FROM ONE OF THE FINEST INTERVIEWERS IN SPORTS… ANN LIGUORI CHRONICLES THE INSIGHTS AND LIFE LESSONS – FROM THE LEGENDS OF GOLF
FROM THE LEGENDS OF GOLF SORENSTAM. PLAYER. WATSON. LOPEZ. STEPHENSON. CRENSHAW. LANGER. ALCOTT. HARRINGTON. POWELL. PEPPER. NICKLAUS.
“LIFE ON THE GREEN”
HATHERLEIGH PRESS / FEBRUARY 27, 2024
“While my great friend Ann Liguori could certainly master any facet of the business—and she has—there is no clearer example of her massive abilities than to take in one of her countless high-level interviews. Her reservoir of superstar guests through the years would make Jimmy Kimmel envious…. You are about to embark on a journey that will inform and enlighten you. You will go behind the scenes, with Ann as your tour guide. I promise it will be filled with kindness, yet determination. It will be dogged, yet diplomatic. It will be storytelling at its best—unfiltered and fresh. It will be told by an exquisite interviewer, who in concert with our heroes, will entertain you page after page. You will be inspired by the life lessons that the greatest names in golf share—wisdom that we all can embrace for a lifetime of success and happiness.”
—Jim Nantz, CBS Sports
Golf is a cerebral and often spiritual game, and for the champion golfers on the PGA and LPGA Tours, their “life on the green” includes reflection and soul-searching; merging self-knowledge with course knowledge; blending hard-won insights with past mentorship; mastering the arts of competition and resilience; all while prioritizing their growing families and curating their lasting legacies.
The new book from legendary sports talk show host and renowned interviewer Ann Liguori—”LIFE ON THE GREEN: Lessons and Wisdom from Legends of Golf,” Foreword by Jim Nantz (Hatherleigh Press, February 27, 2024)—is a dream collection of insights and life lessons from some of the most compelling characters and champions in the game’s history. Unfiltered and topical, Liguori presents her engrossing conversations with Tom Watson, Bernhard Langer, Nancy Lopez, Dottie Pepper, Amy Alcott, Gary Player, Ben Crenshaw, Jan Stephenson, Padraig Harrington, Annika Sorenstam, Renee Powell and Jack Nicklaus, and relates how these esteemed competitors and gallery favorites have navigated their lives on and off the course.
Beyond the role of work ethic or belief in oneself or fate or a lucky chip-in on the 17th, Ann strives to move beyond the stock answers or greying anecdotes rehashed so many times over. Her aim—as it always has been over her long career in broadcasting—is to get these dominant performers to speak as freely and openly as they ever have. Whether it’s discussing the history of race in the game with Renee Powell while shedding light on her own personal journey; or inviting Padraig Harrington to discuss the omnipresent LIV tour questions and concerns; or getting the great Jan Stephenson to take a second look at her role in promoting the fledgling LPGA as “golf’s pinup girl” in the 1970s and 1980s, Ann uncovers intriguing stories, unearthed revelations, and life wisdom that will inspire all:
You can do anything, but you can’t do everything. Balance is the key.
Always play like you’re a shot behind.
Never allowing anyone else to define you as an individual.
Blisters become calluses and then the real work gets done.
Embrace making mistakes.
Trust what you do. Trust what you know. And then go play.
Money can’t buy character nor one’s legacy.
It’s important to learn how to handle winning, but more important is to learn to navigate losing.
Use your talents, don’t bury them.
Learn from the best. Stay in the present. And maintain humility.
Have love in your heart.
Life, like golf, isn’t designed to be easy…or fair. Every lie isn’t flat. Every line isn’t perfect. You can put in lots of the hard work, but still get bad breaks. Good times. Hard times. We all have obstacles to overcome. Events that test our character. The same is true for those who are used to overpowering the field as well as the golf course, and their collected wisdom in LIFE ON THE GREEN certainly transcends the game.
