Masters of the Links
If you have any interest in golf course design and architecture, your reading choices are fairly limited.
With only a few recent exceptions (most of which will be reviewed here eventually), you must search through antique bookstores for some classics from decades ago, wait for the USGA to re-publish them as part of their facsimile edition series, or wait for articles in the various golf magazines about the latest and greatest courses.
You now have a worthy addition to this limited field, in this fine collection of short pieces edited by Geoff Shackelford. This edition, published in November 1997, puts together such disparate writers as Tom Doak and Ben Crenshaw with Alister MacKenzie and Bernard Darwin.
Read together, the distinct voices and opinions provide a great primer on this relatively neglected aspect of the game.
Many golfers have yet to understand that if they have a good handle on why a course is laid out a certain way, they are in much better shape to successfully play the course. That’s why this book is not just for golfers who can’t get enough of their sport. If you read it carefully, you will be a better golfer.
Shackelford found several of these wonderful articles in old magazines. He’s done a great service to the golfing community in resurrecting these pieces in a useful format.
You can dip into this book at any point, or read it straight through. The editor has also provided useful commentary throughout the book, which places the pieces in context or otherwise usefully explains why the articles deserve to be read.
It also has a nice selection of photographs and course diagrams, many of which were a part of the original publications. All in all, this is a very useful, pleasant collection of materials on a part of golf that doesn’t receive all the attention it deserves.
Review Date March 22, 1998