After a lifetime of writing about the professional sport, Michael
Bamberger, "the poet laureate of golf" (GOLF magazine), delivers an
exhilarating love letter to the amateur game as it's played--and
lived--by the rest of us.
Over Michael Bamberger's celebrated writing career, he has written a
handful of books and hundreds of Sports Illustrated stories about
professional golf and those who play it--that is, the .001 percent. Now,
in a delightful turn of events, Bamberger has decided to train his eye
on the rest of us. In his most personal book yet, Bamberger takes the
lid off a game that is both quasi-religious and a nonstop party,
posing an age-old question early that is answered over its pages: Why
does the game cast such a spell on us?
Here is the story of modern golf that is not on TV. This is our story,
we who pay to play, who can't wait to get another crack at the game,
even when golf doesn't love us back. And just as every round is an
adventure, every life in golf is, too: We start at home, head on out,
endure a series of events, fortunate and otherwise, and hang on for dear
life as we play our way back to the house. In these pages, we celebrate
the thrill of it all, as we start, turn, and finish this game of a
lifetime.
The golfers Michael Bamberger introduces in The Ball in the Air will
leave you inspired and moved. You'll meet Sam Reeves, a golf-loving US
Army soldier who becomes captivated by a fellow soldier, Cliff
Harrington, a gifted Black golfer who's cruelly robbed of the chance to
show the world all he can do. You'll meet Ryan French, who plays on a
college golf team out of Animal House. You'll get to know Pratima
Sherpa, who grew up in a maintenance shed at the Royal Nepal Golf Club
in Kathmandu and took up the game with a stick whittled by her father.
The Ball in the Air is reported with Bamberger's customary
you-are-there intimacy and captures the sweep of time. Pratima finds her
way from Nepal to a university golf team in Southern California. Ryan
and his father caddie in minor-league events while sleeping in tents, a
preamble to Ryan's becoming the godfather of the popular Monday
Qualifier Twitter feed. Sam Reeves, born in rural Georgia during the
Depression, becomes a cotton king, the oldest amateur to make the cut at
the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, and the ultimate man for all seasons.
And there are Bamberger sightings, too, as he finds his own path in the
game. You'll make joyful side trips with the author, who's spent more
than forty years exploring golfers and golf, a way of life that
captivates him down to his bones. You'll visit the golf course at
Balmoral Castle in Scotland and compete with Bamberger and other purists
at the National Hickory Championship in rural Pennsylvania. At St.
Andrews, you'll get up close and personal with Lee Trevino, one of the
few professionals in these pages, because Trevino, when you really get
to the core of the man, is one of us. He can't get enough of it.
The Ball in the Air is Bamberger's valentine to golf. The modern
world, obsessed with fame and fortune, has infiltrated professional
golf--but it hasn't infiltrated golf. Bamberger is here to highlight
the distinction and to celebrate the game and all who play it*.*
