A Quick Nine Before Dark

Distinct among golf writers for having been born in Pinehurst, arguably America’s golf capital, Bill Fields brings to life growing up during the 1960s and ’70s in the Sandhills of North Carolina, where his early ties to the game were a springboard for a long, award-winning career chronicling it. A Quick Nine Before Dark is a richly detailed memoir: poignant sketches of a lost small-town world, introducing his blue-collar dad to golf; the culture shock and awe of a new arrival in 1980s New York City; an insider’s vantage of an evolving golf media world. Fields interviewed a 15-year-old Tiger Woods and played 18 holes with Sam Snead when he was 84. Having walked Pinehurst’s fairways as a tour-event standard bearer when he was a teen, Fields went on to photograph 40 major championships and has reported from twice that many as a fixture on the golf scene for four decades. A Quick Nine Before Dark is a vivid account of that journey and the charms and challenges along the way.