The Magnificent Masters

Starred review from April 1, 2014
Surprisingly, it's relatively rare in professional golf's major tournaments for the top two or three players of the day to find themselves battling one another down the stretch. When it does happen, it's always something specialand never more so than at the 1975 Masters, when Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, and Tom Weiskopf traded birdies over the iconic final nine holes at Augusta National. Capps, managing editor at the Golf Channel, not only follows the actionleading up to Nicklaus' magnificent 40-foot putt on the sixteenth hole that decided the contestbut also reprises the history-making event that dominated headlines during the tournament's opening two days: the first appearance of a black golfer at the Masters. Lee Elder failed to make the cut, but his presence at Augusta changed the face of modern golf. Jumping back and forth in time, Capps capably follows the careers of Elder, Nicklaus, Miller, and Weiskopf, setting the stage for the thrilling finale. There have been several similar tournament histories written over the last decade or sobeginning with Mark Frost's The Greatest Game Ever Played (2002), about Francis Ouimet's unlikely triumph at the 1913 U.S. Openbut Capp's recounting of perhaps the most memorable Masters ever stands shoulder to shoulder with all of them.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)