Booklist
Good craftsmen never blame their tools. Yet here we have 400 years of golfers searching for better tools. The evolution of golf's "tools" is a tribute to the maddeningly subtle difficulties of a game that motivates players to search endlessly for the putter to alleviate yips, the driver to straighten out a chronic shank, and a sand wedge to compensate for the damn driver that dumped them in the trap in the first place. Ellis is an accomplished amateur golfer who also wrote the highly acclaimed The Clubmaker's Art (1997). The format here is deceptively simple: Ellis provides a brief overview of an era and the trend clubmaking took within it. He follows with beautiful color photographs of dozens of clubs, with brief comments on each, including designer and manufacturer. The information is fascinating, and the photography is beautiful, but what will draw golfers to the book is the connection it will provide to kindred souls of centuries past, who are passionate about a sport in which one's only competition comes from within. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Avid Golfer, October 2002
Ellis' latest book, an exquisite book with splendid photography, is a "best value" you won't be able to resist.
