Golf books for Christmas

The autobiographical conveyer belt has been at full tilt this year but by far the best of the efforts is The Real Monty (Orion, £18.99). Lewine Mair captures her subject, Colin Montgomerie, better than the ghostwriters of Ian Woosnam or Bernhard Langer within a format that has the usual limitations. Entirely appropriately, however, for a man of so many contradictions, Monty does not help himself.

It is axiomatic that any sporting autobiography should have plenty of play-by-play, the rehashing of the feats on the field of play. So there is no escaping wading through all seven of the order of merit victories, plus various Ryder Cups, though the latter hold the dramatic appeal better.

An uneasy feeling remains, however, because Montgomerie, whose opinions are otherwise highly relevant, is a notoriously poor judge of his own golf. He veers from one unbalanced assessment to another in a way that makes for great copy on a daily or weekly basis, but is hard to pull together in a coherent structure.

The exasperation of those around him is caught to a degree, although not as well as it would be in a straight biography. But the attempt at a clean breast is to be applauded and once we move off the course the rewards are there. The account of his marriage problems is brutally honest.

Montgomerie has always been better talking about external matters. His analysis of other players or the rights or wrongs of certain situations or controversies is usually sound, authoritative and, occasionally, provocative. This book only adds to the conviction that he will move seamlessly into the pundit's role. Now the record has been stated, there may even be another Monty volume, if he really wanted to put his mind, and his own word processor, to it.

For those who like their history more ancient than modern, The Greatest Game Ever Played, by Mark Frost (Little Brown, £17.99) claims to chronicle the times of Harry Vardon, Francis Ouimet and the birth of modern golf. Its wide sweep is actually centred on just a few days, the week of the US Open in 1913. Before the Ryder Cup reached the Country Club in Brookline and before the Ryder Cup was even thought of, the course played host to one of the most extraordinary championships the game has seen.

At the end of regulation play three men finished in a tie. Two were famous British professionals, Harry Vardon and Ted Ray. The third was an unknown American amateur. Francis Ouimet was just 20 and lived near the Country Club. His victory became not just one of the greatest sporting upsets, but signalled the beginning of American dominance of the game.

Not only are the events of those few dramatic days recalled in detail, but the personalities involved – and not just the principal actors, Vardon and Ouimet, but those with more walk on parts such as The Times correspondent Bernard Darwin – are fleshed out in full. The results of Frost's researches are an account as intriguing as it is detailed. Perhaps as much should be expected from a writer and producer on such acclaimed television series as Hill Street Blues and Twin Peaks.

Frost rightly lets Darwin's words stand for themselves. "The picture that remains to me is of the young hero playing all those crucial shots as if he had been playing an ordinary game," Darwin writes. "He was just entirely calm and natural. When Mr Ouimet finally succeeded in making a tie of it, everybody was in a dazed and topsy-turvy frame of mind. Nobody who was there will ever forget the wild shouts, the shaking of hands, and the throwing of highly respectable hats into the air. All the most venerable of Bostonians appeared to have gone simultaneously mad, and for that matter, although my cheers were more restrained, I did not feel wholly sane myself." And that was only the fourth round.

ALSO RECOMMENDED

Duel in the Sun, By Michael Corcoran (Mainstream, £7.99).

Woosie: My Autobiography, By Ian Woosnam with Edward Griffiths (Collins Willow, £18.99)

Natural Hazard: The Diary of an Accident-prone Golf Writer, By Norman Dabell (Mainstream, £9.99)

Bernhard Langer: My Autobiography, By Bernhard Langer with Stuart Weir (Hodder and Stoughton, £17.99)

The Open Championship 2002 (Hazleton, £17.99)

Golf Courses: 50 Amazing Aerial Views (HarperCollins, £14.99)