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The Well-Built Triathlete: Turning Potential into Performance
by Matt DixonIn The Well-Built Triathlete, elite triathlon coach Matt Dixon reveals the approach he has used to turn age-group triathletes into elite professionals. Instead of focusing narrowly on training and workouts, Dixon reveals a more comprehensive approach that considers the whole athlete. Dixon details the four pillars of performance that form the foundation of his highly successful purplepatch fitness program, showing triathletes of all abilities how they can become well-built triathletes and perform better year after year. The Well-Built Triathlete gives equal weight to training and workouts, recovery and rest, daily nutrition, and functional strength. Dixon considers the demands of career and family and the ways different personality types prefer to approach training. The Well-Built Triathlete helps triathletes apply Dixon&’s approach to their season and training plan. Chapters on swimming, cycling, and running explain the most effective ways to train for each. A purplepatch section shows how triathletes can peak their fitness for long streaks of high performance. Dixon&’s holistic, whole-body approach to triathlon will help triathletes become greater than the sum of their workouts. By becoming better all-around athletes, well-built triathletes will train and race faster than ever.
The Welsh Grand Slam 2012: How Wales Won the Six Nations Championship
by Paul ReesIn the glory years of the 1970s, Wales won three grand slams in eight seasons. But rarely since then had the men in red started a Six Nations campaign armed with expectation rather than hope. 2012 was different. The previous year they had come within a kick of reaching the World Cup final, losing by a point to France despite playing for the last hour with 14 men after their captain, Sam Warburton, had been sent off for a dangerous tackle. The question when they returned home was how they would cope with the heartache. The answer came in their first match in the 2012 Six Nations Championship. In Dublin against Ireland, the team they had knocked out in the World Cup quarter-final, revenge was on the menu. Wales went there without five of their leading forwards and lost Warburton to injury at half-time. They were trailing by six points with five minutes to go and had a player in the sin-bin. The old Wales would have folded but, as in Life on Mars, it was back to the spirit of the 1970s. This Wales team came back fighting to win not only the game but to sweep the board in the whole tournament, bringing home a Welsh grand slam for the third time in eight years and establishing a strong and exciting team for the future.
The West Bromwich Albion Miscellany
by David ClaytonThe West Bromwich Albion Miscellany – a book on the Baggies like no other, packed with facts, stats, trivia, stories and legend. Now, with the club experiencing previously uncharted highs, take a look back at what has made West Bromwich Albion Football Club what it is today – the players and characters that have represented the Albion over the years and the events that have shaped the club. If you want to know the record crowd for a home game, the record appearance holder, the longest-serving manager and a host of other weird, wonderful and entertaining facts, look no further – this is the book you’ve been waiting for. From record goal scorers, to record defeats; from Cyrille Regis to Ron Atkinson, from nicknames to Frank Skinner and other celebrity supporters – it’s all in The West Bromwich Albion Miscellany – can you afford not to own a copy?
The Whartons' Stretch Book: Featuring the Breakthrough Method of Active-Isolated Stretching
by Phil Wharton Jim WhartonIntroducing Active-Isolated Stretching, the revolutionary yet remarkably simple flexibility program—featuring 59 stretches for over 55 different sports and everyday activities! Whether you’re a serious competitor or weekend warrior, you know that proper stretching before and after your workout can improve your performance, increase your flexibility, help prevent injury, and make you feel better. But did you know that the traditional way of stretching—lock your knees, bounce, hold, hurt, hold longer—actually makes muscles tighter and more prone to injury?There’s a new and better way to stretch: Active-Isolated Stretching. And with The Whartons’ Stretch Book, the method used successfully by scores of professional, amateur, and Olympic athletes is now available to everyone.This groundbreaking technique, developed by researchers, coaches, and trainers, and pioneered by Jim and Phil Wharton, is your new exercise prescription. The routine is simple: First, you prepare to stretch one isolated muscle at a time. Then you actively contract the muscle opposite the isolated muscle, which will then relax in preparation for its stretch. You stretch it gently and quickly—for no more than two seconds—and release it before it goes into its protective contraction. Then you repeat. Simple, but the results are outstanding. The Whartons’ Stretch Book explains it all.Part I contains the Active-Isolated Stretch Catalog, with fully illustrated, easy-to-follow stretches for each of five body zones, from neck and shoulders to trunk, arms, and legs—over fifty stretches in all. Part II offers specific stretching prescriptions for over fifty-five sports and activities, from running, tennis, track, and aerobics to skiing, skating, and swimming. You’ll also find advice on stretching for daily activities such as driving, working at a desk, lifting, and keyboarding. Part III discusses stretching for life, with specific recommendations for expectant mothers and older athletes. It also includes specific stretching exercises that could help you avoid unnecessary surgery.Give Active-Isolated Stretching a try for three weeks. You’ll never go back to your old stretching routines again.
