Tiger Woods and his caddy, the Buick Invitational, 2003. (© Howard Sounes)

Howard Sounes explains why he wrote The Wicked Game

Not a Sport

The title has a triple meaning: golf is sometimes called "the wicked game" because it is so difficult to play well; in modern parlance golf is also a wickedly- good game, more popular and fashionable now than ever; yet the golf establishment is truly wicked in its tradition of exclusion and discrimination.

To my mind golf, while requiring skill to play at or near par, is not a full-blooded sport, lacking the athleticism, the sheer physical exertion and/ or the sense of danger which characterises most activities that we normally call sports.

Golf is a much more modest activity than sprinting, boxing, weight-lifting, whacking a tennis ball, playing soccer or even driving a racing car (which while being moronic is at least dangerous). Golf is merely a game, one that almost anybody is capable of playing. You can do so athletically, like Tiger Woods, but most don't. In truth you can knock a ball about when old, half-drunk, even with a cigar hanging out of your yap.

Discrimination

Nevertheless golf is a diverting and involving pastime, with a fascinating history and culture. At its best, golf has a proud tradition of self-regulated fair play. It is rich in characters, and its courses are often beautiful.

At worst, however, golf's clubs and institutions have been racist to an outrageous degree, also discriminatory towards women and, generally speaking, arranged to exclude hoi polloi, while preserving the green fairways for a fraternity of the rich and powerful (clubs such as the Augusta National counting billionaires and presidents among its members).

All of this intrigued me , and so I set out on a journey to meet the great players, and interview the rich people in the clubhouse. Like all my books, I spent a lot of time on research and spoke with many notable people, including Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, though the latter was less than helpful.

Nevertheless, I found out a great deal about Tiger's background, and became particularly interested in his father, Earl Woods, a complex man with a marital history that proved as surprising as that of my previous subject, Bob Dylan. Also, the legend of Earl and Tiger Woods didn't stand up to scrutiny in all respects.

Vigorous

The Wicked Game was published in 2004 in the USA by William Morrow and in the UK by Sidgwick and Jackson, and was mostly ignored by the golf press, of which I am critical. With notable exceptions, such as John Feinstein, golf's press corps constitutes little more than a public relations office for the golf industry. The journalists fawn over the players, and are the last to criticise the golf establishment. And it is these hacks who author or ghost most golf books, which are usually poorly written and lacklustre in content. As an outsider, I set out to create a work of much greater vigour.