The Greatest Game Ever Played
Vardon, Ouimet and the birth of modern golf
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- €3.99
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- €3.99
Publisher Description
This fascinating narrative chronicles the birth of the modern game of golf, told through the story of Harry Vardon and Francis Ouimet. These men, in pursuit of their passion for a sport that had captivated them since childhood, lifted themselves out of their lives of common poverty and broke down rigid social barriers, transforming the game of golf into one of the most widely played sports in the world today.
Vardon and Ouimet were two men from different generations and vastly different corners of the world whose lives, unbeknown to them at the time, bore remarkable similarities, setting them on parallel paths that led to their epic battle at Brookline in the 1913 US Open. This collision resulted in the 'big bang' that gave rise to the sport of golf as we know it. In THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED, Mark Frost tells their story, including along the way over a dozen of the game's seminal figures, within the dramatic framework offered by the 1913 tournament where they finally met, which became one of the most thrilling sports events in history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This first nonfiction effort by Frost, who is a novelist (The List of Seven), television producer (Twin Peaks) and scriptwriter (Hill Street Blues), deftly tells the story behind the legendary 1913 U.S. Open, in which Francis Ouimet, a 20-year-old golf amateur from Massachusetts, shocked the genteel golf world by defeating British champion Harry Vardon, the most famous pro golfer of his time and the inventor of what today is still considered the modern grip and swing. Frost knows he has a good story and manages to touch on all the right elements of the plot: Ouimet and Vardon not only represent two different social worlds and two different generations, but also share a number of key personal facts and traits. Ouimet was "the boy-next-door amateur, young and modest and free from affectation," while Vardon was the consummate professional whose record of six British Open victories has never been matched. Yet Frost superbly shows how both shared a steely drive to succeed that helped Vardon overcome a long bout with tuberculosis and Ouimet to overcome a working-class background in which golf was seen (especially by his father) as a wealthy man's game, the perfect example of the evils of capitalism. Frost beautifully weaves history into his narrative, clearly showing the long-term impact this duel had on the game and how it helped propel the U.S. Open into the arena of world-class golf. Frost's final chapters on the last two rounds of the 1913 Open have all the page-turning excitement of a blockbuster novel.
