The Marvellous Mania reviewed in Golf International

As Jack Nicklaus remarks in a very personal Foreword, Alistair Cooke gave his readers as much insight into golf as he did to politics. Cooke might laughingly describe his swing as that of a man falling out of a tree. But his words have still helped Nicklaus to relive his own great sporting moments "as if they happened only yesterday".

Sport uniquely combines entertainment with place, time and athleticism, and Cooke was a master at the weave. Nicklaus's third Open victory was at the 1978 Championships at St Andrews. On the eve of it, Pat Ward-Thomas and I sat most of one night as Cooke, at the grand piano of his hotel suite, told sparkling tales of Gershwin, Cole Porter and Berlin. Here he does the same for Nicklaus and Palmer, Player and Watson, Jones and Hagen, Woods and Sorenstam, all in the context of the "the great Scottish torture..".

John Samuel