The Wheat on the Chessboard
by Liz Huyck Julianne PaschkisIn this Indian tale, a wise mathematician named Sessa invents the game of chess to amuse the king and requests a single grain of wheat as his reward for the first square of the chessboard, double that the following day for the second, and so on. In the end, Sessa gets the real reward he wanted all along – a wiser and more mathematical king.
The Whirl
by Andre AgassiWhat's heaven to seven-year-old Andre Agassi? To never play tennis again. Yet his father has other plans. Mike Agassi was born in Iran, where Allied soldiers gave him a racket after the war and introduced him to the game. He shaves without soap or cream, boxed in the Olympics, and speaks five languages. The sixth is tennis. And his greatest dream is for his son to become number one in the world. A selection from the acclaimed autobiography Open, this is the tumultuous first confrontation between father and son, between the lines of the court: a searching portrait of Agassi before fame and success.
The Whistleblower: Rooting for the Ref in the High-Stakes World of College Basketball
by Bob KatzDuring a season on the road with college basketball referees, Bob Katz watched the games they officiated, listened in on their candid conversations in locker rooms and hotel lobbies, and explored the intense challenges they regularly confront. Alone among thousands in the stadium and millions watching at home, the ref does not care who wins or loses. His only goal is fairness and neutrality. His passion to ensure the playing field stays level is shaped by character, training, and a rare—and rarely appreciated—kind of honor. In this vivid portrait of one consummate professional at the top of his game, Katz pulls off an unbelievable feat in The Whistleblower—readers actually come to root for the ref.In a new afterword Katz reflects on the misunderstood and often denigrated role of the referee in sports and the looming implications for our increasingly partisan society.
The White Gates
by Bonnie RamthunWHEN TORIN SINCLAIR’S mom gets a job as the town doctor in Snow Park, Colorado, Tor can’t wait to learn to snowboard. But on Tor’s first night there, a member of the high school snowboarding team dies. “It’s the curse,” everyone whispers. Tor’s new friends Drake and Raine explain that there’s an old Native American curse on the doctors of the town. Snow Park can never get a doctor to stay. Tor and his friends must piece together a mystery involving an old mine, a Ute curse, the entire snowboarding team—who just might be blood doping in order to win competitions— and an attempt to save the wild river otters of Colorado. But to complete the puzzle, will Tor have to ride the deadly White Gates? And how will he survive the avalanche that follows? From the Hardcover edition.
The White Ladder: Triumph and Tragedy at the Dawn of Mountaineering
by Daniel LightThe true story of the thrill-seekers, map-makers, soldiers, occultists, artists and porters who paved the way for modern mountaineering. &‘A beautifully written and sure-footed history of mountaineering &“before Everest&”, full of wonderful stories and spanning continents and centuries. A splendid debut.&’ Sir Ranulph Fiennes, author of Shackleton Beautiful, remote and dangerous – for generations we have looked to the mountains in awe. Yet, for most, that is where the fascination ends. For a rare few, however, the allure of the peaks proved irresistible. There are the devout Incan priests who, scaling the Andes&’ icy slopes to pay tribute to each mountain&’s &‘Great Lord&’, travelled higher than any European would for centuries. The Gurkha riflemen who joined their commanders in canvassing the Karakoram, admiring the distant summits of Broad Peak and K2 with gleeful anticipation. The tweed-clad mountaineers who made the first serious assaults on Everest, hauling yards upon yards of battered rope through the cold. Tracing the world altitude record from the ashy slopes of the sacred volcano Llullaillaco to the icy crags and crevasses of the Karakoram, Daniel Light takes a panoramic journey through the storied history of mountaineering before Everest. Joining a cast of colourful characters, The White Ladder offers an ode to mountains&’ capacity to enthral, and the fundamental human drive to climb higher and higher. *** 'Thrilling... Daniel Light delivers stories that are poetic, spiritual and astonishing in their courage and drive.' Sonia Purnell, author of A Woman of No Importance &‘Daniel Light guides the reader through a mountain-scape that stretches from the Alps to the Himalaya... with the sure footing of a serious student of climbing history, and the élan of a skilled storyteller. This is a book to curl up with on a cold dark night in a comfortable armchair before a bright fire.&’ Maurice Isserman, co-author of Fallen Giants &‘Wonderful… a massive story with an enormous cast of characters, among them some of the most compelling figures of mountaineering history.&’ Wade Davis, author of Into the Silence
The White Ladder: Triumph and Tragedy at the Dawn of Mountaineering
