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Outsider provides inside look at PGA

 
Published July 6, 1995|Updated Oct. 4, 2005

Jack Nicklaus was suffering through perhaps his worst season as a pro, and when he arrived at last year's PGA Championship in Tulsa, Okla., the Golden Bear was anything but himself.

Forget the bad golf Nicklaus was playing, missing all but one cut on the PGA Tour. The man considered the best of all time was stung by criticism he was receiving for remarks he allegedly made two months earlier concerning the lack of young black players on the Tour.

It had become so bad that Nicklaus declined an invitation to speak with the media, and would only issue a statement about the matter.

Nicklaus wouldn't talk to reporters that week, but he agreed to an interview with author John Feinstein, who got Nicklaus to reveal how upset he was about the entire affair in his recently released book, A Good Walk Spoiled: Days and Nights on the PGA Tour.

"He was crushed," Feinstein said. "I sat with (Nicklaus' wife) Barbara before I talked to him and she was saying she had never seen him like this. Once he started, I couldn't get him to stop talking about it."

Nicklaus' story is just one Feinstein encountered while spending more than a year following the golfers on the PGA Tour, from the 1993 Ryder Cup to the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament and through the bulk of the 1994 season.

In A Good Walk Spoiled, Feinstein chronicles the resignation of commissioner Deane Beman and Paul Azinger's battle with cancer. He spends time with Arnold Palmer in the King's basement workshop as he endlessly tinkers with golf clubs. There is Johnny Miller's amazing victory at Pebble Beach, a tearful farewell by Palmer at the U.S. Open and John Daly's shaved head at the Greater Greensboro Open.

He also tells the story of relatively unknown golfers such as Brian Henninger and Paul Goydos, whose struggles to make it in pro golf reveal much about the game.

And his work was recently rewarded when the book went to No.

1 on the New York Times bestseller list, the second time a Feinstein book has been so honored.

The reason is Feinstein's ability to get inside and have subjects open up. Although Feinstein had little previous contact with golfers, by the end of last year, almost everyone on the tour knew him and what he was doing.

The formula worked for Feinstein in his look inside the Indiana University basketball program, A Season on the Brink.

That book went to No. 1 in 1986, and he has written four other sports books along with his sports writing duties for the Washington Post, Inside Sports and Golf Magazine.

Feinstein found that the pro game is not nearly as easy as the world's best players make it look.

"I saw how hard it is," Feinstein said. "These guys take something that's hard and make it look easy. They work all these hours, hitting balls, practicing. None of that shows up on television. They win huge money one year and nothing the next. It's not an easy life.

"The golf swing is so fragile. They have to live with that mentally. I didn't find anybody who could sit there and say "Golf's been easy for me.' (Nick) Faldo re-worked his swing in the mid 1980s. (Greg) Norman didn't win for over two years and wondered if he ever would again. (Nick) Price went eight years without winning. All the great players have struggled."

Feinstein feared the lack of scandal might hurt sales of the book, but there are plenty of compelling stories to keep it cruising along: Davis Love III's success at the Ryder Cup, Daly's victory in Atlanta and Price's back-to-back major championships.

Daly might be the one who dislikes the book the most, simply because if anyone is criticized, it is him _ although most of the complaints are told by other players.

Feinstein's success is surprising because sports books are typically not huge sellers.

"Golf is popular," Feinstein said. "With too many other golf books, that was a concern for me. Traditionally, golf books that have sold best are instructional books.

"But no one had ever done a book that was a real, up-close look at the players as an outsider."

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