Instruction
The best-selling golf books are instruction manuals. And 50 years after its publication, Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf by Ben Hogan—who had the sweetest swing on the tour—is still flying off the shelves. Of the current golf gurus, David Leadbetter is the most famous: his theories on swing mechanics, used to instruct teen phenom Michelle Wie, are outlined in The Golf Swing. As much inspirational as instructional, The Little Red Book by Texas golf pro Harvey Penick (along with Bud Shrake) is a folksy, feel-good way to sharpen your swing.

History/Biography
The Greatest Game Ever Played by Mark Frost is a retelling of the famous 1913 U.S. Open where, against all odds, amateur American golfer Francis Ouimet beat British superstars Harry Vardon and Ted Ray. The most learned American golf writer, Herb Wind, has collaborated on books with Hogan, Gene Sarazen and Jack Nicklaus, but his greatest contribution was Following Through, a collection of his New Yorker pieces, which included profiles on everyone from Bobby Jones to Bing Crosby.

Fiction
Sports and fiction rarely mix, but Michael Murphy’s Golf in the Kingdom, a metaphysical journey through the old country, attained cult status shortly after its publication in 1972. The Clicking of Cuthbert and The Heart of a Goof, both written by P.G. Wodehouse, capture the humour and heartbreak of golf, as does Dan Jenkins’ Dead Solid Perfect.

CanCon
The works of Lorne Rubenstein, a Globe and Mail reporter, range from the instructional to the wistful. For the latter, try A Season in Dornoch—Golf and Life in the Scottish Highlands, a lyrical account of Rubenstein’s three-month stay in Scotland. Great Golf Courses of Canada by John Gordon is a glossy coffee table tome with stunning photos of this country’s hidden treasures. Northern Links by Brian Kendall is part golf memoir, part Canadian travelogue: stories range from an account of an Arctic golf expedition to a pilgrimage to Cape Breton Island. James Barclay’s Golf in Canada: A History is the bible for anyone studying the domestic history of the sport. Full of juicy tidbits, it features a profile of the first person to play golf in North America: William Doleman, a Scottish sailor who chipped balls on the Plains of Abraham in 1854.