the golf course, and he brings it all to together in such a warm, affectionate--sometimes critical, but always honest and objective--way that you, the reader, feel you know these people. You care about them. You feel their joy, their pain, their hopes, their dreams and their heartache. You pull for them.

Like the old CBS Televison series, "You Are There," Frost takes you "there", in this case to one of the greatest and most unusual matches ever played, and you, if not in body, then certainly in mind and spirit, are "there"

Great writer, great golfers and a great story makes for a great read which this book is.

One question, however. Given the antipathy Hogan felt for Nelson as their careers diverged--Nelson, once his best friend was not even invited to Hogan's by-invitation funeral--why did Hogan so readily agree to play the match with Nelson as his partner against Venturi and Ward?

If you know the answer or have an opinion, post it as a comment to this review...As Dan Jenkins would say, "Fairways and Greens...Fairways and Greens..." Keep hitting the fairways and the greens...and life will be good....

I finished The Match last night. Where can I begin? I've probably read 40 novels on golf, and this was clearly tops. Mark Frost may be the best writer I've ever read. I'm a big history buff, and Frost ties together this true story that occurred in 1956 with historical info that intertwines throughout. This book had me smiling and it had me crying. But most of all it taught me a huge amount about the sport I love so much, and the people who have graced its history. I'm just in awe over what I finished reading at midnight last night. I'm leaving for a week's vacation tomorrow, and I'm wishing I hadn't read it yet so I could read it on the beach, it was that good. I've already ordered 8 copies via Amazon to give to several of my best golfing buddies. A++ !!!!!

I knew three of the five principals about whom the book is written. I knew them at the time that "The Match" took place. Well written and particularly special to me. You can feel the ebb and flow of the game.

This is a must read for all serious golf fans. It is brilliantly written and researched and will not disappoint.