Quick Nine Before Dark

Distinct among golf writers for having been born in Pinehurst, arguably America' s golf capital, Bill Fields brings to life growing up during the 1960s and ' 70s in the Sandhills of North Carolina, where his early ties to the game were a springboard for a long, award-winning career chronicling it. A Quick Nine Before Dark is a richly detailed memoir: poignant sketches of a lost small-town world, introducing his blue-collar dad to golf; the culture shock and awe of a new arrival in 1980s New York City; an insider' s vantage of an evolving golf media world. Fields interviewed a 15-year-old Tiger Woods and played 18 holes with Sam Snead when he was 84. Having walked Pinehurst' s fairways as a tour-event standard bearer when he was a teen, Fields went on to photograph 40 major championships and has reported from twice that many as a fixture on the golf scene for four decades. A Quick Nine Before Dark is a vivid account of that journey and the charms and challenges along the way.