Breaking the Slump: How Great Players Survived Their Darkest Moments in Golf - And What You Can Learn from Them

( 2 )
Pick Up In Store

Pick Up in Store

Reserve and pick up in 60 minutes at your local store

Hardcover
$16.57
BN.com price
$24.99 List Price (Save 34%)
Marketplace (New and Used)
from
$0.01
$24.99 List Price (Save 100%)
Usually ships in 1-2 business days
All (37)  
Used (29)  
New (8)  
Close
Sort by
Page 1 of 4
Showing 1 – 9 of 37 (4 pages)
$0.01
(Save 100%)
Better World Books
Seller since 2006

Feedback rating:

(50880)

Condition:

New — never opened or used in original packaging.

Like New — packaging may have been opened. A "Like New" item is suitable to give as a gift.

Very Good — may have minor signs of wear on packaging but item works perfectly and has no damage.

Good — item is in good condition but packaging may have signs of shelf wear/aging or torn packaging. All specific defects should be noted in the Comments section associated with each item.

Acceptable — item is in working order but may show signs of wear such as scratches or torn packaging. All specific defects should be noted in the Comments section associated with each item.

Used — An item that has been opened and may show signs of wear. All specific defects should be noted in the Comments section associated with each item.

Refurbished — A used item that has been renewed or updated and verified to be in proper working condition. Not necessarily completed by the original manufacturer.

Good
Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase ... benefits world literacy! Read more Show Less

Ships from: Mishawaka, IN

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Canadian
  • •International
  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
  • •Express, 48 States
  • •Express (AK, HI)
$1.18
(Save 95%)
Buybreak
Seller since 2010

Feedback rating:

(359)

Condition: New
New Book, Unread, Tight Binding, May have some shelf wear or remainder mark. Prompt shipping, buy with confidence.

Ships from: Deer Park, NY

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Canadian
  • •International
  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
  • •Express, 48 States
  • •Express (AK, HI)
$1.99
(Save 92%)
Hall Street Books
Seller since 2012

Feedback rating:

(147)

Condition: Good
2009 - Hardcover - - - - Used - Good - - - -

Ships from: Brooklyn, NY

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Canadian
  • •International
  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
  • •Express, 48 States
  • •Express (AK, HI)
$1.99
(Save 92%)
BookBuyers Online1 CA
Seller since 2007

Feedback rating:

(2395)

Condition: Very Good
2009 Hardcover Very good

Ships from: San Jose, CA

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Canadian
  • •International
  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
  • •Express, 48 States
  • •Express (AK, HI)
$1.99
(Save 92%)
New Chapter Recycling
Seller since 2010

Feedback rating:

(3285)

Condition: Good

Ships from: Lakewood, WA

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Canadian
  • •International
  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
  • •Express, 48 States
  • •Express (AK, HI)
$1.99
(Save 92%)
BargainBookStores
Seller since 2010

Feedback rating:

(7941)

Condition: Very Good
100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

Ships from: Grand Rapids, MI

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Canadian
  • •International
  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
  • •Express, 48 States
  • •Express (AK, HI)
$1.99
(Save 92%)
RiverCityBooks
Seller since 2008

Feedback rating:

(2244)

Condition: Good
GOOD with average wear to cover, pages and binding. We ship quickly and work hard to earn your confidence. Orders are generally shipped no later than next business day. We offer a ... no hassle guarantee on all our items. Read more Show Less

Ships from: Tualatin, OR

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Canadian
  • •International
  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
  • •Express, 48 States
  • •Express (AK, HI)
$1.99
(Save 92%)
Free State Books
Seller since 2012

Feedback rating:

(1006)

Condition: Good
Book has a small amount of wear visible on the binding, cover, pages. Free State Books. Never settle for less.

Ships from: Halethorpe, MD

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Canadian
  • •International
  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
  • •Express, 48 States
  • •Express (AK, HI)
$1.99
(Save 92%)
Books Squared
Seller since 2009

Feedback rating:

(4448)

Condition: Good
Only lightly used. Book has minimal wear to cover and binding. A few pages may have small creases and minimal underlining. Book selection as BIG as Texas.

Ships from: Dallas, TX

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Canadian
  • •International
  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
  • •Express, 48 States
  • •Express (AK, HI)
Page 1 of 4
Showing 1 – 9 of 37 (4 pages)
Close
Sort by
NOOK Book (eBook)
$9.99
BN.com price

Available on NOOK devices and apps

  • Nook Devices
  • NOOK
  • NOOK Color
  • NOOK Tablet
  • Tablet/Phone
  • NOOK for iPad
  • NOOK for iPhone
  • NOOK for Android
  • NOOK for Android (Tablet)
  • NOOK Kids for iPad
  • PC/Mac
  • NOOK Study
  • NOOK for PC
  • NOOK for Mac

Want a NOOK? Explore Now

More About This Book

Overview

The nearly 37 million people in the United States who play golf probably all have one thing in common: At some point they have contemplated giving up the game because they were frustrated with the way they were playing. When those blissful moments of precise drives and perfect putts disappear, when the ball seems to have a mind of its own, and when well-grooved swings become totally unhinged, we find ourselves in that panicked state known as a "slump."

