Brad Faxon

Bernard Darwin could easily have settled into a privileged life as a respected lawyer - one who also just happened to be the grandson of Charles Darwin. But his conventional upbringing didn't prevent him from choosing a different path, abandoning the relative security of the law to follow his first and only passion - golf. While Darwin was no slouch on the links - captain of his golf team at Cambridge and twice in the semifinals of the British Amateur Championships - he achieved far greater notoriety with his pen than with his club. Starting as a weekly columnist for The Times of London (always signing his columns "Our Golf Correspondent"), he was soon acknowledged as one of the finest essayists in Britain. He was the first writer ever to elevate the discussion of golf beyond a simple reportage of events. He was also a regular contributor to Country Life and a frequent contributor to The Atlantic Monthly.

To the Nines will introduce you to a whole new golfing experience by sharing the stories of nineteen nine-hole layouts across the country. Fenwick, Katherine Hepburn's playground, dates back to the 1890s. Just before a hurricane destroyed her family home in 1938, Hepburn aced Fenwick's ninth hole and shot even par. Long before Mike Keiser set out to turn a chunk of Oregon coast into one of the world's great golf destinations, he built The Dunes Club, easily the finest nine-hole course of the modern era. To the Nines will send you on a mission to discover the roots of the game, and to seek out your own unique and unheralded courses. This second edition includes recent renovations and rebunkering of several of these classic “nines” as well as a chapter on a newly built course.