The Secret of Pirate's Manor

Every golfer alive knows that he or she has two ancestral homes: one's own, and Scotland. On her rolling shores the game of golf had its origins, and to walk the links of St. Andrews is to feel at one with the shepherd who decided one day to see how far he could whack a stone with his crook. Most serious golfers will make the pilgrimage to Scotland, to try to hit the Postage Stamp green at Troon, to trace the footsteps of Ben Hogan at Carnoustie, and to brave the challenge of the Road Hole at St. Andrews; all golfers dream of taking such a trip. <P> For the tourist or the dreamer, there can be no better guide than James W. Finegan. A passionate advocate of the game that's played on the links between land and sea, Finegan combines a writer's eye, a historian's knowledge, and a golfer's sense of wonder and apprehension to provide an impossibly ambitious grand tour of golf's native land. <P> In a loop of a thousand miles that begins in Edinburgh and ends across the Firth of Forth in St. Andrews, Finegan covers some sixty courses, visiting the true shrines of the game, the courses that are well known and respected, and the little-known ge