LIFE ON THE GREEN also covers:
* Padraig Harrington’s admission that he performs his best while playing with fear and that he feels he’s been underestimated his entire career
* How Padraig differentiates the golfers who focus on Thursday and those who focus on Sunday and his mental strategy for winning
* How nobody worked harder to sell the image of the LPGA in the 1970s and 1980s than Jan Stephenson
* The criticism Stephenson has taken over the years from the other players who were very uncomfortable with the use of Jan’s sex appeal to promote the tour
* Tom Watson’s initial disdain of links golf…even as he was winning Open Championships in the 1970s
* Watson’s uncomfortable dust up with Phil Mickelson after the 2014 Ryder Cup over his captaincy style
* What Tom Watson learned from Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Byron Nelson
* How Nancy Lopez handled her early successes—storming onto the pro golf scene at 19-years-old in 1978, immediately becoming the face of the LPGA
* How Lopez has championed playing “happy golf” for years—and how it has carried over from the golf course to everything she does in life
* For Dottie Pepper, success in golf, and life, is all about preparation, preparation, and more preparation…if Dottie is on the air for six hours on the weekend, she wants to do at least 12 hours of prep work
* Why Ben Crenshaw credits ‘fate’ as the key to his success and how a long-time relationship with golf coach Harvey Penick helped mold him into not only a major champion but a major contributor to the game
* 25 years later, Crenshaw’s personal recollections of captaining the 1999 U.S. Ryder Cup team in ‘The Battle of Brookline’ and what he said to the players the evening before their infamous comeback
* How Southern California-girl Amy Alcott used to sneak on to play Riviera Country Club in her youth never realizing that she was sharing time on the putting green with the likes of stars like Rita Hayworth
* The story behind Alcott’s famous leap into Poppie’s Pond at Mission Hills Country Club in 1988, which became one of the most heralded… and fun… traditions in women’s golf
* Who Dottie Pepper credits for her excellent time management skills
* How dynamo South African Gary Player has spent his life fighting for freedom for black people, building churches and schools, and sponsoring black golfers
* Annika Sorenstam’s belief that you need to wake up and feel like there’s both purpose and fun in your life and how golf provides both
* How Annika’s popularity has grown as a mother, philanthropist and ‘celebrity’ golfer
* How Renee Powell’s father, William Powell, an African American soldier returning home from World War II, was not welcome to play the golf courses near his home…so he built his own
* How Renee feels that she will experience some level of racism and prejudice until the day she dies
* What Bernhard Langer describes as the tremendous obstacles he overcame as a child
* What Langer describes as the key to his longevity and how his longevity has become his hallmark with 25 tournaments a year for over 40 years with 122 professional wins overall
* Jack and Barbara Nicklaus’s remarkable philanthropic journey, impacting countless lives over the decades
* Jack Nicklaus’s self-effacing realization that his decades of fame all stem from him “making a couple of four-foot putts”
* How for the Golden Bear, integrity, sportsmanship, honor, and time with his family surpass anything on display in a trophy case or etched in bronze.
There are few sports broadcasters with Ann Liguori’s incredible resume. Her “Hey Liguori, What’s the Story?” and “Conversations with Ann Liguori” shows were formative programming in the early days of WFAN Radio in New York and The Golf Channel respectively, and with countless interviews with some of the biggest names in sports history like Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Coach K, Wilt Chamberlain, Arthur Ashe, and Billie Jean King, Liguori has mastered the art of the most demanding method of storytelling: The interview. It takes talent and a deft touch to get these iconic athletes to feel comfortable enough to give real, thoughtful answers. With sincere warmth and genuine interest in her guests’ perspectives, Ann accomplishes that every time.
LIFE ON THE GREEN is a book that will inform and enlighten readers like few others. These are the lessons that build champions in golf, and in life.
“Having interviewed dozens if not thousands of athletes and celebrities over the years, Ann Liguori drills down into one of her favorite subjects—golf—to bring to life the thoughts of a dozen big names who share their expertise on many facets of golf, life, and philosophies outside the game.”
—Bob Harig, Sports Illustrated golf writer and author of Drive: The Lasting Legacy of Tiger Woods
“Folks who love the game of golf always want to know what goes on in the minds of their heroes,
and this book delivers with some wonderful stories and insights. There are lessons to be
gleaned from start to finish.”
—Dave Shedloski, author and Golf Digest contributor
“Ann is like your golf buddy, your best friend, and your teacher—all in one! In Life on the Green,
she allows some of the game’s best to share life lessons learned on a golf course. You’ll enjoy her
book so much, you might not be aware of how much she is educating you along the way.”
—Mike Whan, CEO of the United States Golf Association
“I’ve long enjoyed Ann Liguori’s interviews, as her insatiable curiosity and preparation is matched
equally by her warmth of personality, which always seems to draw out of her subjects a little
more than they have tended to share in their previous conversations. That is the case with each of
these interviews. We are indebted to both Ann and her subjects for this gem of a book that will likely,
with the turn of every page, not only entertain and inform you, but motivate and move you.”
—Brandel Chamblee, Analyst, NBC/Golf Channel
About the Author
Ann Liguori is an icon in sports broadcasting. She’s the owner, host and executive producer of the award-winning Sports Innerview syndicated cable series and archives; she was the first female to host her own call-in sports talk show on WFAN-NY, the first all-sports radio station; and she was an original host of her own series on the Golf Channel. A trailblazer, Ann has covered 26 Masters, dozens of other Major Championships, and tournaments, over 40 U.S. Tennis Championships, multiple Olympics, and a variety of other major sporting events. Talking Golf with Ann Liguori airs seasonally on WFAN-NY and her podcast, Golf Innerview, is distributed via audioboom, and The First Call Golf Business Platform. Her dedicated and insightful coverage of these and other events have earned her a number of accolades, including the Metropolitan Golf Writers Association’s national Winnie Palmer Award; a Gracie Award recipient for her Talking Golf show; two dozen Telly Awards for Sports Innerview; numerous Int’l Network of Golf (ING) radio and podcast awards; and she was the Headliner Award recipient from American Women in Radio & TV. Ann will be inducted into the Suffolk County Sports Hall of Fame in May 2024, in their media category. Ann is also the Global Ambassador for IBKUL Athleisure wear, a collaborator with Dune Jewelry on the Hamptons Rope Collection, and hosts an annual charity golf tournament in The Hamptons to raise funds for cancer research.
