Rich Beem became an overnight folk hero with his victory at the 2002 PGA Championship, where he dazzled fans with fearless shotmaking and glib one-liners. By the time Beem had stared down Tiger Woods in an epic back nine and then danced a goofy jig on the final green, the sports world was clamoring to know, "Who is this guy, anyway?"

That question is answered in Bud, Sweat, & Tees, Alan Shipnuck's no-holds-barred look at modern professional golf. Shipnuck began tracking Beem during his rookie year in 1999, when he was a logo-free rube only a couple of years removed from a...

The controversy began with a seemingly innocuous private letter, and spiraled into the biggest media event in golf history. The Augusta National membership dispute dominated headlines and watercooler conversation for nearly a year, propelled by twenty-first-century hot-button issues and a pair of perfectly drawn foils in Hootie Johnson and Martha Burk. But a year after Burk's messy Masters week protest, the meaning of the membership controversy remains elusive. In The Battle for Augusta National, Alan Shipnuck -- who reinvented the PGA Tour narrative with the rollicking Bud, Sweat,...