Ancestral Links

One man’s quest to uncover the roots of his family’s obsession with golf—a journey that takes him to his ancestral home in Ireland, to Scotland, and to the American heartland. John Garrity is well known in the golf world for his writing for Sports Illustrated, Golf Magazine, and on Golf.com. In this new book, Garrity travels to the remote corner of Ireland from which his great-grandfather left for America, now home to a majestic golf course. There he discovers why local farmers spent seven years carving the course out of unforgiving terrain, using only rakes and spades for their work. From there, he visits Musselburgh, Scotland, where his maternal ancestors played golf before the first 13 rules of the game were written there in 1774, and to Wisconsin’s St. Croix River Valley, where his father learned the Ancient Game. Part memoir, part travelogue, and all golf, this book is for the enthusiast, the casual fan, or just the curious. The story of how golf altered three small-town landscapes and forever changed one family will captivate listeners and inspire them to find life’s greatest treasures in their own family tree.