The Mystery of Golf Book

Originally published in 1908, The Mystery of Golf was the first book to seriously ruminate over that problematic region known as the golfer's mind and the obsessive hold the game has on it. Haultain suggests there are three unfathomables that have gripped the minds of men: metaphysics, golf, and the female heart. "The Germans, I believe, pretend to have solved some of the riddles of the first," he writes, "and the French to have unraveled some of the intricacies of the last; will someone tell us," he pleads almost rhetorically, "wherein lies the extraordinary fascination of golf?" Of course, Haultain goes on to do just that, and John Updike, for one, raves about the effort. "The book's core," writes the prose master of Golf Dreams, "is pure gold.... Haultain goes to the heart of golf's peculiar loveability and enduring fascination." Much has changed in the game since Haultain penned this delightfully quaint tome, except for that elusive heart, which remains every bit as peculiar and enduring as it was when Haultain first opened it up for examination. --Jeff SilvermanRead More