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What: “Uneven Lies, The Heroic Story of African Americans in Golf”

Author: Pete McDaniel

Publisher: The American Golfer

Price: $50

It’s part of the credo of modern athletes: The world began when they were seniors in high school. In other words, they often do not know or appreciate those who came before them.

Golf is an exception, partly because the players compete on the same courses the great ones played and can compare their scores. But golfers also seem to have a firm grip on history, and in this book, McDaniel traces one of the most unheralded parts of golf’s history that has become important because of the emergence of Tiger Woods.

McDaniel, a senior writer at Golf World who collaborates with Woods on instruction articles, has come up with a coffee-table history book that traces in a breezy, never preachy fashion, the emergence of African Americans in professional golf.

From John Brooks Dendy, who won the Negro National Open three times in the 1930s, to later stars Teddy Rhoades and Bill Spiller to groundbreaker Charlie Sifford, who forced the PGA of America to drop its Caucasian-only rule, it’s a rich, powerful history lesson.

McDaniel will sign copies of his book tonight at 7 at Barnes & Noble in West Covina.