|
|
|
|
Arnie & Jack: Palmer, Nicklaus, and Golf's Greatest Rivalry
|
MSRP: $26.00
Your Price: $17.16
Savings: $ 8.84 ( 34% )
Shipping: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Prices subject to change. Please verify price during checkout.
|
|
Arnie & Jack: Palmer, Nicklaus, and Golf's Greatest Rivalry Features
|
Hard Cover
Ian O'Connor
Palmer, Nicklaus, and Golf's Greatest Rivalry
|
|
|
Related Arnie & Jack: Palmer, Nicklaus, and Golf's Greatest Rivalry Products
|
Jack: Arnie Greatest Nicklaus, Golf's Rivalry Palmer, and &
Golf's Greatest Arnie and Rivalry Jack: Nicklaus, Palmer, &
Palmer, & Jack: Arnie Golf's and Greatest Nicklaus, Rivalry
Arnie Greatest & Nicklaus, Golf's Palmer, and Rivalry Jack:
Rivalry and Arnie Jack: Palmer, Greatest & Golf's Nicklaus,
|
|
|
Additional Arnie & Jack: Palmer, Nicklaus, and Golf's Greatest Rivalry Information
|
Surprisingly, one of sport’s most contentious, complex, and defining clashes played out not in the boxing ring or at the line of scrimmage but on the genteel green fairways of the world’s finest golf courses. Arnie and Jack. Palmer and Nicklaus. Their fifty-year duel, in both the clubhouse and the boardroom, propelled each to the status of American icon and pushed modern golf to the heights and popularity it enjoys today.
Yet for all the ink that has been spilled on these two essential golf figures individually, no one has ever examined their relationship in this way. Arnie was the cowboy, with rugged good looks, Popeye-like forearms, a flailing swing, and charm enough to win fans worldwide. Jack was scientific, precise, conservative, aloof, even fat and awkward. Ultimately, Nicklaus got the better of Palmer on the course, beating him in major victories, 18-7. But Palmer bested Nicklaus almost everywhere else, especially in the hearts of the public and in endorsement dollars -- Palmer was the top-grossing athlete for thirty years, until Michael Jordan surpassed him.
With dogged reporting and crisp, colorful storytelling, the award-winning sports columnist Ian O’Connor explores this heated professional and personal battle in fascinating, intimate, and revelatory detail. Drawing on unique and exclusive access to Palmer and Nicklaus, and informed by some two hundred new interviews, O’Connor illuminates the two men’s extreme differences and sprawling influence through mini-dramas, such as their little-known first meeting on the course at the topsy-turvy U.S. Open in 1962, their early involvement with marketing and a small agency called IMG, and their intense competition for golf-course designs in their later years.
By the end of this page-turning narrative, which spans five remarkable decades, we see that each man wanted what the other had: Arnold had the adoring fans but wanted the trophies. Jack had the trophies but wanted the love.
|
|
|
What Customers Say About Arnie & Jack: Palmer, Nicklaus, and Golf's Greatest Rivalry:
|
|
This was as enjoyable and revealing as any golf book I've read. I consider myself a serious golfer and longtime fan, but there's so much in this book I didn't know about Palmer or Nicklaus. The reporting here was excellent, especially on the business side.
To be frank, Palmer is just an important golfer whereas Nicklaus is perhaps the greatest golfer who ever lived.There is a tendency in some books dealing with golf to exaggerate the importance of certain rivalries or even of single golf matches. Apart from the fact that "Arnie & Jack" contains too much repetition and a plethora of hyperboles,the writing style of Ian O'Connor is good. After all, it has often been said that there is an inverse relation between the size of a ball in a sport and the quality of the writing in that sport. A clear case in point is Mark Frost's book, "The Match." It's subtitle, "The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever," is especially ludicrous.Yet reading such books may give pleasure to many readers, especially to those who are students of the history of golf. And the amount of research he must have conducted in order to assemble the book and support his argument is impressive. But if the author had focused strictly on the "golf rivalry," between Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer, partialing out factors such as personal charisma, physical appearance,and business acumen, the importance of the rivalry would be diminished.
I would have like to have heard more from Jack and Arnie contemporaries such as, Player, Trevino, Floyd, and Watson, but that's probably quibbling. With that said, however, I think the majority of golf fans, both young and old, will enjoy "Arnie and Jack". I don't think the use of the vulgarity was necessary, nor accurate.
O'Connor, does an outstanding job chronicling the almost 50-year rivalry between two of golf's greatest icons. O'Connor tends to drag through some of the duo's earliest PGA action and almost makes the reading want to skip ahead to pair's halcyon days on tour. The book "Arnie and Jack" by Ian O'Connor is equal parts fascinating, overblown, profane, and enlightening.
Equally frustrating for this reviewer were the seemingly gratuitous "F-bombs" that O'Connor used as part of almost every celebrity quote attributed to Nicklaus or Palmer. Fans of either superstar will definitely want to pick up a copy and keep the fires of this rivalry burning. I was fascinated to read of their first major golfing encounter in Ohio when Jack was a brash teenager and Arnie, a budding superstar.
This meeting at a function to honor PGA pro Dow Finsterwald was certainly the start of something big.
He was more excited to get this than any gift I've bought in a long time. I usually have no idea what to by my father, and even though I know how much he loves to golf, my luck in buying products he enjoys is difficult and the purchase of gift cards is boring. This book was perfect.
I would not expect this from an experienced sportswriter. O'Connor uses every cliche and trite phrase to describe the players, almost ruining the otherwise interesting stories. I enjoyed the stories about Palmer and Nicklaus, especially the account of their first meeting at Athens Country Club in 1958. Unfortunately, the writing is surprisingly poor.
|
|
 |
|
|
|
