“Get it close? Hell, I’m gonna make it!”

THE SHOT

Watson, Nicklaus, Pebble Beach, and the Chip that Changed Everything

With an Essay by Tom Watson

From any and every angle the 1982 U.S. Open was pure alchemy, a dramatic turning point in the lives and fortunes of everyone involved. Watson underscored his status as the top player in the world. Nicklaus began to age before our eyes. Pebble joined the ranks of the most beloved golf courses on the planet.

ABC Sports began its slow descent toward obsolescence, and ESPN took an enormous step toward its new-media manifest destiny. As one ABC Sports producer who worked that storied Open said, "After that week nothing was the same.” 

New York Times-bestselling author Chris Millard takes you through every storyline, including all of the twists and turns of this seminal moment in golf history.

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Chris Millard

The Shot: Watson, Nicklaus, Pebble Beach, and the Chip That Changed Everything

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PRAISE FOR THE SHOT

“Chris Millard has long been one of the most thoughtful and connected observers of the game.  With rare insight and soul, he now tackles a seismic week in golf.  Exhaustively researched and beautifully told—Millard paints a nuanced portrait of a historic week. I was there. I remember it. Chris took me back as if it was yesterday.”  
  —Jimmy Roberts, NBC Sports

“In an ancient game filled with iconic moments, few rival the changing of the guard both on and off the golf course at Pebble Beach’s unforgettable  U.S. Open of 1982. Chris Millard, one of the game’s most agile and gifted writers, takes us on an insider’s tour of the battle royale between an aging Jack Nicklaus and an ascendent Tom Watson in a setting many consider to be the most heavenly layout on Earth. Maybe best of all, as these two towering figures of modern golf chase immortality by the sea, we see the internal gears of how the game was being shaped and forever changed behind the scenes by groundbreaking moves that announced a new era of broadcasting golf and sports in general. The greatest shot in golf framed by the engaging story of Pebble Beach’s fascinating creation makes The Shot a book to savor and share—and read again.” 
   —James Dodson, New York Times best-selling author of Final Rounds,
Faithful Travelers, A Golfers Life, and Dewsweepers

“If Pebble Beach is ‘the most felicitous meeting of land and sea,’ Tom Watson’s chip is just as surely the most felicitous meeting of man and the moment. But behind that moment lies a much broader, richer story, and Chris Millard has told it with characteristic thoroughness and grace.”
   —George Peper, former Editor-in-Chief of GOLF Magazine, author of True Links, St Andrews Sojourn, and Rainmaker (with Hughes Norton)

Chris Millard’s book, like the shot it captures for eternity, exudes joy. This book is the thrill of victory (Watson!) and graciousness in defeat (Nicklaus). It’s a tribute to Pebble Beach, Bruce Edwards, a certain Wilson wedge, and all the things that make golf golf. In the YouTube clip of the shot, you hear the crowd.
In The Shot, you hear the flagstick rattle. This book is golf!”
   —Michael Bamberger, New York Times-bestselling author of To the Linksland, Men in Green, and Ball in the Air. 

About the Author

New York Times-bestselling author CHRIS MILLARD is a veteran observer of the American sports scene. He has covered golf as an editor and columnist at Golf World Magazine and as an executive editor at GOLF Magazine Properties. His work has appeared in Golf Digest and the New York Times and has been recognized on five occasions by the Golf Writers Association of America (GWAA). In 2012 he was awarded the GWAA’s first prize for magazine feature articles for his retrospective on the 1986 Masters.

   In addition to his work as a sportswriter, he has been a contributor to Golf Channel and served for several years as director of communications for Jack Nicklaus. His books include: Nicklaus By Design: Golf Course Strategy and Architecture (with Jack Nicklaus, 2002), Golf’s 100 Toughest Holes (2004), Awesome Bill From Dawsonville (with Bill Elliott, 2006), My Life Was This Big … And Other True Tales From a Fishing Life (with Lefty Kreh, 2008), The Golf Book: Twenty Years of the Players, Shots and Moments That Changed the Game (2014), and The National Golf Links of America: A History (2017).

   A New York-area native and a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross, Chris lives with his wife and two children in Atlanta and spends summers in Connecticut.

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