And of course, the rest: Charlie Sifford, the first black golfer on the tour; Sam Snead, "the greatest player never to win the U.S. Open"; Ken Venturi, a protege of Hogan's whose golf game was as good as his luck was bad; tour rookie Juan "Chi Chi" Rodriguez, a bubbly 118-pounder who played with women's clubs -- and hit the ball a country mile; party animal Doug Sanders ("no one could play like Sanders -- and his golf game was good, too"); Don Cherry, who played tournament golf by day and sang in front of packed nightclubs by night; Gary Player, the "Man in Black" from apartheid South Africa; the strange but wonderful Moe Norman, who "played golf faster than anyone who was not on a polo pony"; and the many other colorful characters that summer who chased around a little white ball -- and a dream.

Would Palmer win the mythical Grand Slam of golf? Could Hogan win one more major tournament? Was Nicklaus the real thing? "The Eternal Summer" provides theanswers to these questions and much more in hypnotically readable prose. And more than an intimate portrait of these men and their exciting times, this book is an entertaining and brilliantly detailed exploration of professional golf in America.