The Battle for Augusta National - by Alan Shipnuck (Paperback)

About the Book

Hootie vs. Martha, women's rights vs. the old Southern guard, Web-based rightist blogs vs. "The New York Times: The Battle for Augusta National" tells all these stories and more in Shipnuck's lively, irreverent, meticulously reported account of a Master's golf tournament like no other.

Book Synopsis

An unprecedented look behind the scenes at one of the most intriguing controversies in golf history, when a fascinating clash of values, tactics, and political power comes to a head during a fight over Augusta National.

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. Alan Shipnuck--who reinvented the PGA Tour narrative with the rollicking Bud, Sweat, & Tees--provides the definitive account of what really happened and why.

Shipnuck chases the story from the chairman's office at Augusta National to the living room of the One Man Klan, along the way bringing to life a vivid cast of characters and revealing subplots aplenty. With meticulous reporting and penetrating insights, Shipnuck provides a nuanced look into the complex and contradictory worlds of Hootie and Martha, who were drawn together like moths to a flame; reveals Augusta National's secret plots to undermine the press and the accompanying turmoil at The New York Times, including an exclusive interview with the Times's disgraced executive editor, Howell Raines; and explores the Southern politics that led to Burk's Masters week banishment, drawing on Senate confirmation hearings and campaign contribution documents to link local politicians and a federal judge to Augusta National.

From Tiger Woods to Jack Welch, Sandra Day O'Connor to Bryant Gumbel, Treasury Secretary Snow to Jesse Jackson, the gang's all here in this withering look at a story that never stopped churning.

About the Author

Alan Shipnuck is the author of nine books, including the New York Times bestseller Phil and the national bestsellers Bud, Sweat, & Tees and The Swinger (with Michael Bamberger). Shipnuck has received thirteen first-place awards from the Golf Writers Association of America--breaking the record of Dan Jenkins, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame. After a quarter-century at Sports Illustrated and Golf Magazine, Shipnuck is now a partner and executive editor at the golf media company the Fire Pit Collective, where all his writing, podcasts, and video storytelling can be found. Shipnuck lives in Carmel, California.