The Armchair Golfer Gets Published

I'm sure a lot of you read The Armchair Golf Blog, Neil Sagebiel's little baby. It's one of the longer running golf blogs around -- 7 years now -- and there's always something interesting to read there.

Well, Neil isn't satisfied with that. No, he wants you to read his book too!

That's right, Neil has joined the ranks of published authors with his new book, The Longest Shot, which is subtitled Jack Fleck, Ben Hogan, and Pro Golf's Greatest Upset at the 1955 U.S. Open. (On the outside chance you're a bit slow on the uptake, it's a book about how Jack Fleck beat Ben Hogan at the 1955 U.S. Open. Funny how that works out, isn't it?) The easiest way for me to sum it up is with the official blurb from the book's Amazon page:

The inspirational story of the unknown golfer from Iowa who beat his idol in the 1955 U.S. Open

With the overlooked Jack Fleck still playing the course, NBC-TV proclaimed that the legendary Ben Hogan had won his record fifth U.S. Open and signed off from San Francisco. Undaunted, the forgotten Iowan rallied to overcome a nine-shot deficit over the last three rounds—still a U.S. Open record—and made a pressure-packed putt to tie Hogan on the final hole of regulation play. The two men then squared off in a tense, 18-hole playoff from which Fleck emerged victorious in one of the most startling upsets in sports history.

On par with the classic golf narratives of Mark Frost and John Feinstein, The Longest Shot will surprise and delight fans as they trace the improbable journey of an unheralded former caddie who played his way into the record books by out-dueling the sport's greatest champion of his time.

Look, I'm not going to drop a huge sales pitch on you because I don't need to. If you read Neil's blog, you don't need me to tell you he can write. And since he's got links to the book's page at several booksellers, why don't you just pop on over and get yourself a copy? It'll be a nice way to spend your time during all that slow play at the Colonial. (Of course, that won't be Kevin Na's fault... ;-)