
The Ball in the Air
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Narrated by:
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David Morse
About this listen
After a lifetime of writing about the professional sport, Michael Bamberger, “the poet laureate of golf” (GOLF magazine), delivers an exhilarating love letter to the amateur game as it’s played—and lived—by the rest of us.
Over Michael Bamberger’s celebrated writing career, he has written a handful of books and hundreds of Sports Illustrated stories about professional golf and those who play it—that is, the .001 percent. Now, Bamberger trains his eye on the rest of us. In his most personal book yet, Bamberger takes the lid off a game that is both quasi-religious and a nonstop party, posing an age-old question that is answered over its pages: Why does the game cast such a spell on us?
Here is the story of modern golf that is not on TV. This is our story, we who pay to play, who can’t wait to get another crack at the game, even when golf doesn’t love us back. And just as every round is an adventure, every life in golf is, too. The golfers Michael Bamberger introduces will leave you inspired and moved. You’ll meet Sam Reeves, a golf-loving US Army soldier who becomes captivated by a fellow soldier, Cliff Harrington, a gifted Black golfer who’s cruelly robbed of the chance to show the world all he can do. You’ll meet Ryan French, who plays on a college golf team out of Animal House. You’ll get to know Pratima Sherpa, who grew up in a maintenance shed at the Royal Nepal Golf Club in Kathmandu and took up the game with a stick whittled by her father.
The Ball in the Air is reported with Bamberger’s you-are-there intimacy and captures the sweep of time. Pratima finds her way from Nepal to a university golf team in Southern California. Ryan and his father caddie in minor-league events while sleeping in tents, a preamble to Ryan’s becoming the godfather of the popular Monday Qualifier Twitter feed. Sam Reeves, born in rural Georgia during the Depression, becomes a cotton king, the oldest amateur to make the cut at the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, and the ultimate man for all seasons.
And there are Bamberger sightings, too, as he finds his own path in the game. You’ll make joyful side trips with the author, who’s spent more than forty years exploring golfers and golf, a way of life that captivates him down to his bones. You’ll visit the golf course at Balmoral Castle in Scotland and compete with Bamberger and other purists at the National Hickory Championship in rural Pennsylvania. At St. Andrews, you’ll get up close and personal with Lee Trevino, one of the few professionals in these pages, because Trevino, when you really get to the core of the man, is one of us. He can’t get enough of it.
The Ball in the Air is Bamberger’s valentine to golf. The modern world, obsessed with fame and fortune, has infiltrated professional golf—but it hasn’t infiltrated golf. Bamberger is here to highlight the distinction and to celebrate the game and all who play it.
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Performance
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A beloved New York Times bestselling author and golf aficionado shares his insatiable curiosity, trademark sense of humor, and vast knowledge of the game in this cavalcade of original pieces about why we love the sport, now featuring three additional new pieces.
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Fantastic!
- By Laura on 01-16-25
By: Rick Reilly
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The Second Life of Tiger Woods
- By: Michael Bamberger
- Narrated by: David Morse
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Tiger Woods’ long descent into a personal and professional hell reached bottom in the early hours of Memorial Day in 2017. Woods’ DUI arrest that night came on the heels of a desperate spinal surgery, just weeks after he told close friends he might never play tournament golf again. The former paragon of discipline now found himself hopelessly lost and out of control, exposed for all the world to see. That episode could have marked the beginning of Tiger’s end. It proved to be the opposite.
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In some parts overly sympathetic to “poor Tiger”
- By @MrBookChief on 09-03-20
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Phil
- The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthorized!) Biography of Golf's Most Colorful Superstar
- By: Alan Shipnuck
- Narrated by: Alan Shipnuck
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Phil Mickelson is one of the most compelling figures in sports. For more than three decades he has been among the best golfers in the world, and his unmatched longevity was exemplified at the 2021 PGA Championship, when Mickelson, on the cusp of turning fifty-one, became the oldest player in history to win a major championship. In this raw, uncensored, and unauthorized biography, Alan Shipnuck captures a singular life defined by thrilling victories, crushing defeats, and countless controversies.
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Not what I’d hoped for.
- By Chad Smed on 07-04-22
By: Alan Shipnuck
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Paper Tiger
- An Obsessed Golfer's Quest to Play with the Pros
- By: Tom Coyne
- Narrated by: Kyle Tait
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Like most amateur golfers, Tom Coyne had often wondered whether the pros won because they were more talented or because they were more obsessed. Overweight and burdened by a 14 handicap, he decided to find out for himself what it takes to play like a pro. Charting his journey - which included hiring top golf gurus such as Dr. Jim Suttie - Paper Tiger takes listeners from the Michelob tournament (a win for Tom) to the Australian Tour, where 40-mile-per-hour winds and a driving rain scare off his Japanese partners.
