Open Secrets: The Extraordinary Battle for the 2009 Open

by Robert Winder

The Open Championship has been a high point of the British sporting calendar for 150 years, but few have been so memorable as in 2009. After four heady days on the fabled Turnberry links (one day it went see, the next it went saw) Tom Watson, an all-tim e great but nearly 60 and with an artificial hip, faced an eight-foot putt to become not just the oldest but also the most successful (along with Harry Vardon) player in Open history. The golfing world held its breath. History hung on the roll of a small white ball. As drama it verged upon the magical. Surely he couldn't prevail; surely he couldn't falter. But this was only one of hundreds of such moments. Robert Winder followed them all, from the start of the qualifying process to the dramatic last gasp. Here he traces the thrills and spills of a resonant sporting drama, listens to the players and administrators, and describes the many ways in which the Open truly is the world, to the elements, and to the neverending outrages of fortune.

453 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 2010

About the author

Robert Winder, formerly literary editor of The Independent for five years and Deputy Editor of Granta magazine during the late 1990s, is the author of Hell for Leather, a book about modern cricket, a book about British immigration, and also two novels, as well as many articles and book reviews in British periodicals. Winder is a team member of the Gaieties Cricket Club, whose chairman was Harold Pinter.