Stuff
Product Details
Simon & Schuster, July 2011
Hardcover, 272 pages
ISBN-10: 1451657552
ISBN-13: 9781451657555
Description
The most famous athlete on the planet is a bit off his game.
Maybe you heard?
His name, as we all know, is Herbert X. “Tree” Tremont, and he’s the richest and most celebrated athlete of our time—a multicultural golfing icon with fifty-three Tour wins, thirteen major victories, a smoking hot wife, and two adorable kids. Tree’s carefully cultivated image of country club values has made him so beloved by corporate America that he is the first celebrity in history to endorse Coke and Pepsi. The world kneels at his feet.
As it turns out, so do a good many agreeable young women. When a reporter uncovers evidence that Tree’s sexual appetites are as prodigious as his tee shots, his public and private lives collide, producing the juiciest scandal in sports history.
In this high-spirited romp that recalls the hilarious work of Dan Jenkins and Rick Reilly, two veteran Sports Illustrated writers have some wicked fun with recent events as they take us inside “Treeworld” and the secret society of elite golf. It’s a wild ride that whisks us between the ropes and the sheets of the PGA Tour, cracks open Tree’s cloistered inner circle, and propels us around the world in high style . . . from Tree’s top-secret compound in Florida to the wine cellar of Augusta National for an illicit tryst on Masters Sunday . . . from the deck of his $61 million yacht to the plush interior of his favorite private plane (he owns a few) . . . from the secluded beaches of Maui to an exclusive Southampton estate.
As the scandal spirals out of control and Tree is forced underground, we get to know his entourage: Andrew Finkelman, his famously brusque manager who left IGM to manage Tree alone; Turner Darlington, the bizarre and charismatic founder and CEO of Tree’s main sponsor, Arrow Golf; Tree’s wife, Belinda, a hot-blooded Italian former bikini-model who doesn’t play golf but swings a mean fireplace tool; and a healthy number of the hundreds of women whose liaisons with Tree are brought to light as the plot unfolds.
Bursting with inside observations and anecdotes about pro golf and life on Tour, The Swinger is a fast, funny, and gleefully outrageous novel that illuminates the life of the modern world-class, life-by-the-tail athlete. It is also a meditation on love, sex, marriage, friendship, celebrity, and the media. It is written with a smile, not with disdain for athletes like Tree, but with empathy and affection. It ends with the hope that Tree’s transformation, redemption, and return to greatness may be just around the corner.
Maybe you heard?
His name, as we all know, is Herbert X. “Tree” Tremont, and he’s the richest and most celebrated athlete of our time—a multicultural golfing icon with fifty-three Tour wins, thirteen major victories, a smoking hot wife, and two adorable kids. Tree’s carefully cultivated image of country club values has made him so beloved by corporate America that he is the first celebrity in history to endorse Coke and Pepsi. The world kneels at his feet.
As it turns out, so do a good many agreeable young women. When a reporter uncovers evidence that Tree’s sexual appetites are as prodigious as his tee shots, his public and private lives collide, producing the juiciest scandal in sports history.
In this high-spirited romp that recalls the hilarious work of Dan Jenkins and Rick Reilly, two veteran Sports Illustrated writers have some wicked fun with recent events as they take us inside “Treeworld” and the secret society of elite golf. It’s a wild ride that whisks us between the ropes and the sheets of the PGA Tour, cracks open Tree’s cloistered inner circle, and propels us around the world in high style . . . from Tree’s top-secret compound in Florida to the wine cellar of Augusta National for an illicit tryst on Masters Sunday . . . from the deck of his $61 million yacht to the plush interior of his favorite private plane (he owns a few) . . . from the secluded beaches of Maui to an exclusive Southampton estate.
As the scandal spirals out of control and Tree is forced underground, we get to know his entourage: Andrew Finkelman, his famously brusque manager who left IGM to manage Tree alone; Turner Darlington, the bizarre and charismatic founder and CEO of Tree’s main sponsor, Arrow Golf; Tree’s wife, Belinda, a hot-blooded Italian former bikini-model who doesn’t play golf but swings a mean fireplace tool; and a healthy number of the hundreds of women whose liaisons with Tree are brought to light as the plot unfolds.
Bursting with inside observations and anecdotes about pro golf and life on Tour, The Swinger is a fast, funny, and gleefully outrageous novel that illuminates the life of the modern world-class, life-by-the-tail athlete. It is also a meditation on love, sex, marriage, friendship, celebrity, and the media. It is written with a smile, not with disdain for athletes like Tree, but with empathy and affection. It ends with the hope that Tree’s transformation, redemption, and return to greatness may be just around the corner.
Read more:
Browse Inside The Swinger“Hilarious . . . A sensational novel of life on Tour.”
-- Golf Magazine
“A funny, fast-moving book . . . Dead on . . . The authors know their man and know their game.”
-- Janet Maslin, The New York Times
“A devilishly fun summer read for sports fans, celeb-gawkers, or anyone that just likes a good story . . . If you had any interest at all in the Woods saga as it played out, you’re nearly guaranteed to love this novel.”