by Daniel LightA sweeping history of mountaineering before Everest, and the epic human quest to reach the highest places on Earth. Whether in the name of conquest, science, or the divine, humans across the centuries have had myriad reasons to climb mountains. From the smoking volcanoes of South America to the great snowy ranges of the Himalaya, The White Ladder follows a cast of extraordinary characters—conquistadors and captains, scientists and surveyors, alpinists and adventurers—up the slopes of the world’s highest peaks. A masterpiece of edge-of-your-seat narrative history, The White Ladder describes the epic rise of mountaineering’s world altitude record, a story of ever higher climbs by figures great and small of mountaineering during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Daniel Light describes how climbers used revolutionary techniques to launch themselves into the most forbidding conditions. The expeditions illustrate evolutionary changes in climbing style, the advancement of high-altitude science, and the development of mountain climbing as an industry. Throughout, Light pays special attention to Incan climbers, Gurkha guides, Sherpa mountaineers, and many others who are often overlooked. He offers nuanced new perspectives on familiar characters, for example, calling out the famed female pioneer Fanny Bullock Workman for racism and for abusing her porters. He presents a complex new portrait of notorious occultist Aleister Crowley, who was at once a ruthless expedition leader, but also an innovative strategist who could read mountains and would risk everything trying to climb them. Light also makes bold new arguments about classic debates, for example, arguing that the much-maligned Jewish climber Oscar Eckenstein shaped mountaineering as we know it today. A story of innovation, invention, and determination, The White Ladder immerses readers in a fascinating historical period. With their breathtaking exploits, these climbers laid the groundwork for the historic ascents of K2 and Everest that came after—and heightened the spectacle of their dangerous sport.
The Whiteboard Daily Book of Cues for Everyone: A Visual Guide to Efficient Movement for Any Fitness Level, Age, and Discipline
by Karl EaglemanKarl Eagleman brings his whiteboard into your home, showing that movement cues are not just for elite coaches and athletes.With more than 350 new cues, this book will help anyone at any age or activity level to create a more seamless mind-body connection to move better, exercise better, and live better!Karl Eagleman, bestselling author and revered coach, delivers a new set of visually stunning movement cues that are tailored to everyone. The coaching world has been using cues to help teams and individual athletes find success. Now weekend warriors, casual fitness enthusiasts, budding and mature athletes, and those simply looking to move better can reap the benefits of Eagleman&’s proven approach. Eagleman distills complex movements into simple, actionable cues that can be easily integrated into a daily routine. The book is broken down by easy-to-follow common movement patterns such as pull-ups, squats, presses, hinges, and deadlifts. With each cue, you will learn the proper posture and technique allowing you to build upon each movement to create a tailored approach to your routine. These specific pattens are designed to help you increase mobility and gain strength at a pace that works for you, regardless of age, athletic ability, or physical limitations. With Eagleman's unique blend of practical applications and motivational insights, this book serves as a companion for anyone seeking to begin, enhance, or change up their fitness path. Each chapter is filled with concise, beautifully illustrated cues that motivate and guide readers toward success. Readers will have exclusive access to Eagleman&’s online resources and complementary videos to help guide them through each cue, along with stories, anecdotes, and best practices for getting started and reaching their goals. Embark on a new journey to better health and fitness and unlock your full potential—one cue at a time!
The Whiteboard Daily Book of Cues: A Visual Guide to Efficient Movement for Coaches, Trainers and Athletes
by Karl EaglemanThere is no such thing as a &“golden cue&” that works for everyone 100% of the time. Therefore, the more cues a coach has in their toolbox, the more likely they will be able to effectively communicate with their athletes. Coaches use cues—short, easy-to-remember phrases—to help athletes perform movements correctly as well as to convey useful sports psychology perspectives. Athletes commonly hear movement cues like &“Crush the Can&” and &“Grip the Ground&” along with motivational cues like &“Consistency is King.&” A passionate coach, lifelong athlete, and advanced degree holder in kinesiology, Karl Eagleman, creator of the popular Whiteboard Daily Instagram, has put together a valuable resource for coaches, athletes, and anyone who wants to improve their own movement. The Whiteboard Daily Book of Cues contains a comprehensive collection of illustrations drawn on a whiteboard—a medium that virtually all coaches are familiar with. It boasts the largest list of cues ever compiled, covering Olympic weightlifting, powerlifting, gymnastics, kettlebell exercises, and monostructural movements (running, rowing, jumping rope, etc.). Each illustration is hand drawn in a simple, stylized way to make the cues easy to retain and to utilize during training. No two athletes are the same; we all learn in our own unique ways. By providing hundreds of cues, this book will help coaches and athletes learn a new way to understand movement for themselves and/or to communicate safe, effective movement to others.
