In the Rough: The Business Game of Golf

There has never been a book about the inner workings of the golf business or its leading players from an insider’s point of view. In the Rough reads like a novel, but it could also be required reading in a business school. This book takes the reader on a ride through the author’s unusual professional career and what he discovered in the most revealing settings and scenes of the golf industry at its awkward and colorful best. Most of the events and incidents appearing here are firsthand accounts portraying a host of famous and colorful characters in both golf and the business world.

The central characters in this book are Ben Hogan, one of the five best players of all time and a highly successful golf-equipment executive; Deane Beman, a star amateur and successful professional golfer who became the commissioner and invented the modern-day PGA Tour; and Minoru Isutani, a wealthy Japanese entrepreneur who is probably best known for having lost $350 million on the purchase and sale of Pebble Beach. Some of the other costars include Jack Nicklaus, Karsten Solheim (Ping Golf Company), Greg Norman, and Ely Callaway—all names you have seen etched on a wood, an iron, or a putter, among other places.