The Greatest Game Ever Played

The best sports writing doesn't concentrate just on the game itself, it places the drama in context. To understand an event fully, the reader needs to know the background to the confrontation; we need to know why it was important. The shots played, the punches thrown, aren't so important in themselves unless we know why they mattered so much to the participants and to those who paid and gathered to watch. Frost knows this full well and we are left in no doubt as to the significance of the US Open golf championship in 1913, which saw a showdown between Harry Vardon and Francis Oimet, and which, Frost asserts, marked the launching of the game in the US. Vardon was from humble beginnings on the Channel Island of Jersey, a boy who became obsessed with golf despite his family being evicted to make way for a new course. He went on to dominate the game in the early part of the century and was a multiple winner of the Open. Oimet grew up modestly too, opposite the Country Club at Brookline, and he soon developed a love for golf too. He was beginning to reach his peak as a player just as Vardon was on the way down, so they were equally matched in 1913. The stage was therefore set for the match-up of grizzled pro versus enthusiastic amateur, Old World versus New World. It is not quite as cut and dried as Frost would have it, but his clever blend of biography, social history and dramatised ball-by-ball action is gripping, and his understanding of the broader picture is masterly. The match unfolds slowly with almost every shot lovingly recorded. Both the main players, their motivations and their emotions are expertly drawn, but equally impressive is the way that the peripheral figures are fully included, their importance noted, whether it be Lord Northcliffe or 'Long' Jim Barnes. Frost has produced a sports book of the highest worth, intelligent and complete, which will fascinate and educate all serious sports fans. (Kirkus UK)