The Whitetail Advantage: Understanding Deer Behavior for Hunting Success
by Dr Dave SamuelIn The Whitetale Advantage - Understanding Deer Behavior for Hunting Success, the two top deer biologists in the country explain how to become a better hunter by taking basic science of deer biology and behavior and relating it to hunters in a way that will help them achieve greater success and enjoyment from hunting whitetail.
The Whitetail Hunter's Almanac: More Than 800 Tips and Tactics to Help You Get a D (Lyons Press Ser.)
by John WeissTo take the most impressive whitetail bucks, and to bring them in consistently, a hunter has to know his weapons, the woods, and most of all, his quarry. Now, with The Whitetail Hunter's Almanac at your side, you too can hunt with the strategies and practical wisdom that master hunter John Weiss has learned during his thirty-plus years on the field. Drawing on years of insider research, data studies, and personal experience, Weiss reveals the never-fail methods to making your shots count.Weiss's expert whitetail hunting secrets include:Little-known facts about whitetailsThe perfect places to set up blinds and standsEffective ways to use deer scentsDisappearing with camouflageHunting with a rifle, shogun, or bowAnd much more!With careful instructions and over two hundred photographs to bring the hunt to you, The Whitetail Hunter's Almanac is the must-have reference to make you a better tracker, a craftier woodsman, and a more consistently successful whitetail hunter. If you love the thrill of taking down a majestic buck, The Whitetail Hunter's Almanac is the guide for you!
The Whitetail Hunter's Almanac: More Than 800 Tips and Tactics to Help You Get a Deer This Season (Lyons Press Ser.)
by John Weiss Peter FiducciaTo take the most impressive whitetail bucks, and to bring them in consistently, a hunter has to know his weapons, the woods and, most of all, his quarry. Now, with The Whitetail Hunter’s Almanac at your side, you too can hunt with the strategies and practical wisdom that master hunter John Weiss has learned during his thirty-plus years on the field. Drawing on years of insider research, data studies, and personal experience, Weiss reveals the never-fail methods to making your shots count.Weiss’s expert whitetail hunting secrets include: Little-known facts about whitetails The perfect places to set up blinds and stands Effective ways to use deer scents How to disappear with camouflage Hunting with a rifle, shotgun, or bow And much more!With careful instructions and more than two hundred photographs to bring the hunt to you, The Whitetail Hunter’s Almanac is the must-have reference to make you a more efficient tracker, woodsman, and consistently successful whitetail hunter. If you love the thrill of outwitting a big buck, The Whitetail Hunter’s Almanac is the guide for you!
The Whitlock Workout: Get Fit and Healthy in Minutes
by Max WhitlockMax Whitlock, Team GB's double Olympic gold-medallist, has spent years developing his own fitness regime and now he wants to share his workout secrets with you.The Whitlock Workout gathers together all of Max's user-friendly core strength exercises and quick workout routines that anybody can try, from simple stretches on your sofa, to those using just a cushion or a pillow, through to more advanced total body exercises which can be taken outside to your local park. Along with nutritional tips and his favourite quick and healthy recipes to help fuel your body, Max shares the secrets of his success and teaches us how to be fit for life. QUICK WORKOUTS. HEALTHY RECIPES. TOTAL FITNESS. Max is proof that if you train hard and eat well, you really can achieve amazing results from home. Whether it's a spare 15 minutes in the morning before work, or half an hour at the weekend, The Whitlock Workout is perfect if you are looking to get fit, or want to build your core strength, but don't have the time or money to go to the gym every day.