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If you thought; "I wonder what it takes "
- By Anonymous User on 04-19-21
By: Tom Coyne
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Rainmaker
- Superagent Hughes Norton and the Money Grab Explosion of Golf from Tiger to LIV and Beyond
- By: Hughes Norton, George Peper
- Narrated by: Hughes Norton
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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When twenty-one-year-old Tiger Woods stunned the world by winning The Masters by a mind-blowing twelve strokes, the first thing he did was embrace the three most important people in his life: his father, his mother, and Hughes Norton. Now, in Rainmaker, Norton offers “the most amazing ‘behind the curtain’ view ever written about the world of sports management” (Jim Nantz, CBS Sports). This is an engaging and unforgettable memoir that explores golf as never before.
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Resentful Story
- By H. Knodt on 04-02-25
By: Hughes Norton, and others
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Tales From Q School
- Inside Golf's Fifth Major
- By: John Feinstein
- Narrated by: John Feinstein
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Abridged
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It is the tournament that separates champions from mortals. It is the starting point for the careers of future legends and can be the final stop on the down escalator for fading stars. The annual PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament is one of the most grueling competitions in any sport. John Feinstein tells the story of the players who compete for these coveted positions in the 2005 Q school as only he can. America's favorite sportswriter unearths the inside story behind the PGA Tour's brutal all-or-nothing competition.
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Feinstein was a sloppy reader
- By duende512 on 06-19-16
By: John Feinstein
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The Tiger Slam
- The Inside Story of the Greatest Golf Ever Played (Tiger Woods in 2000–2001)
- By: Kevin Cook
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1997, as every schoolchild knows, Tiger Woods won the Masters by the largest margin in history, becoming the first Black player to win a major championship. Four years later, the world watches with breathless anticipation as he returns to Augusta National, aiming for a milestone no other golfer has ever achieved: four professional Grand Slam triumphs in a row. In The Tiger Slam, Kevin Cook delivers a gripping, inside-the-ropes account of an astonishing streak of victories that left Woods’s rivals scrambling to keep up.
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Good Review of Tiger ‘00-01
- By Paul on 03-30-25
By: Kevin Cook
What listeners say about The Ball in the Air
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Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- James L Castellano
- 06-16-23
A definitive top 10
Wasn’t sure what to expect from this audio, but once I started I couldn’t stop. At times I forgot this was an audio, more like a conversation. Story line was well put together and worked great. I will buy the book for my collection
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-02-23
You don’t have to be a golfer to sink into this book
Michael writes with heart about a game that has captured so many. The friendships, unexpected places the game has taken players, and the love and frustration of the game. David Morse’s narration draws you in like your spending a day together sharing stories. I know I’ll listen again.
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- courtney c kapp
- 04-12-23
If you love golf, this book is an eagle
The Ball in the Air, by Michael Bamberger, is about three amateur golfers and the joy, community, and sometimes redemption they found through golf. Warm and uplifting, the book is an intensely personal biography of these three golfers. It is also, in part, the author’s memoir and a love letter to golf.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Dedicated
- 07-04-23
Another great one from Bamberger
Several stories, including autobiographical, are interwoven in a well paced narrative with the usual writing panache that MB is known for. The reader of the audiobook dramatizes the stories with accents and auditory cues to make it lively. He also mimics the authors voice well. Highly recommended for your Christmas gifting.
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- Scott King
- 08-08-23
Just not what i expected
It isnt a bad book at all. But I thought the book club picked a loveletter to the game. Maybe I was looking for Michael and Shivas. Couldnt find them.
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- Damian Stebner
- 04-03-23
Real Golf
Great storytelling about how golf brings people together regardless of their background. Enjoyed it greatly.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Heng-yi
- 03-17-24
Intimacy
As if you were there. Simply mesmerizing! Finished listening in three days. Thank you Michael, well written!
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- Anonymous User
- 08-23-23
A Game for All, A Book for All
This is an excellent book about golf and life. The subjects and stories were compelling and relatable in so many ways. The author and narrator both did a masterful job. I would highly recommend this birdie/eagle of a book.
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- Tlusk
- 12-09-23
Love of the game
Loved the stories of exceptional folks, stories of recovery and redemption. Deep relationships created simply by hitting the ball in the air!!
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- Clark
- 07-14-24
Amazing book. Amazing narrator
This is a wonderful book. The writing is simply fantastic. Best narrator I have listened to.
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