-- Daniel Roberts, Fortune
“An entertaining, revealing, thought-provoking, and cautionary tale . . . It’s easy to catch yourself wondering: Is this what really happened? No one may ever know exactly what happened to Woods, and the book is fiction -- keep repeating that with each turned page -- but it provides invaluable insight into the life and times of Woods. . . . The Swinger is a golf book, but it is a 21st-century sociology lesson, too.”
-- Bill Pennington, The New York Times
“Will leave you howling . . . Surprisingly poignant . . . Bamberger and Shipnuck’s knowledge of the game gives the book a reality rarely seen in golf fiction outside of Dan Jenkins.”
-- Garry Smits, Florida Times-Union
"In their roman à clef about Tiger Woods, Shipnuck and Bamberger thinly disguise as fiction plenty of gossip they've heard over their four decades, combined, covering the PGA Tour. . . . What’s more relevant to the story, and to the reader--including, possibly, Tiger Woods himself--is the way Tree approaches his post-scandal life. The authors’ idealized version of Woods comes totally clean about his past mistakes. There are no staged interviews, no clipped or dodgy answers. Tree Tremont lets his guard down, even cracks a few jokes about the absurdity of his situation. He starts enjoying the company of his fellow players and--gasp--the fans. Tree wins that Masters, his game even gets better, and yes, fans fall for him all over again. . . .When reading The Swinger, you can’t help but wonder: what if Tiger were more like Tree?”
-- Time magazine
"A must-read for golf fans . . . I laughed out loud."
-- Yahoo! Sports
"It leaps to the top of the golf novel genre."
-- Bradley S. Klein, senior writer, Golfweek
"An enjoyable and enlightening read . . . Equal parts an inside joke, an authentic glimpse into the PGA Tour, and a deeper look into journalism and society's treatment of celebrities. . . . Even though the story is a fictional account, Shipnuck and Bamberger pour invaluable insight into their alternate universe with little details that they've scooped up while covering golf for a combined four decades."
-- Monterey Herald
"The phrase 'ripped from the headlines' has never been more apt than in this entertaining, funny and surprisingly poignant and sentimental book by two writers who have been around since the beginning of the Woods Era. They skillfully weave reality and fiction to offer a morality play that, in the end, is more about hope than a tabloid slash-and-burn. Bamberger and Shipnuck's knowledge of the game gives the book a reality rarely seen in golf fiction outside of Dan Jenkins. . . . There are enough laugh-out-loud scenes to satisfy fans of the Jenkins Era of golf novels such as Dead Solid Perfect. The one in the Augusta National wine cellar, for example, will leave you howling. Unlike the current problems plaguing Tiger Woods, The Swinger has a resolution and it's one of redemption and optimism. Those who have admired Woods and his remarkable skills since he burst on the scene will finish the book wishing him the same fate."
-- Florida Times-Union
"Fast . . . Juicy . . . There's lots of insidery detail . . . Part of the fun is squabbling with the authors' speculation about what made Tiger--excuse me, Tree--behave the way he did."
-- John Paul Newport, The Wall Street Journal
"A devilishly fun summer read for sports fans, celeb-gawkers, or anyone that just likes a good story . . . If you had any interest at all in the Woods saga as it played out, you're nearly guaranteed to love this novel."
-- Fortune
"Funny and raunchy . . . The book really shines when it provides an alternate-history version of how a smart, sensitive, self-aware Tiger might and should have handled his return to the tour."
-- Jeff Neuman, Real Clear Sports
"Yes, it is fiction, but it will tell you more about Tiger Woods than we knew for years . . . And yes the golfer in the book is nicknamed 'Tree' instead of Tiger, and yes there is an upbeat ending, but in many ways this is a scary novel about the greatest golfer in the world who lost his own soul on the way to the green."
-- Bill Reynolds, Providence Journal
"No, they didn't! Oh yes, they did! . . . An entertaining, clever work of fiction that gives readers an inside look into pro golf and life in tour . . . I'm still laughing."
-- Wei Under Par
Lakeland Ledger, July 2, 2011
...Janet Maslin -- Simon & Schuster, $25 "The Swinger" is a novel about a very famous golfer who has an amazing career record, a slew of endorsement deals, a gorgeous wife and a squeaky-clean reputation ? until his extracurricular ...
New York Times, July 1, 2011
...and a squeaky-clean reputation until his extracurricular kinks become a huge public embarrassment and spoil everything. The authors, Michael Bamberger (This Golfing Life) and Alan Shipnuck (Bud, Sweat and Tees), call this golfer Herbert X. ...
New York Times, June 30, 2011
...The Swinger is a novel about a very famous golfer who has an amazing career record, a slew of endorsement deals, a gorgeous wife and a squeaky-clean reputation until his extracurricular kinks ...
New York Times, June 30, 2011
...The Swinger is a novel about a very famous golfer who has an amazing career record, a slew of endorsement deals, a gorgeous wife and a squeaky-clean reputation until his extracurricular kinks ...
New York Daily News, June 19, 2011
...narrator Josh Dutra, a onetime sportswriter now serving as a beleaguered publicist. This is an excerpt from The Swinger, a golf novel from award-winning Sports Illustrated senior writers Michael Bamberger and Alan Shipnuck that will be ...
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