The Whiz Kids: How the 1950 Phillies Took the Pennant, Lost the World Series, and Changed Philadelphia Baseball Forever
by Dennis SnellingBefore the 1950 World Series, the Philadelphia Phillies were infamous for a record-breaking lack of achievement that dated from their conception in 1883 through the 1940s. When twenty-eight-year-old Robert Carpenter Jr. took over in 1944, the Phillies had won only a single National League title in more than sixty years. For the next five years, Carpenter and the newly hired general manager, Herb Pennock, would overhaul the team&’s operations, building a farm system from scratch and spending a fortune on young talent to build a team that would gain immense popularity and finally bring a National League pennant in 1950. Nicknamed the &“Whiz Kids&” because they had so many players under thirty, the team caught lightning in a bottle for one season. Although they lost the World Series to the New York Yankees, the team became legendary in Philadelphia and beyond. The Whiz Kids is about a team that shocked everyone by winning, and then shocked everyone by never winning again. It includes a cast of characters and unusual storylines: a first baseman targeted for murder by a woman he had never met; a young catcher from Nebraska, Richie Ashburn, who became a Hall of Fame center fielder and later voice of the team for nearly three decades; a left fielder who lived and played in the shadow of his legendary father, then inspired Ernest Hemingway with the most legendary swing of a bat in franchise history; and a thirty-three-year-old bespectacled relief pitcher who won the Most Valuable Player Award with an undertaker as his personal pitching coach. The team succeeded under the watchful eye of its young owner, whose father handed him the team, and a college professor manager, only to see it slowly crumble as the slowest in the National League to integrate.The Whiz Kids recounts the history of a team that, though hand-built to be champions, fell short—yet remains legendary anyway.
The Whiz Kids: The Story of the fightin’ Phillies
by Harry T PaxtonVintage major league baseball book tells the story of the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies National League Champion baseball club, as reported by a Philadelphia sportswriter who covered the team.The team had a number of young players: the average age of a member of the Whiz Kids was 26.4 The team won the 1950 National League pennant but failed to win the World Series.After owner R. R. M. Carpenter, Jr. built a team of bonus babies, the 1950 team won for the majority of the season, but slumped late, allowing the defending National League champion Brooklyn Dodgers to gain ground in the last two weeks. The final series of the season was against Brooklyn, and the final game pitted the Opening Day starting pitchers, right-handers Robin Roberts and Don Newcombe, against one another. The Phillies defeated the Dodgers in extra innings in the final game of the season on a three-run home run by Dick Sisler in the top of the tenth inning. In the World Series which followed, the Whiz Kids were swept by the New York Yankees, who won their second of five consecutive World Series championships.
The Who, What, Where, Why, and How of Baseball
by Jim CharltonEverything you want to know about baseball. Statistics, records, trivia. Includes chapters on -.400 hitters. -Heavy Hitters. -Batting Titles. -And much much more.
The Whole World Was Watching: Sport in the Cold War (Cold War International History Project)
by Robert Edelman Christopher YoungIn the Cold War era, the confrontation between capitalism and communism played out not only in military, diplomatic, and political contexts, but also in the realm of culture—and perhaps nowhere more so than the cultural phenomenon of sports, where the symbolic capital of athletic endeavor held up a mirror to the global contest for the sympathies of citizens worldwide. The Whole World Was Watching examines Cold War rivalries through the lens of sporting activities and competitions across Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the U.S. The essays in this volume consider sport as a vital sphere for understanding the complex geopolitics and cultural politics of the time, not just in terms of commerce and celebrity, but also with respect to shifting notions of race, class, and gender. Including contributions from an international lineup of historians, this volume suggests that the analysis of sport provides a valuable lens for understanding both how individuals experienced the Cold War in their daily lives, and how sports culture in turn influenced politics and diplomatic relations.
The Whore of Akron: One Man's Search for the Soul of LeBron James
by Scott RaabAfter 52 long years, the city of Cleveland finally has a new championship team, thanks to LeBron James and his Cavaliers. Scott Raab—Cleveland super-fan—has suffered for every one of those five decades of drought. In the tradition of Frederick Exley’s cult-classic sports book A Fan’s Notes, The Whore of Akron is Raab’s hilarious and unhinged plea for deliverance from all those years of pain. Traveling from Cleveland to Miami and back again, Raab heads out on an obsessive quest to uncover the soul of one of today’s greatest basketball players: LeBron James, the man who finally brought Cleveland out of sporting exile.
