The Glorious Golf Books To Gift: Christmas 2021

Golf books to keep you busy this winter

The time between Christmas and New Year is always a sort of limbo. Everyone’s full up on Turkey, tired after the festivities and some of us are still recovering from one or two many glasses of our favourite tipple. These days are perfect for kicking back in front of the fire and relaxing after the big day, but what could be better than spending these days with a good book? Why not give your loved ones the gift of a book this year? We’ve put together a list of some of the best and new golf titles for you to consider buying both the beginners and the experienced this Christmas.

1. Make Your Next Shot Your Best Shot: The Secret to Playing Great Golf by Dr. Bob Rotella, Roger Schiffman, foreword by Padraig Harrington

Published: 25/11/2021

Reach your greatest potential in golf by focusing only on the shot in front of you-nothing before or after-with the world’s preeminent sport psychologist, Dr. Bob Rotella.

Acclaimed sport psychologist and bestselling author Dr. Bob Rotella has advised countless professional golfers, as well as athletes in individual and team sports at the amateur and professional levels, on how to flourish under pressure and win championships. Rotella strives to make average athletes exceptional. With his decades of in-depth research and practical experience, he has encouraged people worldwide to persevere through adversity in a dozen internationally bestselling titles.

In Make Your Next Shot Your Best Shot, Rotella’s message is simple but effective: to reach your greatest potential in golf, you need to set your sights high and always think positively. He wants you to aim for something incredible: free your mind, concentrate on your process, accept whatever happens, and commit to making your next shot your best shot. Rotella shows you how to focus your mind, create a routine for success, persevere, and overcome failure. Drawing from lessons learned in other sports, this book is about how to train your mind to play in the moment. It’s about spending your lifetime chasing greatness and having a ball while doing it.

“Bob Rotella’s thoughts and ideas have helped me to be more at ease on the golf course. As a result, I have been more patient and have been able to turn my game around more quickly when things go awry.”
– Jim Furyk

2. The Golfer’s Carol: Four rounds. Four life-changing lessons… by Robert Bailey

Published: 13/10/2021

This inspirational, uplifting story from Robert Bailey is heartbreaking and ultimately uplifting, showing us all that it is never too late to live a wonderful life…

Four rounds. Four heroes. Four life-changing lessons.

When Randy Clark wakes up on his 40th birthday, he’s going to go to work, eat the steak dinner his wife prepared him, blow out the candles on his birthday cake. . . And then he’s going to kill himself.

With his dreams of a professional golf career long gone, his marriage struggling after the death of his son, and facing financial ruin, Randy has no other option to help his family but to jump off a bridge, and to let the life insurance company do the rest.

But Randy’s plans go awry when he receives a surreal gift: four rounds of golf with his four heroes, four chances to learn from the best.

Four chances to change his fate. . .

‘Packed with heart and with hope, golf needed a Christmas classic, and now it has one’ – Tom Coyne, New York Times bestselling author of A Course Called Ireland

3. The Golf Book, The Players, The Gear, The Strokes, The Courses, The Championships by DK and Nick Bradley

Published: 16/09/2021

Move from Saturday-golfer to amateur extraordinaire. Packed with everything golfing – from the history of golf, key players, and famous courses to insightful tips on how to step up your own game and master key shots.

Learn golf as a beginner or improve your game through tried and tested tips, a look into the most common mistakes and how to fix them, and how to perfect every swing. Packed with photos, maps, and illustrations, this book also offers:

– Practical instructions about every aspect of golf
– Performance charts to assess your progress
– Chapters to help you “read” the course, deal with different situations, learn the all-important etiquette, terms, and rules, and make decisions about choosing equipment

Written by award-winning golf writer, Nick Bradley, this book engages keen golfers from start to finish. There is little about golf left untouched within the pages. Exploring the game from its ancient origins to where it stands today, profiling great golfers, women’s golf, competitions, and key moments in golfing history.

Full of detail and fantastically illustrated, The Golf Book is the best golfing gift and definitive guide to the famous game for players and fans alike. Bringing you face-to-face with stars such as Tiger Woods, Gary Player, and Nancy Lopez – golf courses like Augusta National USA and prolific competitions such as The Open, The Ryder Cup, and the Curtis Cup. You’ll be inspired to book your time on the green and master your chip, pitch, and hybrid shots.

4. A Course Called America: Fifty States, Five Thousand Fairways, and the Search for the Great American Golf Course by Tom Coyne

Published: 24/06/2021

In one unforgettable year, Coyne travels the country in search of the greatest golf experience. Playing every course to ever host a US Open, along with more than two hundred hidden gems and heavyweights, visiting all fifty states to find a better understanding of his home country and countrymen.

His journey begins where the US Open and US Amateur started, Rhode Islands’ historic Newport Country Club. As he travels from the oldest and most elite of links to the newest and most democratic, Coyne finagles his way onto coveted first tees (Shinnecock, Oakmont, Chicago GC) between rounds at off-the-map revelations. He marvels at the golf miracle hidden in the sand hills of Nebraska, and plays an unforgettable midnight game under bright sunshine on the summer solstice in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Connecting him with hundreds of American golfers, each from a different background but all welcoming Coyne to their course with pride. Trading stories and swing tips with caddies, pros, and golf buddies for the day, Coyne adopts the wisdom of one of his hosts in Minnesota: the best courses are the ones you play with the best people.

But, in the end, only one stop on Coyne’s journey can be ranked the Great American Golf Course. Throughout his travels, he invites golfers to debate and help shape his criteria for judging the quintessential American course. Countless conversations and gut instinct lead him to seek out a course that feels bold and idealistic, welcoming yet imperfect, with a little revolutionary spirit and a damn good hot dog at the turn. He discovers his long-awaited answer in the most unlikely of places.

Brimming with fascinating tales from American golf history, comic road misadventures, illuminating insights into course design, and many a memorable round with local golfers and celebrity guests alike, A Course Called America is an epic narrative travelogue brimming with heart and soul.

“A heartfelt, rollicking ode to golf . . . Coyne describes playing golf in every state of the union, including Alaska: 295 courses, 5,182 holes, 1.7 million total yards. Along the way, he dives deep into the essence of the game-its joys, its agonies, and addictions, its hold on golfers’ souls. But most of what you’ll remember after putting the book down are the people he encounters, in all their great American diversity and passion.”
-John Paul Newport, The Wall Street Journal

Similar titles from Tom Coyne include:

• A Course Called Scotland: Searching the Home of Golf for the Secret to Its Game

• NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller, A Course Called Ireland: A Long Walk in Search of a Country, a Pint, and the Next Tee

5. Golf’s Strangest Rounds: Extraordinary but true stories from over a century of golf by Andrew Ward

Published: 02/08/2018

A captivating collection of tales from the lengthy records of the sport’s history. Stories of tragedy, eccentricity, tactical slipups, and ones that defy categorization altogether. Meet one of the world’s best golfers, a man who refused ever to compete in a tournament. Packed with find plenty of golfing greats such as Gene Sarazen, Chip Beck, Greg Norman, Nick Faldo – all of whom have played their parts in irrational finishes, record rounds, and famous freak shots. Within these pages are bizarre, fascinating, hilarious, and, most importantly, true tales waiting to be discovered.

Sports fanatic, journalist, and inveterate chronicler of the weird, Other similar titles to Andrew Ward’s name include Football’s Strangest Matches and Cricket’s Strangest Matches.

‘The most eccentric golf book ever’ – Sports and Leisure Magazine

All books are available to purchase online in both printed and ebook format, alternatively, they can be found in most high street stores.