Foreword by Dr. Bob Rotella

“Gary, as much as anyone I ever saw, has that thing inside him that champions have.”
–Jack Nicklaus

“Gary is one of the greatest competitors who ever played the game.”
–Arnold Palmer

It doesn’t take thirty-five years of working with the greatest athletes, golfers and businessmen in the world to learn that everyone feels pressure. It does, however, take a man as seasoned and accomplished as Gary Player to teach us how to thrive under pressure, and avoid choking in competitive situations. Gary Player is one of golf’s greatest champions. As one of the “Big Three” of golf’s golden era (with Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer), he helped launch golf as a major international sport. Don’t Choke is his look at what it takes to overcome adversity.

Player explains how and why he became a champion and what it takes to win in big-time golf. He reviews the most pressure-packed situations in his major victories and how he managed to succeed when things were most tense! Then, he explains how learning to cope in pressured situations can help anyone. Player shares how what he learned from golf can help you with personal and business success!

Player has had a long, successful career in business since his playing days—designing golf courses, marketing golf equipment and sportswear, and more. If you want to do better in a boardroom or in your next job interview, Player’s advice will help. He is an ideal role model and teacher. He has maintained an infectiously positive and enthusiastic attitude throughout his life, and managed to combine a great marriage and family with succeeding in golf and business!

In Don’t Choke, Player makes it clear that he really gets it and actually lived it.

His lessons include:
· having a healthy perspective
· playing against yourself and the golf course
· Respecting your own game
· Going out and executing your game plan
· Controlling the stuff you can control and not worrying about what you can’t control
· And much, much more!

Player makes it clear that sometimes you do all the right things and someone still beats you, but the real challenge is not to beat yourself. This personal glimpse into the mind of a champion offers lessons to everyone who has to face pressure—and today that is all of us!

About the Authors:
Gary Player is considered one of the greatest golfers of all time, having eighteen major wins, nine on the PGA Tour and the other nine on the PGA Champions Tour. He is also the most accomplished international golfer of all time, winning 164 tournaments worldwide over five decades. Born in South Africa, he now lives in South Carolina.

Dr. Bob Rotella is consistently recognized as the world’s premier Sports Psychologist. He has dedicated his life to helping coaches, athletes, business leaders, and salespeople use their minds and emotions to take them to the top of their chosen professions. Rotella is the author of Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect, the bestselling sports psychology book of all time. He has been selected as one of the “Top 10 Golf Teachers of the 20th Century.” In addition to being a columnist and editorial board member for Golf Digest magazine and a contributing editor for Sports Psychology Journal, he appears regularly on NBC’s “High Performance Golf”, on the Golf Channel, and Larry King Live.

Don’t Choke: A Champion’s Guide to Winning Under Pressure
By Gary Player
On Sale: July 2010
ISBN: 978-1-61608-038-9
Price: $19.95

In his new book, Golf Sonnets, James Long Hale shares 18 amusing illustrated Shakespearean sonnets about golf. The gold embossed hardbound cover is designed to fit in a golf bag and entertain you from the first to the eighteenth hole. Golf Sonnets is the ONLY collection of sonnets about golf on the market and is the perfect gift for the literate golfer who ‘has everything.’

Golf Sonnets is utterly unique and hilarious…sure to be an instant classic of modern American Golf Literature. Of course, golf and sonnets are historical and geographical siblings. William Shakespeare remains the best-selling poet of all time and golf, incredibly has captured the imagination of nearly 30 million Americans. Golf is a game of rhythm and mind, as is a sonnet. It is only natural that these two elements which have endured for centuries since the Elizabethan era now unite to wittily entertain the modern day golf enthusiast.

“Golf is a funny game, full of irony and contradiction,” says Hale. “It was started by shepherds, the lowest of the low in society, and yet it has risen to a game for the elite. Sonnets also were written for the masses, not the elites, and yet have come to be associated with elite society.”

A few of the 18 verses in Golf Sonnets include:
· The Game…”if you’re thinking that Golf is less than lame, you need to get a life, not just a Game.”
· The Equipment…”so take a lesson if your game is ill – equipment is no substitute for skill.”
· The Nineteenth Hole…”where any reason to procrastinate is welcomed as a virtue, not a vice.”
· The Golf Widow…”but here’s the poor Golf Widow’s sorrow: she’ll have to see her man again tomorrow.”

“A good golf shot and a good sonnet produce a similar joy of soul that bears repeating. We want more. We want to experience that feeling again,” explains Hale.

James Long Hale’s affection for Golf and Light Verse began when his Dad introduced him at a young age to the Game and the comedic poetry stylings of Stanley Holloway. He is a graduate of PhilipsExeterAcademy, DartmouthCollege (where he studied poetry under Richard Eberhart), and SyracuseUniversityCollege of Law.

Hale’s essays and poems have appeared in various professional and literary journals and anthologies. In addition to Golf, his sporting interests include hunting, fishing, skiing and scuba diving. His charitable interests include: regional theater, education, disaster relief, environment and poverty.

Hale is married with three children and divides his time between upstate New York, the Adirondack Mountains and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. His travels have taken him to every continent except Antarctica…are there golf courses there?