The international scene: It has been a good year for golf. As if determined to compensate for the bland and blanket television coverage the sport now commands, the sport's scribblers seem determined to capture the game in the wackiest light possible.
Teeing off is former Irish golfer and current darling of the TV commentary circuit David Feherty. Blessed with a tongue more vicious than a John Daly drive, Feherty has collected the best of his regular columns for publications such as Golf Monthly in Somewhere in Ireland a Village is Missing an Idiot (Rugged Land, €13.99).
Heavy on toilet humour and Feherty's own less-than-holy observations, it is likely to be placed on Augusta's banned list.
Also having fun is the former Lloyd Cole bass player and latter-day golf junkie Lawrence Donegan. Maybe he is still in disguise after his gauche attempts at portraying life in rural Donegal, but for whatever reason Donegan spent last year's Ryder Cup dressed as a crowd marshal.
The proof of this is on the cover of his latest behind-the-scenes account, showing a photo of the author brandishing a 'Quiet Please' placard. That is also the title of the book, with the sub-heading A Ryder Cup Story (With a Twist) (Jonathan Cape, €25.50). Small and prettily packaged, it gives every detail of Donegan's Ryder Cup weekend. The twist is he managed to miss out on Paul McGinley's epic shot.
First off the Tee: Presidential Hacks, Duffers and Cheats from Taft to Bush (Public Affairs, €27.00), by Don Van Natta Junior, explores the White House obsession with golf. When published in the States early this year, it created a bit of a fuss by hammering Bill Clinton as a notorious golf cheat who happily took a "mulligan" whenever his tee-shot went askew.
Tricky Dicky Nixon was also unscrupulous on the course, according to Van Natta, a political correspondent for the Washington Post. JFK was the best golfer. Woodrow Wilson played the most but was among the worst.
The book's basic theme is to examine the golfing presidents' political philosophies and show how they influenced their performances on the golf course.
John Feinstein has also bulked up the Feinstein canon with his latest golf offering. The Open: Inside the Ropes at Bethpage Black (Little Brown, €22.99) is a behind-the-scenes look at the staging of the 2002 US Open, the first held on a public course. Those familiar with Feinstein will know he is nothing if not thorough and hence the detail here does not discriminate against the men who put up the portaloos, telling us how many such loos were assembled and which one hosted the Tiger. Golf does not feature until around page 256, by which time all club presidents, secretaries, doormen and security people have been rigorously interviewed by Feinstein.
A revised edition of Bud, Sweat and Tees (Pocket Books €11.60), by Rich Beam with Alan Shipnuck, has been published in light of Beam's US PGA win last year. Beam's struggles with himself and the game made for one of the most unlikely and best books ever written about golf. That Beam, an irreverent and easily distracted person, actually went on to claim the "fourth Major" will have astonished as many readers as it will have warmed him.
Elsewhere, it has been a fairly lean year. For the first time in what seems like an eternity, there is no major work on Ali, or other gods of the pantheon. In fact, it has been the year of the minor work.
David Halberstam, a historian who regularly crosses over to sport with distinguished results, has published The Team Mates (Hyperion, €14.00). Late in 2001, Dom Di Maggio and Johnny Peskey set off to drive 3,000 miles to visit their old Boston Red Sox team-mate Ted Williams, who lay dying in a Florida hospital.
Halberstam chronicles the journey that the ageing ball players took, revisits their days as lions of the game and leaves his readers in no doubt that not so long ago sport was a more majestic entity. It is set in the wake of the September 11 attacks in New York.
Equally personal is Tim Adams's On Being John McEnroe (Yellow Press, €14.30), basically a long and beautifully bound essay on the emblematic tennis player. Adams begins with a confession about how as a 17-year-old he went along to see McEnroe while carrying a JD Salinger book, believing that the American was the living embodiment of Holden Caulfield.
From there he catalogues his life through McEnroe moments, from watching Wimbledon in a wrecked coastal caravan to covering the player as a sports writer. He leaves you with the unavoidable sense that tennis has been irredeemably lessened post-McEnroe.
How sparse the sports sections of all major bookshops would look without the confessions of former soccer players. This year's shelves groan under the weight of the game's former bright lights, some more glaring than others, who have been moved to tell their story. Of course, the problem with soccer lives is they are all pretty much the same life. Time, location and hairstyles may vary but it is ultimately a universe dominated by Mum, Club, Egg and Chips and the Gaffer.