When Jimmy Roberts, the award-winning reporter and writer, entered his own period of frustration with the game, he decided to ask some of the most famous golfers and successful people in the world for advice. Here, for the first time, are the stories and recollections of eighteen veteran players whose wisdom is both practical and philosophical. Some concentrate on technique (when Phil Mickelson is dissatisfied with the way he's driving the ball, he practices bunker shots to reinforce the most important element of the tee shot—rhythm). Others focus on mental adjustments (Davis Love III remembers his late father's essential advice when he's frustrated: Try less hard).

With stories from greats Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Johnny Miller, Dottie Pepper, Greg Norman, George Herbert Walker Bush, Paul Azinger, and many others, this is an emotional and spiritual first aid kit for anyone who plays the game and even those who don't. As the 41st president says, the way we handle adversities in golf can provide a template for how to handle the challenges in life: Golf lessons can sometimes be life lessons too. There may not be a universal cure-all, but there are many ways to recover from a debilitating slump.

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble
Call it a dry spell, a slump, or "golfer's block," but the collapse of your game always seems as maddening as it seems inexplicable. And nobody is immune; the slump has struck every major PGA golfer. Breaking the Slump demonstrates that point in the most winning way: by documenting the desperation suffered by the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, Greg Norman, Johnny Miller, Paul Azinger, Hal Sutton, Peter Jacobson, and others. This spiritual first-aid kit assures you that no matter how bad you feel, others have felt even worse. Consider, for example, the fate of British Open Champion David Duval, who plummeted from being ranked No. 1 in the world to being No. 660.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780061685996
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 3/31/2009
  • Pages: 256
  • Sales rank: 1,173,214
  • Product dimensions: 5.30 (w) x 8.10 (h) x 1.10 (d)

Meet the Author

Jimmy Roberts has worked as a full-time reporter for ABC, ESPN, and NBC. He has won eleven Emmy Awards and a Golf Writers Association of America Award. Roberts lives in Westchester County, New York, with his wife and three sons.

Read an Excerpt

Breaking the Slump

Chapter One

Paul Azinger

"Confidence is something that when you have it, you never think you're going to lose it, and when you lose it, you never think you're going to get it back."

It is a sunny late September morning in Bradenton, Florida, and I am standing in line at Starbucks with Captain America. I go for a decaf, but Paul Azinger prefers something stronger. As if he needs it. He's buzzing anyway.

"Way to go," an older woman yells at Azinger a few minutes later from the window of a weathered SUV. "Congratulations!"

Much to Azinger's delight and surprise, the scene is repeated a handful more times as we sit sipping our coffee at an outdoor table. "There's a lot going on that's not good," he says. "I think it's kind of a scary time, and this was uplifting for a lot of people."

Eight days earlier, using a blueprint for team building that might wow the people at Harvard Business School, Azinger engineered a win for the United States at the Ryder Cup in Louisville, Kentucky. It had been nearly a decade since the last United States win, and America's fortunes in the competition had become something of a hyper-scrutinized obsession in the insular world of golf. So instead of sipping coffee with me on a lazy Monday morning on the Gulf Coast of Florida, Azinger could be in Los Angeles doing the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, or taping a guest spot with Ellen DeGeneres or Jimmy Kimmel, but he has turned it all down to come back home and just let it sink in.

"I feel like I spent the last two years slowly pulling back the string of a bow and I finally let it go."

With theCup in tow, he will venture across town later in the week to throw out the first pitch in Game Two of the first ever major league baseball post-season series for his hometown Tampa Bay Rays. As we sit talking, his phone rattles incessantly. Hundreds of text messages, voice-mails, and e-mails have yet to be returned, including one from the president of the United States. "I don't want to call him back yet. He's so busy up there. I don't want him to feel obligated to take my call. He's got more important things to do."

The night before, we walked out his back door and onto the dock, which leads 382 feet out into Tampa Bay. The sky was clear and the night was silent, except for small waves lapping hypnotically against the pylons. Azinger looked west towards the Gulf of Mexico and sighed. "People always ask me why in the world I would want to live in Bradenton. There's nothing here. 'You're right,' I tell them. 'You don't want to come here.'?"

He laughs, and we head back to the house. Life is impossibly good. Three months ago, he walked his oldest daughter down the aisle, and just seven days earlier, he cunningly led the U.S. team to a Ryder Cup win over a side captained by his long-time adversary and irritant, Nick Faldo, the man with whom he'd often sarcastically dueled as television commentators for ABC Sports. Many in American golf would have you believe that the Louisville matches were a matter of life and death. Azinger is a vicious competitor, and he desperately wanted to win the Ryder Cup, but it was hardly a life-and-death affair. Who in golf could possibly know that any better?

There was a time not too long before when Azinger's celebrity wasn't about helping others do their best, or commenting about it on TV, but rather doing it himself.

