Nonfiction review: Jenkins at the Majors

NONFICTION

While major golf championships end on spring and summer Sundays, for thousands of fans these tournaments aren't really over until they have been sliced and diced by Dan Jenkins in the next edition of Golf Digest.

Jenkins, a 79-year-old Texan, is a successful novelist ("Semi-Tough," "Dead Solid Perfect"), but he's at his best as a journalist. He has been covering golf for newspapers and magazines for six decades, and by his count he has been a member of the working press at 198 major championships. He's currently covering his 199th, the U.S. Open that concludes today in Farmingdale, N.Y.

Jenkins' 17th book is an edited collection of his stories on the majors, from the Fort Worth Press, to the Dallas Times-Herald, to Sports Illustrated and finally to Golf Digest. The book covers 58 years and 94 different tournaments, and it is sure to please his legion of admirers.

There is usually one belly laugh in each chapter and at least one sentence that is hotter than a habanero pepper. More than that, Jenkins brings a passion for the game and a committed intelligence to his coverage.

But enough descriptives. Let Jenkins' work speak for itself.

1955 Masters -- "It is entirely possible that Dr. Cary Middlecoff gave up dentistry because people couldn't hold their mouths open that long."

1960 Masters -- "It was in the late evening shadows on Sunday that [Arnold] Palmer grabbed destiny by the neck and wrung it like a chicken."

1968 PGA -- "Jack Nicklaus despised the course so much he took the precaution of missing the cut."

1980 U.S. Open -- "The huge old gabled clubhouse [at Baltusrol] rose up out of the New Jersey countryside looking like it belonged on the jacket of a gothic novel, and Jack Nicklaus walked toward it with so many records he could have used an extra caddy and a couple of bellhops."

1985 U.S. Open -- "Soaking wet throughout the final round, and hatless in the rain, [Andy North] looked like a man whose mobile home had been blown away by a tornado."

1991 British Open -- Southport, England "is basically a vacation spot or weekend retreat where the well-to-do of Liverpool go to wrap themselves in freezing wind as they picnic on a muddy beach and watch the dark sea recede toward Ireland."

1992 Masters -- "[Fred Couples] sort of plays the game like a man who's not really keeping score."

2005 PGA "[Steve Elkington's] most hideous frock . . . was the blue-and-white polka dot job he wore on Sunday that must have been bought on eBay as an investment, believing it had once been worn by Joan Crawford."

2006 U.S. Open "[Phil] Mickelson gave away this Open with the worst driving exhibition since the Greyhound bus ran into Ben Hogan."

2008 U.S. Open "[Tiger Woods, the winner] limped so often after hitting poor shots that it will probably encourage a lot of recreational golfers to hire a friend of Tonya Harding to whack them across the knee with a pipe."

You get the idea. For golf nuts, this book is a good addition to your library.

Bill Millsaps, retired executive editor of The Times-Dispatch, was sports editor of the newspaper from 1973 through 1991.