Alan Shipnuck

Michael Bamberger

A sports hero seeks a comeback in this wildly funny and ultimately redemptive novel. His name, as we all know, is Herbert X. “Tree” Tremont, and he’s the richest and most celebrated athlete of our time—a multicultural golfing icon with fifty-three Tour wins, thirteen major victories, a smoking hot wife, and two adorable kids. But when a reporter uncovers evidence that Tree’s sexual appetites are as prodigious as his tee shots, his public and private lives collide, producing the juiciest scandal in sports history. In this wickedly funny novel that takes readers between the ropes and the sheets of the PGA Tour as never before, the only thing more entertaining than Tree’s downfall is his quest for redemption.

A Novel

The Swinger

The Rip-Roaring  Biography of Golf's Most Colorful Superstar

Phil

The Inside Story of the War Between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf

LIV and Let Die

A juicy and freewheeling biography of legendary golf champion Phil Mickelson—who has led a big, controversial life—as reported by longtime Sports Illustrated writer and bestselling author Alan Shipnuck. Phil Mickelson is one of the most compelling figures in sports. For more than three decades he has been among the best golfers in the world, and his unmatched longevity was exemplified at the 2021 PGA Championship, when Mickelson, on the cusp of turning fifty-one, became the oldest player in history to win a major championship. In this raw, uncensored, and unauthorized biog­raphy, Alan Shipnuck captures a singular life defined by thrilling victories, crushing defeats, and countless controversies. Mickelson is a multifaceted character, and all his warring impulses are on display in these pages: He is a smart-ass who built an empire on being the consummate professional; a loving husband dogged by salacious rumors; a high-stakes gambler who knows the house always wins but can’t tear himself away. Mickelson’s career and public image have been defined by the contrast with his lifelong rival, Tiger Woods. Where Woods is robotic and reticent, Mickelson is affable and extroverted, an incorrigible showman whom many fans love and some abhor because of the overwhelming size of his personality. In their early years together on Tour, Mickelson lacked Tiger’s laser focus and discipline, leading Tida Woods to call her son’s rival “the fat boy,” among other put-downs. Yet as Tiger’s career has been curtailed by scandal, addiction, and a broken body, Phil sails on, still relevant on the golf course and in the marketplace. Phil is the perfect marriage of subject and author. Shipnuck has long been known as the most fearless writer on the golf beat, and he delivers numerous revelations, from the true scale of Mickelson’s massive gambling losses; to the inside story of the acrimonious breakup between Phil and his longtime caddie, Jim “Bones” Mackay; to the secretive backstory of the Saudi golf league that Mickelson championed to wield as leverage against the PGA Tour. But Phil also celebrates Mickelson’s random acts of kindness and generosity of spirit, to which friends and strangers alike can attest. Shipnuck has covered Mickelson for his entire career and has been on the ground at Mickelson’s most mem­orable triumphs and crack-ups, allowing him to take readers inside the ropes with a thrilling immediacy and intimacy. The result is the juiciest and liveliest golf book in years—full of heart, humor, and unexpected turns.

The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthorized!) Biography of Golf's Most Colorful Superstar

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. In The Battle for Augusta National, Alan Shipnuck -- who reinvented the PGA Tour narrative with the rollicking Bud, Sweat, & Tees -- provides the definitive account of what really happened and why. In this lively, irreverent, ambitious book, 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. Along the way, many of the membership controversy's mysteries are revealed. How did Augusta National's top-secret membership roll become public? Who was the shadowy protester identified by hoodwinked reporters as Heywood Jablome? Did Burk lie about a vast right-wing conspiracy to undermine her demonstration? All of this and much more can be found in The Battle for Augusta National, a book that captures the passion and absurdity of a great national debate that continues to simmer.

Hootie, Martha, and the Masters of the Universe

The Battle for Augusta National

'Terrific fun' David Walsh, Sunday Times * * 'Thoroughly engaging' Washington Post A frank and revealing biography of legendary golf champion Phil Mickelson - who has led a big, controversial life - as reported by longtime Sports Illustrated writer and bestselling author Alan Shipnuck. Phil Mickelson is one of the most compelling figures in sports. For more than three decades he has been among the best golfers in the world, and his unmatched longevity was exemplified at the 2021 PGA Championship, when Mickelson, on the cusp of turning fifty-one, became the oldest player in history to win a major championship. In this raw and unauthorised biog­raphy, Shipnuck captures a singular life defined by thrilling victories, crushing defeats and countless controversies. Mickelson is a multi-faceted character, and all his warring impulses are on display in these pages: he is a smart-ass who built an empire on being the consummate professional; a loving husband dogged by salacious rumours; a high-stakes gambler who knows the house always wins but can’t tear himself away. Mickelson’s career and public image have been defined by the contrast with his lifelong rival, Tiger Woods. Where Woods is robotic and reticent, Mickelson is affable and extroverted, an incorrigible showman. In their early years together on Tour, Mickelson lacked Tiger’s laser focus and discipline, yet as Tiger’s career has been curtailed by scandal, addiction and a broken body, Phil sails on, still relevant on the golf course and in the marketplace. Phil is the perfect marriage of subject and author. Shipnuck delivers numerous revelations, from the true scale of Mickelson’s massive gambling losses to the secretive backstory of the Saudi golf league that Mickelson championed. But Phil also celebrates Mickelson’s random acts of kindness and generosity of spirit, to which friends and strangers alike can attest. Shipnuck has covered Mickelson for his entire career, allowing him to take readers inside the ropes with a thrilling immediacy and intimacy. The result is the juiciest and liveliest golf book in years - full of heart, humour and unexpected turns.

