In Search of Tiger: A Journey Through Golf With Tiger Woods

Rating:
Summary: If you love good writing and golf this is a keeper
Review: A book you can't put down. You will learn more about Tiger in this book than all others combined. The behind the scenes information makes you watch and enjoy Tiger in a whole new light. Tom Callahan is to Tiger what Martin Gilbert is to Churchill. Buy the book.

Rating:
Summary: If you love good writing and golf this is a keeper
Review: A book you can't put down. You will learn more about Tiger in this book than all others combined. The behind the scenes information makes you watch and enjoy Tiger in a whole new light. Tom Callahan is to Tiger what Martin Gilbert is to Churchill. Buy the book.

Rating:
Summary: In Search of Tiger : A Journey Through Golf With Tiger Woods
Review: In Search of Tiger: A Journey Through Golf with Tiger Woods, written by Tom Callahan, was a good book. I enjoyed reading this book because it compared other golfers to Tiger Woods. The only problem with this book is that it talked about many other professional golfers such as Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus but very little about Tiger Woods. This book is not quite a biography but the author does talk about some of the tournaments Tiger Woods' participated in. In the book, I was able to see the comparison between Tiger and his father and other golfers and their fathers. The book was still very interesting. It was a detailed book and described Callahan's meetings with the professional golfers. I could see the influence Tiger Woods has already made in the PGA and his capabilities in the golf game. This book is not what I expected so if you are looking for a biography, do not read this book.

Rating:
Summary: KEEP SEARCHING
Review: In this latest book about Eldrick Woods, the author takes a different approach in unraveling one of golf's greatest players. Readers should be cautione; this is not a conventional biography of Tiger Woods. What you are given are various anecdotes about Tiger loosely tied together within the historical framework of golf. From the outset this sounds good but you know even less about Tiger than when you started out and find out more about those who have had anything to do with his career.

Why learn about Mark O'Mear, Arnold Palmer, Sergio Garcia, Ernie Els, Jack Nicklaus and other golfing greats and then call your book In Search of Tiger? The book is less about Tiger and more about the development of the game and those who impacted upon it. All of the facts about Tiger's career, business and family can be found in other books. Our author, Tom Callahan has sloopily sewed together a series of articles about other golfers and nongolfers who know Tiger and then you aren't sure if they know him at all.

I must admit that the writing is good. The historical context and relationship of the players to the game and their fathers is interesting. I did expect more about Tiger and less about every Tom, Dick and Harry who supposidly know him. Tiger Woods fans can add another mediocre book to their collection about Woods but if you want a definitive work on the champion try another text. Keep Searching.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic! A golf writing double-eagle**
Review: Let me say this up front --- Tom Callahan is an immensely gifted writer. He is able through words to take the trite/boring and turn it into the phenomenally sublime. With an encyclopedic knowlege of all things golf along with up-close-and-personal profiles of current & past players, coaches, and associated fathers, he paints through annecdotes a circular, but no less complete picture of Tiger and his place in the great game of golf. This book is NOT per-se, a purely biographical sketch of Tiger Woods, but more of a wholistic and entertaining presentation of the past, present and future of the game and Tiger's place in it. If you love golf, watch golf, and love to read, you'll get more "bang for your buck" here than any other golf book I know of! And I've read quite a few....

Rating:
Summary: Not quite
Review: There is simply no sportswriter on earth with as much meticulous insight into the minds of both the golfing legends of old and the stars of today as Tom Callahan. Admittedly, my expectations were lofty going in here, esp. after reading the astounding accolades bestowed upon Callahan on the book jacket alone -- from the likes of Costas, Kornheiser, Jenkins, Reilly, Nicklaus, and others. Thankfully, for once, they were all right. This book is indeed the whole package on Tiger, presented (ingeniously) not only via Tiger's own eyes, but those of his peers and predecessors. The golf history in the book is cleverly detailed yet pleasurably digestible. The first hand interviews with Tiger and his family are unprecedented. And the "Journey", for anyone REALLY interested in Tiger, is remarkably satisfying. Kudos to Tom Callahan for giving the sports world the preeminent Tiger bio.

Rating:
Summary: Tom Callahan Pens the Definitive Tiger Bio
Review: There is simply no sportswriter on earth with as much meticulous insight into the minds of both the golfing legends of old and the stars of today as Tom Callahan. Admittedly, my expectations were lofty going in here, esp. after reading the astounding accolades bestowed upon Callahan on the book jacket alone -- from the likes of Costas, Kornheiser, Jenkins, Reilly, Nicklaus, and others. Thankfully, for once, they were all right. This book is indeed the whole package on Tiger, presented (ingeniously) not only via Tiger's own eyes, but those of his peers and predecessors. The golf history in the book is cleverly detailed yet pleasurably digestible. The first hand interviews with Tiger and his family are unprecedented. And the "Journey", for anyone REALLY interested in Tiger, is remarkably satisfying. Kudos to Tom Callahan for giving the sports world the preeminent Tiger bio.

Rating:
Summary: Not quite
Review: This book is a compelling read for someone with a starting knowledge of and interest in Tiger Woods, but it doesn't quite make you feel like you've found Tiger. The book seems to be too choppy, more a series of isolated chapters thrown in that dont seem to connect. And there are too many questions that you are left with after reading it. If you're going to brag that you covered Tiger at all his first 8 majors, why have chapters only on the 3 in 2000? And if you're going to focus on those, why soak them with background info and then glaze over the tremendous performances? Callahan's description of Tiger during the 2000 PGA is particularly weak; why he decides to condense that great final round with May and the great back nine and the putts on 18 and 16 the second time around into about a page and a half befuddled me. And most of all, why devote so much of the book to learning about golfers other than Tiger? It's true that if you were to write the definitive, thoroughly detailed Tiger book, you could not ignore Lefty, Sergio, Ernie, etc. But when the chapters on the other golfers seem to take up half of this relatively short book, you've gone too far. It's true that this book is well written and will provide you with some nice tidbits about Tiger (such as the fact that his mother was the one to get him to wear red on Sundays), but you will likely leave the book hoping for more detail, more coherence, and more depth.

Rating:
Summary: Not found yet
Review: When the writer of a book on the greatest sporting celebrity since Muhammed Ali is a bit of a celebrity himself, there's a clash of egos. The problem with this book is that Tom Callahan, author of In Search of Tiger does not find Tiger Woods at all. Tom finds Tiger's father and a tiny part of his mother, and he does find other players (quite a lot of them) but this book reveals little about Woods himself. There is no question that Tom Callahan is an excellent writer who knows the sports industry intimately. Anyone who loves the sport of golf will probably enjoy this book. It is an easy and worthwhile read. But for anyone looking to reveal the mystique behind Tiger Woods, this book dissapoints.