Book Review: The Golf 100 by Michael Arkush

Historically, for decades, sports opinions and discussions (arguments) have been the topics over drinks in neighborhood bars, around corporate water coolers and lunchrooms, at tailgate parties, and most recently on cable TV, podcasts and chatrooms. Debates as to better teams and dynasties, often blinded by hometown loyalties, have raged and brought forth the New York Yankees, the Montreal Canadiens, the Boston Celtics, and the New England Patriots.

The Golf 100

Personal statistics often bolster the position as to who is the better individual athlete: Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron; Muhammed Ali or Rocky Marciano; Wilt Chamberlain or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; Willie Mosconi or Minnesota Fats; Wayne Gretzky or Alexander Ovechkin?

Which leads golf fans to debate: ‘Is the G.O.A.T. Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods?’. Or perhaps any one of 98 other golfers?

Michael Arkush is a sports journalist who is a former staff writer for the Los Angeles Times. With a focus on the American sports scene, Arkush has written or co-written sixteen best selling books; he has also contributed articles to The New York Times and The Washington Post. Turning his attention to the history of golf, in March of 2022 Arkush was struck with the idea of ranking the 100 best golfers of all time. 2003 U.S. Open champion, Jim Furyk called this idea a “tough task”, but for Arkush it became a nearly impossible task.

Creating his own ranking system that places a heavy emphasis on golf’s major championships, Arkush analyzes the men and women, the well-known and barely-known, who have been the most accomplished and impactful golfers ever.

Crafted from hundreds of interviews and relationships developed over a quarter century, The Golf 100 boasts a subtitle of ‘A Spirited Ranking of the Greatest Players of All Time’ and is Arkush’s defined compilation of this five-score number of great golfers.

Two, three, four or more pages are dedicated to each of the 100 golfers on the list; the pages for each golfer tell their biography and accomplishments, with an occasional personal life episode included. If one or more of your favorite golfers appear on the list in Arkush’s book, it is likely that you’ll discover something new about them.

Fifty-six acknowledgments to books used as reference material are enumerated in the bibliography appendix of The Golf 100. For avid readers interested in the history of golf, look no further than the titles given here as a near total summation of several centuries of golf.

Product details:
Publisher : Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC
Availability: April 1, 2025
Language : English
Hardcover : 384 pages
ISBN-10 : 0385549695
ISBN-13 : 978-0385549691
Item Weight : 1.4 pounds
Dimensions : 6.43 x 1.35 x 9.54 inches
(Photo credits / courtesy: Penguin Random House, LLC)