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7 books for golfers and fairway fans

7. "Arnie, Seve, and a Fleck of Golf History: Heroes, Underdogs, Courses, and Championships"

  • By Ross Atkin Staff writer

By Bill Fields

University of Nebraska Press

325 pages

" 'I'm not much for spending a lot of time in the office,' [Arnold] Palmer says, pausing between wedge shots about 3 p.m. on a recent Wednesday at the Bay Hill practice range, the Orlando club he bought in 1976. 'It makes me stiff and sore and usually irritable. Eleven o'clock is checkout time.'

" ''That's nice work if you can get it,' someone says.

" ' Hey, I've been working seventy-eight years to get it,' Palmer says. 'I figure I ought to be able to check out at eleven.'

"Palmer is a little grouchy at having stayed in his small upstairs office in the Bay Hill clubhouse longer than is his custom. Just before leaving for the day, a man had come in and offered to donate $5,000 a hole for one of the hospitals Palmer is involved with if Palmer would play nine with him. 'Usually my price is a little higher than that,' Palmer says, admitting that such off-the-street propositions happen more frequently than you might think. 'But that's a pretty good offer, isn't it? We usually don't turn those babies down.' "

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

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