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By BOB D'ANGELO, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 21, 2008

Monarch Country Club, designed by Arnold Palmer, opened in March 1987. Palmer was there to christen the golf course, located near the Stuart exit of Florida's Turnpike. Midway through the round, Palmer was distracted when a low-flying small jet buzzed the course.

Palmer backed away from the ball and squinted into the sky. "Probably Nicklaus," he said, as spectators laughed.

True, Jack Nicklaus lived an hour south of the course and flew a private jet. But as Ian O'Connor writes in "Arnie & Jack: Palmer, Nicklaus and Golf's Greatest Rivalry" (Houghton-Mifflin, $26), such gamesmanship was expected.

O'Connor weaves an earthy, richly detailed story about the Palmer-Nicklaus rivalry. Palmer was the king of golf, whose cherished spot at the top was usurped by a man known derisively as "Fat Jack" early in his career. Both men were prideful competitors, and there was a marvelous tension that O'Connor documents.

"If this love-hate relationship never ascended to a state of true love, it never descended to a state of true hate, either," O'Connor writes. "The Arnie-Jack grudges were never permanent, though Palmer and Nicklaus competed ferociously in everything."

O'Connor digs deep to chronicle each golfer's youth, the competition that extended beyond the golf course (course design, management companies, endorsements), and the bond shared by their wives, Winnie Palmer and Barbara Nicklaus.

"They played their gentlemen's game like gentlemen, never exchanging harsh words with each other in public view," O'Connor writes.

And, they could be funny. After Palmer beat Nicklaus at the Bob Hope Desert Classic in 1973, he donned a wig at a post-tournament party and then "danced" with Nicklaus, slapping the wig on his rival as they did the tango, nose to cheek.

"It was after the tournament, and everything was irrelevant except that we were friends and we were having a good time," Palmer told O'Connor.

Such a rivalry doesn't exist on today's PGA Tour. O'Connor does a nice job stripping away the reverence surrounding Palmer and Nicklaus, presenting both men, warts and all. It is refreshing and captivating.

REAL CANDOR: Evander Holyfield's autobiography is crisp and snappy, and he tells his life story with candor. In "Becoming Holyfield: A Fighter's Journey" (Atria Books, $25), Holyfield, with veteran author Lee Gruenfeld, traces his sometimes bumpy ride to the heavyweight boxing championship.

Holyfield recounts his memorable bouts against Mike Tyson, Riddick Bowe and Lennox Lewis, his troubled marriages and the treacherous pitfalls in boxing. True to form, Holyfield makes no excuses in his book, and that's refreshing.

A SIMPLER TIME: In 1866, a baseball club from Pecatonica, Ill., entered a tournament and was pummeled 49-1 in its first and only game. For their troubles, the players received a tin horn inscribed with one word - "Practice."

This is one of the interesting tidbits unearthed by Peter Morris in "But Didn't We Have Fun?: An Informal History of Baseball's Pioneer Era, 1842-1870" (Ivan R. Dee, $27.50). Morris takes what was a hazy period in baseball history, and sharpens the view of baseball before it became an organized, professional game.

Morris emphasizes several times during the book that the men who played the game before the formation of the National Association in 1871 were more than stodgy figures. These players were in fact, humorous, fun-loving athletes.

There are plenty of legends and half-truths assigned to pre- and post-Civil War baseball, and Morris does a fine job analyzing them.

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