tough 18. Golf-course architects are a remarkable breed: lovers of the land and lovers of the game, they sculpt art out of nature as a challenge to those who dare to play on their masterpieces. In Masters of the Links some of the best designers ever to contour a fairway and tilt a green offer up some of the madness behind their methods. From pioneers such as Alister MacKenzie and Albert Warren Tillinghast to contemporary designers such as Pete Dye and Tom Doak, the collection explores how golf thinking has changed through the years--and how it's stayed the same. "A golf hole, humanly speaking, is like life," observed C. B. MacDonald, who carved the hallowed National Golf Links out of Eastern Long Island almost a century ago, "in as much as one cannot judge justly of any person's character the first time one meets him." Like a great golf hole, Masters of the Links has much to divulge on each meeting, and you don't need to be a golfer to savor the elegance and insight teed up in its prose.

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