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The Secret of Golf: The Story of Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus by Joe Posnanski is the story of the friendship and rivalry of two of golf’s all-time greats.

The first occasion when they met, at a presentation coordinate in 1967, Tom Watson was a seventeen-year-old secondary school understudy and Jack Nicklaus, at 27, was at that point the best golf player on the planet. In spite of the fact that they shared a few similitudes—they were both Midwestern young men who had figured out how to play golf at their dads’ nation clubs—they varied from multiple points of view. Nicklaus played a round of consummate control and exactness. Watson hit the ball everywhere.

Nicklaus needed appeal and showy behavior, and he was completely loathed by most golf fans since he had dislodged Arnold Palmer as lord of the golf world. Watson was one of those Arnold Palmer fans. However throughout the following twenty years their apparently disparate ways crashed as they struggled against one another over and over for a spot at the highest point of the game and drove each other to consistently taking off statures of achievement.

Crossing from that initial match through the “Duel in the Sun” at Turnberry in 1977 to Watson’s marvelous close triumph at Turnberry as he moved toward sixty, and educated by interviews with the two players over numerous years, The Secret of Golf is Joe Posnanski’s cozy record of the most amazing contention and (inevitable) fellowship in present day golf.

Tom Watson Career Accomplishments

• 39 PGA Tour Wins
• 2-time Masters Tournament winner (1977, 1981)
• U.S. Open Tournament winner (1982)
• 5-time The Open Championship Tournament winner (1975, 1977, 1980, 1982, 1983)
• PGA Player of the Year (1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1984)
• PGA Tour leading money winner (1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1984)
• Vardon Trophy (1977, 1978, 1979)
• Bob Jones Award (1987)
• Old Tom Morris Award (1992)
• Payne Stewart Award (2003)
• Charles Schwab Cup (2003, 2005)
• World Golf Hall of Fame (1988)

Jack Nicklaus Career Accomplishments

• 73 PGA Tour Wins
• 6-time Masters Tournament winner (1963, 1965, 1966, 1972, 1975, 1986)
• 5-time PGA Championship Tournament winner (1963, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1980)
• 4-time U.S. Open Tournament winner (1962, 1967, 1972, 1980)
• 3-time The Open Championship Tournament winner (1966, 1970, 1978)
• PGA Player of the Year (1967, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1976)
• PGA Tour leading money winner (1964, 1965, 1967, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1976)
• Bob Jones Award (1975)
• Payne Stewart Award (2000)
• Presidential Medal of Freedom (2005)
• PGA Tour Lifetime Achievement Award (2008)
• Congressional Gold Medal (2015)
• World Golf Hall of Fame (1974)

About the Author

Joe Posnanski is the New York Times bestselling author of Paterno, The Machine, and The Secret of Golf. He is a Senior Writer for The Athletic after having similar roles with MLB, NBC Sports, and Sports Illustrated.

Joe Posnanski was named National Sportswriter of the Year by the Sports Media Hall of Fame. As editorialist for the Kansas City Star, was twice named the best sports journalist in America by the Associated Press Sports Editors. He is a two-time Emmy winner as part of NBC Sports Olympic coverage. His first book, The Soul of Baseball, won The Casey Award as best baseball book. Joe Posnanski lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his wife Margo, daughters Elizabeth and Katie, and standard poodle Westley.

Other Books You May Like

The Eternal Summer: Palmer, Nicklaus, and Hogan in 1960, Golf’s Golden Year by Curt Sampson : It was the year that the game and its striking characters detonated on the consciousness of the country. When the past, present, and future of the game met.

Here was Arnold Palmer, the workingman’s legend, “perspiring, chain-smoking, shirt-tail flying”. Ben Hogan, the best player of the fifties, a fussbudget fighting twin evil spirits old enough and nerves. There was also, making his hotshot debut, a crew-cut college kid who appeared to have the makings of a legend, twenty-year-old Jack Nicklaus.

Arnie and Jack: Palmer, Nicklaus, and Golf’s Greatest Rivalry by Ian O’Connor : One of golf’s most complex, and defining conflicts played out not in the boxing ring or at the line of scrimmage, but on the sophisticated green fairways of the world’s best fairways. The feud was between Arnie and Jack, Palmer and Nicklaus. Their fifty-year duel, in both the clubhouse and the meeting room, moved each to the status of American icon and pushed current golf to the statures and prominence it appreciates today.

A Life Well Played: My Stories by Arnold Palmer: A mother lode of engaging tales and ageless wisdom that readers, golf players and non-golf players the same, will celebrate and treasure. Nobody has won more fans the world over and no player has had a large impact on the game of golf than Arnold Palmer.

The Secret of Golf Podcasts

The PosCast with Joe Posnanski & Michael Schur: Sports, drafts and nonsense with Joe Posnanski and The Good Place’s Michael Schur.

KCUR’s Up To Date – Joe Posnanski: Kansas City’s beloved sportswriter Joe Posnanski discusses the friendship— and rivalry— of golfers Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus.