The King of Swings: Johnny Goodman, the Last Amateur to Beat the Pros at Their Own Game [Hardcover]

By age 23, Johnny Goodman (1909–1970) rose to the top of the golf world; in 1933, he became the last amateur to win the U.S. Open, and five years later made the cover of Time. Blaine's storytelling gifts (Desperate Season; The Midnight Band of Mercy) have imbued Goodman's life with casual naturalism. The son of Lithuanian immigrants, Goodman grew up in Omaha's slaughterhouse district. Abandoned by his father after his mother died when he was 14, the Omaha orphan practiced his swings while working as a caddy at the local Field Club. By 19, he was the city's best golfer, and in 1929 he traveled to Pebble Beach, where he made sports headlines by beating the defending champ, the legendary Bobby Jones. Blaine is an avid golfer himself, and his insights into the game are evident in his re-creations of matches, and he paints a vibrant 1920s backdrop. Contrasting Jones's profitable endorsements and movie deals with Goodman's idealism and desire to maintain his amateur status, Blaine breathes life into this compelling Depression-era tale of fame and obscurity. 8-page photo insert not seen by PW. (June 5)
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*Starred Review* Johnny Goodman (1909-70), the last amateur to win the U.S. Open, has been relegated to a footnote in golf history, his triumphs overshadowed by the more media-friendly exploits of Francis Quimet and Bobby Jones, but this involving biography should bring him at least some of the attention he has deserved for decades. The dirt-poor Goodman, son of Lithuanian immigrants, did not fit the profile of an amateur golfer in the 1920s, when the Bobby Jones legend was created: amateurs were supposed to be gentlemen, like Jones, from east of the Mississippi, who played the game for love, not money, and were comfortable entering country clubs by the front door. So when Goodman, a caddy from Omaha, upset Jones in the first round of the 1929 U.S. Amateur at Pebble Beach, golf's establishment was not amused. Blaine tells the fascinating story of Goodman's subsequent rise through the amateur ranks and his astounding victory in the 1933 U.S. Open in the context of this sociopolitical drama. With the Depression gripping the country, Goodman should have been a folk hero in the Seabiscuit mold, but it never quite happened, thanks mostly to his status as the anti-Jones. For an all-encompassing picture of American golf in its early years, pair the Goodman story with these two related accounts by Mark Frost: The Greatest Game Ever Played (2002), about Quimet's victory in the 1913 Open, and his The Grand Slam (2004), about Jones' great year in 1930. Bill Ott
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Not only a well-crafted biography of a resilient athlete but also a honed sociological portrait of Midwestern life (The Washington Post )

Blaine breathes life into this compelling Depression-era tale of fame and obscurity. (Publishers Weekly )

If you savored Mark Frost's The Greatest Game, you'll love this one, too... Historical perspective mixed with great storytelling. (The San Diego Union-Tribune )

The inspiring, untold story of golf's most unlikely champion. Like Cinderella Man and The Greatest Game Ever Played, The King of Swings tells a remarkable -- and universal -- underdog story. An orphan turned caddie from the Omaha stockyards, Johnny Goodman was considered too small, too foreign, and too poor to play the country club game. But he swore he would prove everyone wrong, and before a nations riveted gaze this self-taught kid from the wrong side of the tracks beat the legendary Bobby Jones in the nations first national golf tournament, held at Pebble Beach in 1929. Against the backdrop of one of golfs most majestic spots, these unlikely opponents played out in eighteen holes the class conflict that soon came to dominate American society with the onset of the Depression. Goodmans victory sent shock waves through the rarefied world of golf in the Roaring Twenties and inspired millions of working-class Joes never to lose sight of their dreams. But Goodman was just getting started. Against all odds, over the next several years he clung to his amateur status and battled the USGA at every turn, ultimately winning the 1933 U.S. Open, the last amateur ever to beat the professionals at their own game. With a keen sense of drama and a novelists eye, Michael Blaine brings the story of golfs forgotten hero to life. He also explores the closing gap between amateur and professional sports and reawakens a particular moment in American history with exceptional grace and flair. Atmospheric, suspenseful, and finely crafted, The King of Swings is an inspiring and moving tale about the possibility -- and the price -- of idealism.

MICHAEL BLAINE is the author of two widely praised novels, The Desperate Season and The Midnight Band of Mercy. An avid golfer, he lives in upstate New York.

1 The fifth child of William and Rose Goodman, Johnny Goodman was born in South Omaha, Nebraska, on December 28, 1909. For most of his childhood he lived in a single-story frame house at 4128 South Thirty-sixth Street, in close proximity to Omahas great stockyards and meatpacking plants. Johnny Goodmans name first appeared in the Omaha papers in 1916, when he contracted diphtheria. Alerted to the situation by neighbors, health workers discovered the feverish boy in a bed he shared with three other siblings. In the same room, four more Goodman children slept in a single bed. Suspicious of the officials motives and fearful of hospitals in general, Rose Goodman refused to allow the authorities to take her son away for treatment. In response to her intransigence, the city quarantined the entire family. Today, Roses resistance to medical intervention would be viewed as irrational, bordering on child abuse. But for an illiterate immigrant whose knowledge of hospitals was limited to the unsanitary poor wards of Lithuania, her actions can be seen in a different light. However misguided, she was taking a stand to protect her son. Miraculously, none of Roses other children caught the disease and Johnny eventually recovered. Johnnys father worked in one of the citys meatpacking plants. Every morning William Goodman would join the masses of men and animals pouring toward the looming slaughterhouses, never knowing if there would be work that day. Over the years he labored in the pickling room, where meat was hauled out of vats of salty water, and the boning room, where the air contained fine bits of bone that lodged in workers lungs. If he was lucky hed catch on with the hog-killing gang - a man could breathe better on that job - but there were always accidents. If you got cut, you wrapped a rag around the wound and kept on slicing. He stood all day long in blood and water up to his ankles. On the killing floor in the winter his feet would grow numb with cold, and he would wrap them in layer after layer of cloth until he felt as if he were walking on frozen hooves, but he was thankful for the job; back in Lithuania, there was little work for a man like him. Eventually he became a butcher and earned a little more an hour. It was a dangerous job - during "speedups" on the line the exhausted men sometimes cut one another accidentally with razor-sharp knives - but you stuck some plaster on the wound, you laughed it off, and cut some more. He worked hard and provided for his wife and children. In fact, he managed to buy his own home. By then he had nine children, all of whom attended school. He made his mortgage payments and fed his family. Despite his punishing job, William learned to read and write English. For a number of years he was the picture of an upwardly mobile man, able to feed and clothe his sprawling family. But hacking away at steer carcasses ten hours a day left him worn out and hungry for release. At the end of h