Driven: The Definitive Biography of Nick Faldo Book

In Driven, author and journalist Dale Concannon examines the life and career of six-time Major winner, Nick Faldo--the greatest British golfer of the modern era, but a man whose achievements have been overshadowed by a public persona that would make a cod fillet look like a warm and engaging companion. A quiet, obsessional boy, Faldo's focus on the largely solitary occupation of golf helped to nurture both the extraordinary powers of determination that made him a great champion, and the insular, apparently surly character that so often fell victim to the gleeful exploitation of the press. Faldo made good copy when he was successful, but has been a goldmine when a "failure", on the course or in his turbulent private life. Driven doesn't shy away from examining this element of his career, nor from identifying Faldo as the coarchitect of his own bad press. As a biographer who one suspects got a little less directly from his subject than he had hoped, Concannon does an excellent job of weaving this "background" around a well-executed chronicle of Faldo's golfing exploits, and is strong too on some of the pivotal relationships that have shaped his career. His sections on Faldo's famous, and famously stormy association with golf guru David Leadbetter are particularly interesting.You develop certain neurological patterns that are very hard to break. But he worked his rear off. I'd say conservatively, when we were together he hit five to eight hundred balls a day, every day, and that was in the heat and summer of Florida. Which was not pleasant, that's for sure. (Leadbetter on the early sessions remodelling Faldo's swing.)The author has an easy, journalistic style, but while he marshals a great deal of information skilfully, and delivers it in a very readable way, there are passages--for example Greg Norman's disintegration at the 1996 Masters that delivered Faldo the title-where one might wish for a writer of greater eloquence and more acute insight. That said, Driven succeeds in matching an authoritative account of a hugely significant career with some genuinely revealing and rewarding reflection on what it is about Nick Faldo that made it all happen. --Alex HankinRead More