Among those who felt compelled to get it off their chests this year were Jimmy Greaves, who sets his stall out in Greavsie - the Autobiography (Time Warner, €25.00). The affable bloke of sports punditry relives the darling days with Spurs, the pain of 1966 and the demon drink.
Denis Law modestly entitles his memoir The King (Bantam, €21.99), a book that may be of interest to Manchester United fans. David Beckham has also managed to write an autobiography that may well be his seventh to date. This one is called My Side (Harper Collins, €16.99). Here, he sets the record straight about his move to Spain and his relationship with belligerent uncle Fergie, talks about Posh and poses for many, many photographs. Expensive looking and handsome, it remains a bestseller across the water.
Despite the World Cup year, there have been relatively few rugby books. Martin Johnson has released his autobiography with perfect timing. Asked to add a couple of thousand words the day after England's World Cup win, the captain recorded 10,000 on to a tape and a couple of weeks later, Martin Johnson: the Autobiography (Headline, €25.00) was on the shelves. Like Johnson, it is solid and opinionated with an undercurrent of dry wit.
At the other end of the scale is Muddied Oafs: The last Days of Rugger (Yellow Press, €22.50), by Richard Beard. The Cambridge old boy retraces his steps through 14 previous rugby clubs around the world and fills the pages with observations and anecdotes on a game that has little to do with the international game. Acclaimed and original, it is full of odd little facts and observations that are bound to charm anyone interested in the game for gentlemen.
It has also been a quiet year for racing fans. Books that may stoke interest, however, are Mince Pie for Starters (Headline, €25.00), by John Oaksey, the former jockey and racing presenter's account of a life spent on England's courses.
Festival Gold: Forty Years of the Cheltenham Festival (Tempus Publishing Ltd, €40.00), edited By Stewart Peters, is a glossy and in-depth history of the much loved spring celebration of racing.
The home front
Books with a GAA theme form the bulk of the domestic choice. The most recent release has been the diary of All-Ireland football manager Mickey Harte.
Kickin' Down Heaven's Door (All-Star, €12.95) is a collaborative effort between sportswriter Kieran Shannon and Harte, who kept a weekly tape of Tyrone's progress through a league- and championship-winning year. Harte admits he has kept his closest secrets hidden but is still honest and engaging enough to make the diary entertaining.
A Season of Sundays (Sportsfile, €29.95) has become the definitive representation of the GAA season in pictures. Always immaculately produced, it portrays the season from frozen club encounters in December to the richest moments of the All-Irelands as seen through the talented lens of Ray McManus and his team of photographers . A Season has become a series worth collecting.
Meath forward Graham Geraghty details his turbulent playing career with the Royal County in Misunderstood (Blackwater, €14.99). An explosively exciting and controversial player, Geraghty often found himself featuring in the headlines for reasons he could have done without. Here, he relives the highs and lows of his career, including the stress of hearing ugly rumours circulate about his personal life. A conventional biography but it is certainly more up-front than many that have been released over the past few years.
Sam's for the Hills (Donal Campbell and Damien Dowds, €25.00) is an evocative visitation to Donegal's lone All-Ireland senior football success of 1992. In fact, it traces the state of the game in the county from Brian McEniff's first involvement in the 1960s through to his finest hour. With input from all the heroes of the hour, the decade that has elapsed since actually illuminates the memories and gives the book a slightly bittersweet edge.
Almost all of the former players are struck by how ephemeral the success turned out to be and with how they did not realise their grasp on All-Ireland magic had left them until it was too late.
Colm Keane has attempted to compile a series of essays featuring the greats of Gaelic games. Gaelic Football's Top Twenty and Hurling's Top Twenty (Mainstream, €11.50) are essays on the author's chosen men.
He speaks with those who played against the greats and chronicles their golden hours on the field.
Equally reflective are Con Houlihan's many pieces in More than a Game (Liberties, €14.95). A selection of the celebrated Kerry writer's journalism with the Press group and the Sunday World, it contains many wonderful pieces that will be relevant for sports fans for whom the 1970s and 1980s hold fond memories. Included are his celebrated account of Mikey Sheehy's famous chip on Paddy Cullen and pieces on Ali, Stephen Roche and many more.
The highlight of the Irish sporting year for many people was the Special Olympics. That event is remembered in Midsummer Magic: A Celebration in Pictures of the Special Olympics World Games (€30). Compiled by Irish photographers from both news and specialist agencies, it contains many wonderful images and essays, including an award-winning piece by Mary Hannigan of this newspaper.
