New Yorker returns to golf with article on British Open

[Anthony Butler]

It's been a while... the sub-head on the article 'Linksland and Bottle' portends some sort of discussion on returning to links-like conditions for all tournament golf... relevant if you think of how Chambers Bay was presented for the US Amateur.

After reading the article, the playing conditions are really a pretext for some talk about the strategy of playing links golf esp. when the wind is up.

In summary, a very HWW style New Yorker article, with lots of detail on the golf scene around St. Andrews. Delivered slightly faster than Wind's typical 2-3 month lag between tournament and publication. Here's an abstract. You need a subscription to read the full article now, although it will be up on the website in a week or two, so keep the link:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/09/06/100906fa_fact_mcphee

[David_Tepper]

Great news! John McPhee is one of my favorite non-fiction writers. His book about Arthur Ashe (Levels of the Game) is a classic. He also wrote an excellent book about Bill Bradley (A Sense of Where You Are), although most of his writing has not been about sports.   

[Bill_McBride]

Mr. McPhee is channelling Herbert Warren Wind!  A couple of years ago I bought an external hard drive from the New Yorker that contained its entire archive in searchable format.  I spent a few weeks reading past reports by HWW on big tournaments.  Mr. McPhee captures just the same refreshing blend of hard fact, anecdote and general atmospheric report.   The report on Oosty's win in the Open is excellent.