The Why Is Everything: A Story of Football, Rivalry, and Revolution
by Michael SilverFrom an award-winning journalist, the inside story of the brilliant, hypercompetitive young coaches who threw out decades of received wisdom to fundamentally remake America’s most popular sport. When Kyle Shanahan became the NFL’s youngest offensive coordinator in 2008, he had one prevailing rule: Tell me the why. If a colleague couldn’t justify his position by providing the unassailable reasoning behind it, he was told to get the hell out of Shanahan’s office. Shanahan and the members of his coaching tree—including Sean McVay, Mike McDaniel, Raheem Morris, and Matt LaFleur—came up in a sport where innovation was the exception, not the rule. There had been brilliant football minds before, from Paul Brown to Bill Walsh to Bill Belichick. But for the most part, coaches learned a particular system and stuck to it no matter what—no matter the players on their team, no matter what the opponent might do. This group of young coaches would change all that. The Why Is Everything is the story of old dogmas falling before astonishingly creative new strategies and game plans. Drawing on unmatched access across the league, longtime NFL reporter Mike Silver takes us into the key moments in this still-unfolding revolution, from the education of Mike Shanahan, Kyle’s father and a two-time Super Bowl champion, in the 1980s; to the Washington Redskins’ football laboratory in the early 2010s, where the coaches first worked together, shocking the league with their cutting-edge scheme for rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III; to McVay’s Super Bowl victory in 2022 and Kyle Shanahan’s Super Bowl agony in 2019 and 2024. Less than a decade after their emergence, these men are the stars of their profession and have helped propel the NFL to new heights of viewership and drama. With The Why Is Everything, Silver reveals how it all happened, and in the process gives us a timeless account of friendship, rivalry, and the never-ending pursuit of perfection.
The Wicked Game: Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, and the Business of Modern Golf
by Howard SounesGolf is sometimes referred to as "the wicked game" because it is fiendishly difficult to play well. Yet in the parlance of the Tiger Woods generation, it's also a wickedly good game -- rich, glamorous, and more popular than ever. When we think about golf -- as it is played at its highest level -- we think of three names: Tiger Woods, the most famous sports figure in the world today, Arnold Palmer, the father of modern golf, and Jack Nicklaus, the game's greatest champion. In this penetrating, forty-year history of men's professional golf, acclaimed author Howard Sounes tells the story of the modern game through the lives of its greatest icons. With unprecedented access to players and their closest associates, Sounes reveals the personal lives, rivalries, wealth, and business dealings of these remarkable men, as well as the murky history of a game that has been marred by racism and sex discrimination. Among the many revelations, the complete and true story of Tiger Woods and his family background is untangled, uncovering surprising new details that inspire the golfer's father to exclaim, "Hell, you taught me some things about my life I never knew about!" Earl Woods and other members of Tiger Woods's family, his friends, girlfriends, caddies, coaches, and business associates were among the 150 people interviewed over two years of research. Others included Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, fellow champions such as Ernie Els, Gary Player, Tony Jacklin, and Tom Watson, and golf moguls such as Mark H. McCormack, billionaire founder of the sports agency IMG. The Wicked Game is a compelling story of talent, fame, wealth, and power. Entertaining for dedicated golfers, and accessible to those who only follow the game on television, this may be the most original and exciting sports book of the year.
The Wicked Game: Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, and the Story of Modern Golf
by Howard SounesGolf is sometimes referred to as "the wicked game" because it is fiendishly difficult to play well. Yet in the parlance of the Tiger Woods generation, it's also a wickedly good game -- rich, glamorous, and more popular than ever. When we think about golf -- as it is played at its highest level -- we think of three names: Tiger Woods, the most famous sports figure in the world today, Arnold Palmer, the father of modern golf, and Jack Nicklaus, the game's greatest champion. In this penetrating, forty-year history of men's professional golf, acclaimed author Howard Sounes tells the story of the modern game through the lives of its greatest icons. With unprecedented access to players and their closest associates, Sounes reveals the personal lives, rivalries, wealth, and business dealings of these remarkable men, as well as the murky history of a game that has been marred by racism and sex discrimination. Among the many revelations, the complete and true story of Tiger Woods and his family background is untangled, uncovering surprising new details that inspire the golfer's father to exclaim, "Hell, you taught me some things about my life I never knew about!" Earl Woods and other members of Tiger Woods's family, his friends, girlfriends, caddies, coaches, and business associates were among the 150 people interviewed over two years of research. Others included Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, fellow champions such as Ernie Els, Gary Player, Tony Jacklin, and Tom Watson, and golf moguls such as Mark H. McCormack, billionaire founder of the sports agency IMG. The Wicked Game is a compelling story of talent, fame, wealth, and power. Entertaining for dedicated golfers, and accessible to those who only follow the game on television, this may be the most original and exciting sports book of the year.