The Golf Ball Book

Author: Larry Dennis List Price: $42.00 You save: USD 14.05 (33%) Buy new: $27.95 Buy used: $22.80 Avg.Rating: (3 reviews) Sales rank: 1789051 Qty: 16 in stock Media: Edition: 1st ed Reading Level: Pages: 160 Number Of Items: Shipping Weight (lbs): 220 Dimensions (in): 1010 x 1010 x 100 ISBN: 0961871253 EAN: 9780961871253 ASIN: 0961871253 Publication Date: 2000-11-01 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

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Editorial Reviews:

Every golfer who has ever teed up a golf ball on the first tee of any golf course at any time will enjoy owning this book. Guaranteed! It is a book tracing the evolution of the golf ball back to the feather ball and theories on what came before. You’ll learn about the gutta percha period, the rubber core balls, how and by who mmaterials were discovered, quirky offerings such as the Radio ball, the different cover materials of the modern ball and the latest innovations for the 21st century. To help establish the time of these events, we’ve included anecdotes about the people who invented the balls and the competitors who used them, plus a timeline of golf ball milestones, along with the rules of golf—those that concern the golf ball directly.

Along with the text there are approximately 165 photographs—most quite large—of some very rare golf balls, images of early ball packaging, plus early golf tees, etc., from the wonderful collection of David Berkowitz, the private collections of Dr. Gary Wiren and Udo Machat, the designer and publisher of this book.

The text was written by Larry Dennis, a national award winning writer and editor with a long and noteworthy career in golf and sports journalism. For more than 13 years he was a Senior Editor for Golf Digest. Then, for almost six years he was the Editor-in-Chief of Senior Golfer. Dennis has written 18 books on golf, including “Golf’s Magnificent Challenge” with legendary architect Robert Trent Jones, winner of the USGA’s International Book of the Year Award in 1989, and “How to Become a Complete Golfer” with Bob Toski and Jim Flick, the third-best-selling golf instruction book in history. His book with Byron Nelson was a first-year selection in the Classics of Golf series.

We think that the golf ball has been overlooked far too long as the subject of a book. We know that this will shed some light on this worthwhile topic.

Customer Reviews:

Timeline scores a plus with golf ball history May 08, 2002

Being a golf enthusiest in the "Great white north" country of Canada we find ourselves with a lot of downtime away from the sport. Snow slows down the putting. However my wife gave me a copy of the Golf Ball Book for Christmas which seemed to take me away from the harshness of those long winter months (and now my wife has enjoyed the book as well, go figure). As I consider myself a bit of a history buff what I found intriguing about The Golf Ball Book was the ability for the author to parallel the golf balls evolution with other relevant historical occurences. Made it for a great read while putting it into perspective. A definite must to any golf enthusiest's library.

This is a really cool book... Apr 09, 2001

That's what literally hundreds of buyers have told me. And naturally I agree with them rather than with Mr Plimpton's negative review. He misses the point to the way the book is presented. Most people, including me, have a problem putting time periods from previous centuries in their precise context. That was the reason for including parallel occurrences. For the mis-spelled name, I am sorry.

"Standing Too Far from the Ball" Jan 28, 2001

As important as the golf ball is to the evolution of golf, little attention is paid to it in the thousands of books written on the history of the game. Unfortunately, although the author cites interesting facts concerning the ball, "The Golf Ball Book" disappoints by frequently distracting the reader from its central theme with unrelated golf stories and anecdotes. Career facts such as Mike Souchak's tour-record 257, Ben Hogan's tournament record, or Billy Casper's Masters experience read as unrelated filler to a book billed as devoted to the golf ball. Also, one does not expect proof reading errors (like the misspelling of David Duval's name) to appear in a high end golf publication. While "The Golf Ball Book" presents interesting information on the subject supported by colorful photographs, it is a read that (like so many putts) comes up short.