While others in the family are busy with new toys, cookware, exercise equipment, hi-tech gadgets, beauty products, and various other consumer items, these six highly recommended books (plus four to pre-order) will keep the golfer happy this holiday season.
The Ambassador—William Casto
No matter how well media highlights the impact of the game’s most important individuals, occasionally a genuinely significant, though mostly forgotten, individual falls through the cracks. Thankfully, the crack into which Alexander Findlay fell has been comprehensively filled by William Casto’s incredibly comprehensive The Ambassador.
Born in 1866, aboard a ship in the English Channel, Findlay spent his formative years in Cornwall, England, then Montrose, Scotland, before emigrating to the U.S. in February 1887. He played in the U.S. Open six times but, though talented certainly, was no great player. His influence was strongly felt in other areas of the game, however, as a respected clubmaker, professional, speaker, writer, course designer, and the man largely responsible for bringing Harry Vardon to the U.S. in 1900. Findlay’s is a fascinating story, respectfully and admiringly told here.
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Common Grounds—Richard Pennell
When LINKS featured his first book Grass Routes in a 2023 Christmas golf book guide, Richard Pennell was our little secret. Yes, he’d been publishing his absorbing blog posts for a little while, but the readership was an intimate, committed group of devotees for whom golf is a spiritual, ethereal pastime played out on ancient links and remote heaths with little affinity for golf in the YouTube age with its bells, whistles, noises, and numbers.
Pennell has since become a LINKS contributor and now has a far larger audience for his “Pitchmarks” blog posts, which tell the stories of long overdue or return visits to far-off golf courses and meetings with friends who share an appreciation for a simpler, more elemental form of the game. Common Grounds is a collection of his finest, most engaging essays, and will leave you moved and deeply satisfied.
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Matchless—Stephen Proctor
My social media followers in the UK had been tweeting about receiving their copy of Stephen Proctor’s latest book for weeks before fans in the U.S. could finally get their hands on it. Having a publisher based in Edinburgh, Scotland, meant readers on this side of the Atlantic had to wait a while to enjoy Proctor’s highly anticipated chronicle of the emergence of Joyce Wethered and Glenna Collett during the 1920s and the subsequent rise of women’s golf.
Available in the usual places and at Auld Grey Toun Books, Matchless is so well-written and skillfully conceived, it’s a book that will prove surprisingly diverting for readers who might not admit to an interest in the subject matter. For those fascinated by Wethered and Collett’s fierce but respectful rivalry, however, and those familiar with Proctor’s talent for telling such intriguing stories, the book’s title is suitably apt.
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The United States of Golf—Patrick Koenig
Reading about crazy people taking a lot of time out of their life, and spending a lot of money, to pursue an impossible dream affects us in two very different ways. A large part of us wants to roll our eyes, shake our heads, and chuckle at the lunacy of it all. Why on earth would someone take a year out to tour the contiguous U.S. in an RV—actually, an RGV (Recreational Golf Vehicle)—and risk losing a relatively calm, stable existence (Koenig had admittedly endured a period of instability thanks to alcoholism) in one of the most beautiful cities in the world? The other, much smaller, part, is wildly envious. We know the potential losses are significant, but we’d surely absorb them over time, and it’s likely to be an amazing experience with memories that last us a lifetime. What can’t we just take the plunge?
Patrick Koenig did, twice. And, because he is a golf nut; can write; is among the best golf photographers in the business; smashed the world record for the number of courses played in a single year; and has an irreverent, self-deprecating sense of humor as well as a fair-sized heart (he raised over $20,000 for various charities including The First Tee during his time away from the real world), the book recounting the two “trips” is full of wild tales, useful course reviews, superb images, and plenty of laughs.
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Up Top—Adam Lawrence
Published quietly in May, this beautifully illustrated and lovingly written book about the creation of an unlikely, but incredibly popular, golf course in northeastern Nebraska is a must read for anyone that has journeyed to this remote corner of the Cornhusker State to experience it. It’s also of immense interest for all golfers curious how such an implausible-sounding project came to fruition resulting in a place people will travel thousands of miles to visit.
Veteran golf architecture writer Adam Lawrence was involved with Landmand Golf Club, designed by Tad King and Rob Collins and owned by the Andersen Family, long before it opened in September 2022, and did a wonderful job telling its remarkable story.
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Musselburgh: The Cradle of Golf—Mungo Park IV
Just as Alexander Findlay’s story went untold for decades, so the story of a town and golf course inextricably linked with the evolution of golf has been largely ignored. We know Musselburgh is located a few miles east of Edinburgh in Scotland. Most core golfers will be aware it is home to a 9-hole links that is surrounded by a racecourse, and which hosted the Open Championship six times. And most are similarly aware that Willie Park, winner of the first Open in 1860 and three thereafter, was a Musselburgh man. But there’s so much about its history, its character (and characters), and its place in the game that we don’t know. Mungo Park IV, a fourth-generation descendant of the famous Park family, lays it all out in this meticulously researched book which those interested in golf’s early history will devour.
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Four More Books to Order
They might not be available before Christmas, but these four books are definitely worth keeping an eye on and pre-ordering.
The Golf Lover’s Guide to Wales—Michael Whitehead
In 2019, English publisher White Owl released Michael Whitehead’s excellent guide to Scotland’s golf courses which included histories, architectural studies, reviews, and all the information about the featured courses golf travelers needed to know. Two years later, Whitehead followed up with The Golf Lover’s Guide to England, and now, four years on, we have the Welsh edition. Available in late January, the book will be an invaluable resource for American golfers looking to plan a trip to this very underrated part of the UK.
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A Quick Nine Before Dark—Bill Fields
Connoisseurs of golf writing will know how knowledgeable and eloquent a writer Bill Fields is, and has been for four decades, working for Golf Illustrated, Golf Digest, Golf World, and NBC. In mid-March, be sure to pick up a copy of his smile-inducing, nod-provoking memoir which tells the story of one man’s devotion to reporting on the game he loves.
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Rory—Alan Shipnuck
At the end of March—a year after writer Timothy Gay’s superb biography of the Ulsterman was published—another exciting profile of golf’s most talked-about player will land in book shops. Shipnuck has been writing about McIlroy for well over 20 years and few writers can claim to know the five-time major champion as well as he does.
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A Course Called Home—Tom Coyne
Coyne, the best-selling author of A Course Called Ireland, A Course Called Scotland, and A Course Called America began operating the 9-hole Sullivan County Golf Club in Liberty, N.Y., about two hours northwest of New York City, in 2023. The following year, he purchased the course and set about the process of revitalizing it. Despite never having envisaged such a bold move, the thought of revitalizing a historic golf course (1925) proved too tempting to resist and Coyne took the plunge. He began taking notes on day one with a view to someday writing a book some day about the occasional triumphs and inevitable struggles of golf course ownership; the book will be released on May 5, 2026.
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A great list. I’ve read a couple, can’t wait to read some of the others. I’d also like to put in a good word for The Unconquerable Game, the posthumously published book on Ely Callaway edited by his son, Nicholas Callaway. A fascinating look at this innovative and game changing force in the game of golf, as well as business.
I read the book “Golf’s 8 Second Secret”. What a great new look on how to improve your game! I suggest it to any golfer.
Nice list. Please check out 100 Years of Golf at Breezy Point: from Walter Hagen to Arnold Palmer by author Rich Aulie published in September this year.