The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthorised!) Biography of Golf's Most Colourful Superstar

Christina Kim

Christina Kim is the brashest, bawdiest, funniest player on the Ladies Professional Golf Association tour. Golf fans know her for her colorful wardrobe, even more colorful on-course antics, and an explosive game. But in this rollicking account of the 2009 season, Kim invites readers deep into her life, providing an intimate diary of a young woman's struggles on and off the golf course, and revealing the glory and heartbreak of life on the tour. Once known as a prodigy who shot a 62 in her first LPGA event some six years ago, Kim has newly rededicated herself to realizing her potential, and she takes readers between the ropes for all the action, including her nail-biting near misses at two major championships. She also goes inside the team room at the Solheim Cup, revealing the hijinks and late-night gab sessions that bonded the victorious U.S. team. Along the way we get intimate portraits of her close friends on tour, including tour leaders such as Michelle Wie, Lorena Ochoa, Paula Creamer, Morgan Pressel, and Natalie Gulbis. In this courageous telling, no topic is out-of-bounds, as Kim dishes about the LPGA's sexual mores, the culture clash of an American-based tour increasingly dominated by Koreans, the tumultuous economic forces squeezing the players, and her own battles with body image and her traditional upbringing. Winsome and good-natured, but never afraid of a laugh line or choice profanity, Christina Kim provides a must-read for anyone who loves golf or has wondered about the inner self of a professional athlete.

Confessions of an LPGA Star

Swinging from My Heels

The PGA Tour is the most interesting subculture in sports, though you wouldn't know it from most golf books. The Tour is home to rowdy, randy young men often drunk with money and fame; fueled by alcohol and adrenaline, they barnstorm from town to town like rock stars, with all the attendant excesses. And in each player's shadow is his faithful caddie -- performing a thankless six-figure job that comes with all the security of a handshake deal. The PGA Tour offers fabulous rewards, but its good life does not come without a price. In Bud, Sweat, and Tees, Alan Shipnuck takes a no-holds-barred look at modern professional golf. Rich Beem, the hero of our story, joined the Tour as the most clueless of rookies, a logo-free rube only a couple of years removed from the straight world, where he made seven dollars an hour hawking cell phones. Beem took his winnings from big-money matches all across the state of Texas and scraped together enough to go out on Tour, but as he would quickly find out, getting to the big leagues is only half the battle. The fun-loving Beem, more likely to pound beers than range balls, first struggled to fit in among the country-club brats who populate the pro golf scene, and then had to fight to survive the cutthroat competition and crushing self-doubt. Staying true to his girl back home would prove equally challenging. Meanwhile, Steve Duplantis, the one-time golden boy of the Tour's caddie ranks, was enduring his own tribulations. At the tender age of twenty-one Duplantis began packing for Jim Furyk, and together they reached the pinnacle of the golf world, from Ryder Cup dustups to near misses at the Masters. But like Beem, Duplantis has a taste for the wild life, which helps explain how he wound up as a single dad, trying to balance the demands of fatherhood with the siren song of the road -- a juggling act that eventually cost him his lucrative job on Furyk's bag. Fate brought Duplantis and Beem together, and in their first tournament, the Kemper Open, they pulled off one of the most improbable triumphs in golf history. What happens next, at this unlikely intersection of lives and careers? How does a lifelong underdog like Beem handle overnight fame and fortune? Would Duplantis make good on this second chance and turn his career, and maybe his life, around? And would Beem and Duplantis's partnership survive the course of a turbulent season chock full of enough misadventures to land them in a Scottish jail? Bud, Sweat, and Tees is a sometimes bawdy, often hilarious, and always unpredictable account of a strange and magical year in the lives, on and off the course, of golfer and caddie. An exciting and often poignant story, it stands as the best insider's sports book since Jim Bouton's Ball Four, and marks Alan Shipnuck as a writer of extraordinary promise.

Bud, Sweat, And Tees

A Sports Illustrated writer takes readers on a wild ride through a single season in the life of golfer Rich Beem, a twenty-eight-year-old rookie on the professional tour, and his caddie, Steve Duplantis, in an insider's look at the world of professional tournament golf. Reprint. 60,000 first printing.

Rich Beem's Walk on the Wild Side of the PGA Tour

Bud, Sweat, & Tees

It's 1999 and although Rich Beem has just been nominated for Rookie of the Year following his first ever victory, he's still just another golfer on the PGA Tour desperately trying to break out from Tiger's shadow. Alan Shipnuck takes us inside Beem's world, exploring the complex relationship with his faithful caddie, Steve Duplantis, from being arrested together for drink-driving at Carnoustie, all the way to glorious and unexpected victory at the 2002 PGA Championship. In BUD, SWEAT & TEES Alan Shipnuck takes a no-holds-barred look at modern professional golf. Through the unlikely partnership of golfer Rick Beem and his caddie Steve Duplantis, Shipnuck shows all the highs and lows, temptations and pitfalls that await all players on the Tour. Reminiscent of Lawrence Donegan's bestselling FOUR-IRON IN THE SOUL (Penguin), BUD, SWEAT & TEES is an exciting and often poignant book that will leave readers with an unforgettable insight into a unique relationship.

Alan Shipnuck

About

Books

Join the club