I really liked this book, but it was too short. It left me wanting to learn more about the man. This book only contains certain features and some of the events in Sam’s life. I wish this were a full biography. In my opinion, the author doesn’t cover enough of the golf tournaments that Snead won and played in. ( )

I am a transplanted New Zealander who never got to see television until the 1960's and even then I never got to see any of the All Star Golf series of telecasts. I am a golf nut and these days I don't get very far away from a television set on the weekends. I love to watch the final rounds of each week's PGA Tour events. I wish I were old enough to have seen the Sam Snead "sweetest swing" on a regular basis. I have seen the big long swings of Don January and Bruce Leitzke in the flesh and I love to watch Freddie Couples and Ernie Els swing their clubs on TV. But - I only saw Sam Snead twice on TV; that is until the ceremonial tee shots at the Masters during the 80s and 90s. All that power and balance was so beautiful that I can see them still. I can also still see the hat and the smile.
Being introduced to the televised version of Sam Snead at such a late time in his life has meant that my impression of him has always been one of a bigger-than-life, nice, calm but powerful man. I own a couple of his books on golf so I was delighted to get this biography from Taylor Trade Publishing through LibraryThing.
What a shock to my beliefs. I had no idea that he was a philanderer, a lover of dirty jokes, a hustler, the recipient of political retribution for those things, the father of a man with the sort of problems Terence has, or a man who was both cheap and generous. After reading this book (and I have no reason to doubt Al Barkow's facts) I have to change one word of my earlier impression so that it reads: a nice, devilish but powerful man. I don't think the word "calm" ever really did apply. And I now don't think that he was bigger-than-life. It seems he was just a man, a man with most of the frailties of many of us other men, but a man with a huge natural talent - a talent I wish I had.
Al Barkow's presentation is easy to read. It doesn't use words that would send anyone to a dictionary and his sentences are not too long. I would have liked more photographs, although I have to say the ones of Sam with his dog, Sam at the top of his backswing, at the top of his follow through and of him jumping a hedgerow are classics. I think those four shots tell the basic story all by themselves. ( )

What a wonderful book of memories of one of the greatest golfers, Sam Snead. Not only a golfer but a hunter and fisherman who traveled the world enjoying all three., Sam played golf almost every day and when he wasn't playing he was hitting practice balls. He was the all-time victory leader of the PGA Tour with 82 wins, the oldest player to win when he was 52, and the winner of 7 major championships, but he never won the US Open. We learn a lot about Sam that is new, at least to me. It was fun reading and the stories keep me interested throughout the book. All of Sam's faults are reviewed but he still comes out as one of the greatest. While the subject was interesting, it was a hard read because of the writing style of the writer. It took me longer to read, no skimming on this one. Too much space is taken about him not winning the US Open that should have be devoted more to how he won in other tournaments. ( )

Jack Nicklaus’s quote on the cover of SAM, THE ONE AND ONLY SAM SNEAD, encapsulates the excellent job done in this biography by famed sportswriter Al Barkow. “…I think you will find that the man behind the simple swing was more complex than most of the public knew.”
In this well-researched and entertaining book, Barkow paints a picture of a complicated, gifted athlete, sussing out the subtle influences of Snead’s West Virginia backwoods upbringing and his early experiences as a “country boy” who could play golf far better than the country club set he played with and against. Snead emerges as a Shakespearean tragic character within whose greatest gift lay the seeds of his own destruction – his matchless, rhythmic swing – which, in a world so dramatically different from his own native roots, created preconceptions and expectations that anyone – even with more education and world experience -- would have struggled to overcome and meet.
Readers might sometimes wish Barkow’s chronology in the narrative were a bit smoother, but, in order to do justice to a man whose legend is almost larger than life, it had to be difficult to blend the aspects of the golf swing, the daily competitions, the historic tournaments, and the development of Snead’s character in a strictly-adhered-to timeline. For non-golfers, one or two of the detailed descriptions of tournament play might prove to be confusing, but for lovers of the game, they prove fascinating and insightful.
Al Barkow’s thorough biography of Sam Snead will be enjoyed by readers who enjoy complex characters as well as the drama of competition in the centuries-old game of golf. ( )

I wanted to like this book, and I wanted my golf obsessed men to like it too, but we could not. Despite the fascinating subject, this book did not fascinate, but frustrate. The author’s unusual writing style, muddled timeline and choppy sentences repeatedly pulled me from the story. This is a book in need of a good narrative thread, some good sentences and a good editor.

Among the many writing quirks that befuddled me were sentences like this one, at the beginning of a paragraph: "Which gets to the essential characteristic of Sam Snead's magnificent golf swing." Even my word processor flagged this sentence, which is not aided by context.

The author inserts himself repeatedly into his writing, which does little to aid or improve the storytelling. He awkwardly references his previous book twice in the first 20 pages. In describing Sam's mother he writes: "Quoted in this writer's 1986 book Gettin' to the Dance Floor: An Oral History of American Golf, Sam said....." and "Sam recalled (in Gettin' to the Dance Floor)…” which distracted me endlessly. Who quotes themselves in a biography? Then this sentence: "The episode would, in this writer's view, echo down through the rest of Sam's life..." bothered me. I don’t mind an author with a point of view, but I do mind an author who feels the need to point out his point of view, and in doing so, detract from the story being told.

Another strange passage begins on page 47, when the author begins to reference we, causing me to wonder who?
" We know of no other instance..", "We do know.." " We leave that question...” and this strange passage on page 49: “Which brings up the question of why they didn’t (we, actually, since I was one of those to whom it never occurred) think to step off the yardages and make notes of them?”
Maybe I'm too picky, but I believe footnotes or a change in perspective would have made the narrative more compelling, and stopped disrupting the flow of events, which is jumbled enough.

I was constantly reminded of my High School English teacher, Mrs. Hudson, who ingrained these tenets into her students: Sentences must be grammatically correct, complete and succinct. Tenses must match. Point of view must remain consistent. I wanted to mark up this book with a red pencil. My golfing family members could not finish reading it, with one, an avid reader of books about golf and golfers, found this book unreadable and boring.

There is no doubt that the author holds great respect and admiration for Sam Snead, and was privy to a rare glimpse into this world of golf, and the contradictions in Sam's personality and his persona. There is no doubt that the author has a story to tell, and this should have been a good read. Sadly for me, it was not. ( )