Tournament Week: Inside the Ropes and Behind the Scenes on the PGA Tour

Strege's gossipy, irreverent romp through the PGA Tour reveals aspects of professional golf that spectators will never see on the sidelines or the tube. David Duval, new PGA champion Vijay Singh, Tiger Woods, Fred Couples, John Daly, Fuzzy Zoeller, Greg Norman and many other pros traipse through these zestful pages, which are studded with anecdotes that the players confided to the author. Strege, whose recent biography of Tiger Woods was made into a TV movie for Showtime, works every conceivable angle; chapters cover how tour members cope with anger and frustration, what they carry in their tour bags besides golf clubs (beepers, Bibles, healing magnets, a deceased loved one's ashes), the clash between slower, deliberate players and faster ones, pros' relations with the media, the limbo lifestyle of alternates, the growing role of sports psychologists who make (club)house calls and the fierce gambling in practice rounds in defiance of PGA rules. Although Strege's approach is casual and offbeat, he packs in an enormous amount of information about the PGA Tour, and golf fans will glean new insights into this high-pressure, 49-tournament contest. A growing legion of players travel by private corporate jet, yet for all the hoopla, hustle and megabucks, golfers remain surprisingly down-to-earth; they exhibit a rare camaraderie, and their sportsmanship--players assessing penalties on themselves even when an infraction was not witnessed by others--puts other sports to shame. Strege come in under par. (June)