Product Description

The year: 1956. Four decades have passed since Eddie Lowery came to fame as the ten-year-old caddie to US Open Champion Francis Ouimet. Now a wealthy car dealer and avid supporter of amateur golf, Lowery boasts to George Coleman ? an equally important figure in golf circles and a fellow millionaire ? that two of his car salesmen are the best players in the world. These two, US amateur champion Harvie Ward and up-and-coming star Ken Venturi, could beat any two golfers in the world in a best ball match, he claims. Coleman asks Lowery how he plans to prove it, and Lowery puts his money where his mouth is: 'Bring any two golfers of your choice to the course at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning,' he tells Coleman, 'and we'll settle the issue ? for a substantial amount of cash.' Coleman shows up, all right ? with Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson, the game's greatest living professionals, with fourteen major championships between them. In Mark Frost's peerless hands, complete with the recollections of all the participants, the story of this immortal foursome and the game they played that day ? legendarily known in golf circles as the greatest private match ever played ? come to life with powerful emotional impact and edge-of-your-seat suspense.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8764 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-31
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

About the Author
Mark Frost is the author of THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED and THE GRAND SLAM. He has written and produced several television series, including Twin Peaks and Hill Street Blues.

Customer Reviews

The best book on golf competition I have ever read.

In The Greatest Game Ever Played, Mark Frost provides a brilliant account of 20-year-old Francis Ouimet's 18-hole playoff victory over Britons Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in the 1913 U.S. Open at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, where Ouimet once caddied. That said, I think his account of an 18-hole match at Cypress Point Golf Club on the Monterey Peninsula (just before the annual "Crosby Clambake" in 1956) between professionals Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson against amateurs Harvie Ward and Ken Venturi describes a match at least as significant. His is certainly the best book on golf competition that I have ever read.

With the curiosity of a cultural anthropologist and the skills of a master storyteller, Frost establishes and then explores a context within which four of the greatest golfers in the 1950s agreed to a "friendly match." They knew each other, respected each other, and enjoyed each other's company. However, in his own unique way, each was a ferocious competitor, especially when engaged in match play competition. Frost provides a hole-by-hole account (the primary story line) but he also brings to life each of the four competitors, explaining their respective backgrounds, personalities, and motivations while stressing their passion for the game of golf. The supporting cast includes Eddie Lowery who, when years old, caddied for Ouimet during his Open victory and is now a wealthy car dealer and among the leaders of the USGA. Also George Coleman, also a multi-millionaire as well as a member of Cypress Point who accepts Lowery's challenge to select any two professionals to compete against Ward and Venturi.

Credit Frost with accomplishing two separate but related objectives: to provide a riveting account of the match itself over an especially challenging as well as beautiful course designed by Alister MacKenzie, and, to place the match within a much larger frame-of-reference that includes the emergence of professional golf following the retirement of Bob Jones, real estate development of the Monterey Peninsula area, and the evolving controversy about the meaning of the term "amateur," given the fact that both Venturi and Ward were two of Lowery's salaried employees who devoted almost all of their time and energy to competitive golf.

Even those who have little (if any) interest in golf will thoroughly enjoy reading this book. It has everything: a full cast of colorful characters, several compelling story lines, multi-dimensional social commentary, and following the conclusion of the match, an "Afterward" that provides what Paul Harvey calls "the rest of the story" concerning the four competitors and their two supporters. Then in an Appendix, Frost provides historical information about the Peninsula before focusing his attention on Marion Hollins and her involvement in both competitive golf and efforts to realize her "oversized dreams" for the area.

This is one of very few works of non-fiction that I have read in recent years that created in me a growing sense of sadness as I approached the last few pages. I really enjoyed it that much? Yes. In fact, I began to re-read it the next day and although I knew the outcome of the match, enjoyed the second reading at least as much as the first. Thank you, Mark Frost.

Richly Told Tale of an Amazing Day of Golf at Cypress Point in 1956
Golf is a game whose attraction is built in part from legendary events like Ouimet's historic win in Brookline. You need to add this story from Cypress Point to your after-round repertoire.

Two wily veteran pros, Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson, help accept a challenge on behalf of George Coleman made by Eddie Lowery, Francis Ouimet's caddy at The Country Club in the U.S. win, that no one can beat Eddie's two amateur employees, Ken Venturi and Harvie Ward. Bets are placed and the game is on.

To make the story even more interesting, Mark Frost gives us the histories of the people involved against the backdrop of the switch from an amateur focus for the game to a professional one. You'll also learn about how Cypress Point was developed.

Working primarily from the memories of Byron Nelson and Ken Venturi, Mark Frost captures the scene almost as though he were an eye witness. Needless to say, the match contained some remarkable golf. I won't go into it, but I found my heart pounding many times as the competitive situations unfolded in the high stakes Nassau.

I've never seen Cypress Point in person, and the story also interested me for its fine explanation of the course's layout in 1956.

The Match
Most golfers knowledge of the history of the game stretches back to the Nicklaus, Palmer, Player, Watson era. This book takes you back before that in a great format alternating between the Match (one of the all time best 4 ball better balls ever played) and the lives of the 4 players (Nelson, Hogan, Venturi and Ward). A must read for any golfer who would find it hard to believe that in this era even the best pros struggled financially.