From the hairie (a golf ball made from cows hair), to the featherie (feathers from geese, wrapped in paint), to the gutta-percha (made from rubber).
This books tells the story of the way the rules were written (or not, for the first two hundred years), the bans on golf, the price of admission, winnings and losses of the greatest players and games of all time, and to the marketability of the game itself and the 'superstars' that the game requires.
This was an interesting book that dragged on for large swaths on needless descriptors of specific games with every stroke, putt, and tee setting. I didn't see a reason for doing so, there were a few detailed games that were very well written and exciting, but for the most part this was not needed.
I enjoyed the book, and anyone who is a fan of golf should pick it up - but you may just need to skim those sections as they take up quite a bit of the second half of the book.
