If one sport (or game) can lay claim to being the most humbling of physical activities, its golf. Stafford spends 282 pages of very witty prose describing (in detail) his descent into the world of bogeys as time after time, despite so much assistance (more later), he is frustrated by the essence of our game. The raison behind this books is for a complete beginner to develop his game so that he can play $1.4M+ golf, a round with Tiger Woods - searching for the Holy Grail would be easier.

Name the golfer (or person in Golf) and Stafford was given access to their world ... did this include Tiger? I leave you to read the book. No matter where he went, he has spent time with a pantheon of people who are the modern history of the game and if one golfing book was littered with unmissable quotes, its this one. From dry rock stars, through Tour players and Major winners on both sides of the Atlantic (and their entourages), he finally meets the three people who are why golf is where it is as a sport (or does he?).

Mark McCormack is a poignant chapter, a mini auto-biography of the man who changed every sport he became involved with. There is integrity throughout and a chapter before, Stafford spends fifteen minutes one-on-one with Jack Nicklaus. The obsession that has infected him spoils the ending of what is another wonderful insight into why Nicklaus is No1 (he asks Big Jack to comment on his - Stafford s - achievements) and how good Nicklaus could have actually been, had the Columbus golfer made 2000 s level of commitment to his game.

Its this part of the book and time spent with Ernie Els that lead you to the culmination of why this is a great read. This is one man s obssession in print. Its the golfer who talks you through every round they play, club by club and dotted with their own personal golfing history, the bore you want to beat in your monthly medal....only this time its interesting. Every golfer will see some part of their own personal golfing progress (or lack of it) as Stafford trudges off into the trees that surround his personal golfing fairways....and struggles back towards the cut stuff just once in a while.

Your golf game is just that, your own. This review is littered with highly descriptive reflections to try and capture what Stafford actually undertook. He might have been better finding just one teacher to believe in, had he really wanted to maximise his talents in such a short period. This book could be a benchmark, some thing that reflects the ending of the fix aspect of our game. Tiger is all about method, commitment and dedication. Those who don t believe, or commit, just don t reach this golfing icon s standards. This applies to us all.

In Search of the Tiger is published by Ebury Press and is available at all good bookshops in paperback for £9.99.

The ISBN No is 0091886562