Jacklin Offers Insights, Grievances In New Book

The day after winning the 1969 British Open at Royal Lytham and St. Anne's, Tony Jacklin relaxes with the Claret Jug beside him in the back garden of his father, a lorry driver who lived near Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire. Photo: PA Images via Getty Images

Upon seeing the title of Tony Jacklin’s new book, My Ryder Cup Journey, this writer expected heaping portions of bromides about sportsmanship and “the great game of golf.”  Happily, this is not the case.

Although co-written with Tony Jimenez, the book is undeniably in Jacklin’s voice. Now 77, a cancer survivor and almost totally deaf, Jacklin remains sharp, acerbic, tough, and mostly fair. Like the U.S. Marines, he can be your best friend or worst enemy. But if Jacklin has a sense of humor, it does not come through. He recounts, for example, being unhappy when Ian Woosnam and Sam Torrance threw him in a swimming pool after Europe’s historic victory at the Belfry in 1985, a moment that should have been joyous at best, good natured at worst.

The book is as much an autobiography as...