Editor Reviews:

Book Description:

The controversy began with a seemingly innocuous private letter, and spiraled into the biggest media event in golf history. The Augusta National membership dispute dominated headlines and watercooler conversation for nearly a year, propelled by twenty-first-century hot-button issues and a pair of perfectly drawn foils in Hootie Johnson and Martha Burk. But a year after Burk's messy Masters week protest, the meaning of the membership controversy remains elusive. In The Battle for Augusta National, Alan Shipnuck -- who reinvented the PGA Tour narrative with the rollicking Bud, Sweat, & Tees -- provides the definitive account of what really happened and why.

In this lively, irreverent, ambitious book, Shipnuck chases the story from the chairman's office at Augusta National to the living room of the One Man Klan, along the way bringing to life a vivid cast of characters and revealing subplots aplenty. With meticulous reporting and penetrating insights, Shipnuck provides a nuanced look into the complex and contradictory worlds of Hootie and Martha, who were drawn together like moths to a flame; reveals Augusta National's secret plots to undermine the press and the accompanying turmoil at The New York Times, including an exclusive interview with the Times's disgraced executive editor, Howell Raines; and explores the Southern politics that led to Burk's Masters week banishment, drawing on Senate confirmation hearings and campaign contribution documents to link local politicians and a federal judge to Augusta National.

From Tiger Woods to Jack Welch, Sandra Day O'Connor to Bryant Gumbel, Treasury Secretary Snow to Jesse Jackson, the gang's all here in this withering look at a story that never stopped churning.

Along the way, many of the membership controversy's mysteries are revealed. How did Augusta National's top-secret membership roll become public? Who was the shadowy protester identified by hoodwinked reporters as Heywood Jablome? Did Burk lie about a vast right-wing conspiracy to undermine her demonstration? All of this and much more can be found in The Battle for Augusta National, a book that captures the passion and absurdity of a great national debate that continues to simmer.

Rating : - Interesting Summary of the Events
This is a golf jock book. Mr. Shipnuck, an experienced sports journalist, gives us his take on the Augusta National/women's membership issue that Hootie Johnson (no relation) and Martha Burk stirred up in connection with the 2003 Masters golf tournament. The author's breezy, colorful writing style lends itself well to an event that ultimately became more of a media circus, at least short-term, than anything socially significant. As a golfer and golf fan I'd followed the goings on with some interest at the time, but still learned a lot I hadn't known before, such as the Haywood J. (a name conspicuously omitted from the book's index) episode, the role played by N.Y. Times, and the one man Klan, among others. I also learned that Augusta National Golf Club is organized as a for-profit Georgia business corporation (Augusta National, Incorporated). That does not by itself invalidate Augusta National's "private club" argument, but does shed another light on the situation. I'd be interested to know how more about the club's organization, governance and finances, but there's no chance of that.