In 1987, he was the PGA of America's Player of the Year. It was the start of a muscular seven-year stretch during which he collected eleven wins on Tour and finished every year except one in the top ten on the money list. The year he didn't, he finished eleventh. "If I wasn't the best player in the world, I was certainly the hottest," he says.

He might have also been the biggest surprise.

There are successful pros like Nicklaus or Mickelson or Woods who exploded through amateur and junior golf and collected every credential there was. There are players like Steve Stricker and Davis Love who had modest but successful amateur careers before they made a name in professional golf. And then there are the real rarities...players like Azinger.

"I couldn't break 80 two days in a row my senior year in high school," Azinger remembers. "I suppose I probably could, but if I did, I'd run home and tell someone."

The son of an Air Force navigator who flew C-141s in Korea and Vietnam, Azinger learned to play golf mostly on military bases. His earliest memory of the game is riding atop the pull cart his dad, Ralph, dragged around the course at Homestead Air Force Base in south Florida when Paul was three years old.

"My dad was a single-digit handicap," he says, "but my mom was better than him. She got down to like a four or five handicap."

Aside from winning several state and regional tournaments, Jean Azinger's claim to fame was playing...and with great distinction...in an exhibition with the hall-of-famer Patty Berg in 1959. Jean chipped in three times during the round, a round she played while seven months pregnant...with Paul.

Initially, though, her son's in utero training didn't seem to make much of an imprint. Paul Azinger was mostly an indifferent high school golfer.

"None of my friends played golf," he says. "I just wasn't into it."

Upon graduating from Sarasota High School in the spring of 1978, he didn't get a single scholarship offer and ended up at Brevard Community College. "I knew I wasn't any good at golf," he says. "Sometimes you think you're good and you're not. I knew I wasn't that good."

Breaking the Slump. Copyright © by Jimmy Roberts. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 3.5
( 2 )

Rating Distribution

5 Star

(1)

4 Star

(0)

3 Star

(0)

2 Star

(1)

1 Star

(0)

Your Rating:

Review Guidelines
Add Recommendations
Your Name: Create a Pen Name or Leave Anonymously

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Our reader reviews allow you to share your comments on titles you liked, or didn't, with others. By submitting an online review, you are representing to Barnes & Noble.com that all information contained in your review is original and accurate in all respects, and that the submission of such content by you and the posting of such content by Barnes & Noble.com does not and will not violate the rights of any third party. Please follow the rules below to help ensure that your review can be posted.

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

We highly value and respect everyone's opinion concerning the titles we offer. However, we cannot allow persons under the age of 13 to have accounts at BN.com or to post customer reviews. Please see our Terms of Use for more details.

What to exclude from your review:

Please do not write about reviews, commentary, or information posted on the product page. If you see any errors in the information on the product page, please send us an email.

Reviews should not contain any of the following:

  • - HTML tags, profanity, obscenities, vulgarities, or comments that defame anyone
  • - Time-sensitive information such as tour dates, signings, lectures, etc.
  • - Single-word reviews. Other people will read your review to discover why you liked or didn't like the title. Be descriptive.
  • - Comments focusing on the author or that may ruin the ending for others
  • - Phone numbers, addresses, URLs
  • - Pricing and availability information or alternative ordering information
  • - Advertisements or commercial solicitation

Reminder:

  • - By submitting a review, you grant to Barnes & Noble.com and its sublicensees the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use the review in accordance with the Barnes & Noble.com Terms of Use.
  • - Barnes & Noble.com reserves the right not to post any review -- particularly those that do not follow the terms and conditions of these Rules. Barnes & Noble.com also reserves the right to remove any review at any time without notice.
  • - See Terms of Use for other conditions and disclaimers.
Search for Products You'd Like to Recommend

Recommend other products that relate to your review. Just search for them below and share!

Create a Pen Name

Your Pen Name is your unique identiy on BN.com. It will appear on the reviews you write and other website activities. Your Pen Name cannot be edited, changed or deleted once submitted.

Your Pen Name can be any combination of alphanumeric characters (plus - and _), and must be at least two characters long.

Continue Anonymously

We're sorry, but penname is already taken.

Please select one of the following:
Your Pen Name can be any combination of alphanumeric characters (plus - and _), and must be at least two characters long.

Continue Anonymously

penname is available!

By visiting the BN.com website or marking a purchase on BN.com, a User is deemed to have accepted the Terms of Use.

Continue Anonymously

Welcome, penname

You have successfully created your Pen Name. Start enjoying the benefits of the BN.com Community today.

Sort by: Showing all of 2 Customer Reviews

  • Posted April 15, 2009

    Great Book!

    Chock full of insight..this book tells how even the best at golf overcome their worst slumps. From NIcklaus to Norman, from Azinger to Duval and Mickelson, the advice applies not only to the game, but to life. Not technical---just great storytelling. A great read.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted April 11, 2009

    No text was provided for this review.

Sort by: Showing all of 2 Customer Reviews
If you find inappropriate content, please report it to Barnes & Noble
Why is this product inappropriate?
Comments (optional)
500 character limit