Mark Frost: The Greatest Game Ever Played

Reviewed by BOB PEARCE

Golf is a national obsession in the United States. Presidents pontificate in mid-putt. Captains of industry create their own courses. Tiger Woods is a world sporting icon.

But Woods, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus have only built on the foundation laid by British proessional Harry Vardon, whose 10-month tour in 1900 inspired 200 new courses and brought thousands of new addicts to the game.

As Mark Frost says at the start of his enthralling setting of the scene for the 1913 United States Open:

"Harry accomplished all this alone. No caddie, no agent, no travelling swing coach or sports psychologist, no physical therapist, conditioning guru, nutritionist or chiropractor.

"He played the game without a form-fitted Cabretta leather glove, custom-designed spikes, moisture-wicking shirts, titanium metal woods fitted with tempered shock-absorbing steel shafts or balls with the latest explosive potential of nitroglycerin.

"Harry conquered America with 10 hickory-shafted homemade clubs in a canvas bag and an ungainly aerodynamically challenged ball handcrafted from the hardened sap of an Indonesian palaquium tree." Frost's research is impressive and the dramatic licence he employs seems totally appropriate.

It is no surprise to learn he has written and produced several television series, including Hill Street Blues and Twin Peaks.

"When it comes to the dramatic Open confrontation between Vardon and the young American amateur Francis Ouimet, the sure hand of the scriptwriter never falters.

There is a strong supporting cast of American-based immigrant Scottish professionals, a high-strung former champion, Vardon's fellow Jersey man Ted Ray and Ouimet's caddie, 10-year-old Eddie Lowery, wagging school.

The Brookline Country Club course near Boston provides the perfect set, with Ouimet's family home beside the 17th fairway, and a gallery of spectators ranging from the urchin caddies to English press baron Lord Northcliffe and his golf writer, Bernard Darwin of the Times.

The press were there in numbers, and in a passage eerily prescient of the scene at the New Zealand Open this year when amateur Brad Heaven held the lead, the sceptics were ready to dismiss Ouimet's chances against the pros.

"Not everyone in the tent shared that feeling. The opposite number to the jaded sceptics, the shameless sentimentalists - both extremes are flip sides in almost every sports reporter - weren't ready to write Francis off just yet.

"Not because they genuinely thought he could pull it off.

"They were tantalised by the mouth-watering prospect of all those juicy hometown headlines; the stories would practically write themselves."

So who won?

You can look it up in the records or enjoy one of the best books written about golf.

* Time Warner Paperbacks, $29.95.