Description
The Eternal Summer: Palmer, Nicklaus, and Hogan in 1960, Golf’s Golden Year
Was there ever a year in golf like 1960?
It was the year that the sport and its vivid personalities exploded on the consciousness of the nation, when the past, present, and future of the sport collided. Here was Arnold Palmer, the workingman’s hero, “sweating, chain-smoking, shirt-tail flying”; Ben Hogan, the greatest player of the fifties, a perfectionist battling twin demons of age and nerves; and, making his big-time debut, a crew-cut college kid who seemed to have the makings of a champion: twenty-year-old Jack Nicklaus.
And of course, the rest: Ken Venturi, Chi Chi Rodriguez, Doug Sanders, Gary Player, and the many other colorful characters 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? Even more than an intimate portrait of these men and their exciting times, The Eternal Summer is also an entertaining, perceptive, and hypnotically readable exploration of professional golf in America.
Kevin Brannigan –
Interesting subject matter about 3 of the game’s greatest players. Talk about 3 vastly different personalities: Hogan, the obsessive perfectionist; Palmer, the charismatic king and Nicklaus, the cerebral greatest of them all. I had the pleasure of meeting Palmer about 15 years ago in Florida. Pretty genuine guy and a seriously strong handshake, like a vice.