Bøker av Curt Sampson

The incredible true story of Tiger Woods' dramatic return to glory at the 2019 Masters following his humbling and very public personal, physical, and professional setbacks.

The Masters golf tournament weaves a hypnotic spell. It is the toughest ticket in sports, with black-market tickets selling for $10,000 and more. Success at Augusta National breeds legends, while failure can overshadow even the most brilliant of careers. But as Curt Sampson, author of the bestselling Hogan, reveals in The Masters, a cold heart beats behind the warm antebellum façade of this famous Augusta course. And that heart belongs to the man who killed himself on the grounds two decades ago. Club and tournament founder Clifford Roberts, a New York stockbroker, still seems to run the place from his grave. An elusive and reclusive figure, Roberts pulled the strings that made the Masters the greatest golf tournament in the world. His story—including his relationship with presidents, power brokers, and every golf champion from Bobby Jones to Arnold Palmer to Jack Nicklaus—has never been told. Until now.        The Masters is an amazing slice of history, taking us inside the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Augusta''s most famous member. It is a look at how the new South coexists with the old South: the relationships between blacks and whites, between Southerners and Northerners, between rich and poor—with such characters as James Brown, the Godfather of Soul; the great boxer Beau Jack; and Frank Stranahan, the playboy golfer and the only white pro ever banned from the tournament. The Masters is a spellbinding portrait of a tournament unlike any other.

Was there ever a year in golf like 1960?It was the year that the sport and its vivid personalities exploded on the consciousness of the nation, when the past, present, and future of the sport collided. Here was Arnold Palmer, the workingman's hero, "sweating, chain-smoking, shirt-tail flying"; Ben Hogan, the greatest player of the fifties, a perfectionist battling twin demons of age and nerves; and, making his big-time debut, a crew-cut college kid who seemed to have the makings of a champion: twenty-year-old Jack Nicklaus.And of course, the rest: Ken Venturi, Chi Chi Rodriguez, Doug Sanders, Gary Player, and the many other colorful characters who chased around a little white ball-and a dream.Would Palmer win the mythical Grand Slam of golf? Could Hogan win one more major tournament? Was Nicklaus the real thing? Even more than an intimate portrait of these men and their exciting times, The Eternal Summer is also an entertaining, perceptive, and hypnotically readable exploration of professional golf in America.

All eat from the bowl of life. Tiger Woods just has a bigger spoon. So writes Curt Sampson in his ground-breaking account of the current state of golf. Tiger Woods has changed golf forever. His mix of power and skill combines with his extraordinary business savvy to make Woods the biggest global sports figure since Michael Jordan. Like Jordan, Woods' competitive signature is equal parts inspiration and intimidation. But what about the other guys? It's either catch up or give up for the rest of the golfing world, and in Chasing Tiger Curt Sampson exuberantly charts the state of the game as the new century unfolds. There are Duval and Mickelson and a host of other stars, of course, but there are also the junior golfers and their parents, corporate America, agents, instructors, fans, and the media. Just as he did in his controversial bestsellers Hogan and The Masters, Sampson digs deep to uncover stories that wouldn't otherwise be told. There's the golf course employee in Austin whose admiration for Woods leads him to spend every waking minute mimicking his hero (including the trademark pumping fist, only here it's on the practice green). There's the awestruck unemployed talk show host who stretches the bounds of good taste and hero worship with his Web site, Tigerwoodsisgod.com. At the other end of the scale is Charles Howell III, skinny as a 2-iron, a up-and-coming player who has been tapped by Jack Nicklaus to be the next great challenge to Woods. Howell is the anti-Tiger: a man unfailingly friendly to fans and media, recently married, opinionated, and entirely lacking in caution, yet he struggles to earn enough money to make the Tour. Curt Sampson has written an affectionate yet wary account of one extraordinary man's impact on the world of sport. By turns moving, hilarious, and eye-opening, Chasing Tiger is a wonderful addition to the golf canon.

Of all the games ever played in a sporting competition, never has an event been so bizarre and yet so fitting for its historical moment: the 1968 Masters.Anger gripped America's heart in April 1968. Vietnam and a bitter presidential contest sharpened the divides between races and generations, while protests and violence poisened the air. Then an assassin's bullet took the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Cities burned. The smoke had barely cleared when the Masters began. Never was the country more ready for distraction and escape--but could the orderly annual excitement of Palmer versus Nicklaus provide it? For a while, it could and it did--except that instead of a duel between golf's superstars, several unlikely members of the chorus stepped forward with once-in-a-lifetime performances. There was blunt-talking Bob Goalby, a truck driver's son from Illinois and former star football player; loveable Roberto De Vicenzo from Argentina, who charmed the galleries and media all week; and Bert Yancey, a Floridian who'd dropped out of West Point to face his private demons of mental illness. Just as the competition reached a thrilling crescendo, it all fell apart. The Masters, the best-run tournament in the world, devolved into a heart-wrenching tangle of rules, responsibility, and technicality. In a fascinating narrative that stops in Augusta, Buenos Aires, and Belleville, Illinois, bestselling author Curt Sampson finds the truth behind The Lost Masters. It's a story you'll never forget.