Though many share Twain's love-hate relationship with the game, golf's appeal has flourished in the past century. So has the body of literature about it .
Golf is popular simply because it is the best game in the world at which to be bad.
He may very well have something there. The rule books, instructional manuals, catalogs, novels, club yearbooks, magazines, and coffee-table books in the collection document the rapid growth of the game of golf in the last 100 years, especially in the United States and Chicago. These are vibrant and fascinating research materials, says Alice Schreyer, curator of Special Collections. The collection will be very useful to scholars who are looking for material that reflects social and cultural life. For example, she says, women golfers played an important role in the game s development, and the books reflect their changing status.