The Bogey Man: A Month on the PGA Tour

by George Plimpton, Rick Reilly (Foreword by)

Overview

George Plimpton chronicles his month spent on the PGA tour in The Bogey Man, repackaged and including a foreword by Rick Reilly and never-before-seen content from the Plimpton Archives.

What happens when a weekend athlete -- of average skill at best -- joins the professional golf circuit? George Plimpton, one of the finest participatory sports journalists, spent a month of self-imposed torture on the tour to find out. Along the way, he meets amateurs, pros, caddies, officials, fans, and hangers-on. In The Bogey Man, we find golf legends, adventurers, stroke-saving theories, superstitions, and other golfing lore, and best of all, Plimpton's thoughts and experiences -- frustrating, humbling and, sometimes, thrilling -- from the first tee to the last green.

This intriguing classic, which remains one of the wittiest books ever written on golf, features Arnold Palmer, Dow Finsterwald, Walter Hagan, and many other golf greats and eccentrics, all doing what they do best.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316326339
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	04/26/2016
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	492,541
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

George Plimpton (1927-2003) was the bestselling author and editor of nearly thirty books, as well as the cofounder, publisher, and editor of the Paris Review. He wrote regularly for such magazines as Sports Illustrated and Esquire, and he appeared numerous times in films and on television.

Date of Birth:

March 18, 1927

Date of Death:

September 25, 2003

Place of Birth:

New York, NY

Place of Death:

New York, NY

Education:

B.A. in English Literature, Harvard University, 1950; Master's degree, Cambridge University, 1952

Read an Excerpt

"Why don't you try Ben Hogan?" the member asked.
 
He said he would call him—he was a good friend—and put in a word for me. Hogan was in the vicinity preparing for the Masters, as he did annnually at the Seminole Golf Club north of Palm Beach.
 
I thanked the member, and a few days later, on his say-so, I called Hogan. I explained somewhat haltingly that I wanted to write an article about commpeting against great professionals. Perhaps a match could be arranged.
 
I can remember his voice in reply—polite and easy. It took me awhile to realize that he was turning me down. He said, yes, our mutual friend had described the notion to him. He said he had no ojection to playing a friendly match, perhaps along with the friend who had put us in touch. A good player a former Harvard captain, did I know that? Yes, I said. But Hogan  went on, if I intended to write about playing against him in a competiton, well, that was another matter. The conditions would have to be those of a tournament..
 

Editorial Reviews

"Humorous but also agonizing and also unfailingly fascinating regardless of one's interest in golf. For the psychology of the sport— and this is what Mr. Plimpton is probing— there is nothing more revealing around."—The New York Times

"Plimpton will interest even the man who can't tell a pitching wedge from a putter.... This is really a book about a kind of madness with rules, and anyone can appreciate the appeal of that."—Newsweek

"Golf is a lonely and private game, lacking the natural drama of football, but Plimpton, by substituting improvisation for plot, has caught its mad comedy and bizarre effects on people in a book just as charming, in its own way, as Paper Lion."—Life

"A delight—more entertaining, if possible, than I remembered... the reader leaves George Plimpton's wide world of sports with deep reluctance.... His prose is as elegant and seemingly effortless as Ted Williams's swing or an Arnold Palmer iron shot.... His teammates recede—like the old baseball players vanishing into the cornfield in Field of Dreams, taking their magical world with them but living on in fond memory."—Edward Kosner, Wall Street Journal

"Sports memoirs, like humor collections, rarely outlive their authors, but Plimpton's books have aged gracefully and even matured. Today they have the additional (and unintended) appeal of vivid history, bearing witness to a mythical era."—Nathaniel Rich, New York Review of Books

From the Publisher