As if we didn't just have one of the best summers for sports in recent memory -- provided you like soccer, tennis, golf, a riveting pennant race involving the Twins, the Summer Olympics and the ridiculous Brett Favre soap opera -- we also have a number of recent sports books that rise above the ordinary. Two in particular give us glimpses of greatness at work. "Golf: The Marvelous Mania" is one of the more interesting books about one of sports' smallest balls. Author Alistair Cooke, the refined Englishman who was host of PBS' "Masterpiece Theatre" for 22 years, didn't discover the game until he was 55. That was the start of a 40-year love affair, the best parts of which fill these pages.

It opens with an introduction by Jack Nicklaus, who became a devoted friend of Cooke's and was surpassed in Cooke's estimation by only one other man: Bobby Jones.

" ... I have done a little digging among friends and old golfing acquaintances who knew him and among old and new writers who, in other fields, have a sharp nose for the disreputable. But I do believe that a whole team of investigative reporters, working in shifts like coal miners, would find that in all of Jones's life anyone had been able to observe, he did nothing common or mean."

There are musings here on Nicklaus, Walter Hagen, Arnold Palmer, the 1974 Curtis Cup, the 1975 Masters and much more.

But whatever subject Cooke turned his attention to isn't as important as his observations about it. If he'd written about the phone book, I'd want to read it.

Walter Iooss Jr. is the Alistair Cooke of the great photograph, and "Athlete" collects a lifetime of those pictures, more than 150, both action and portrait. Iooss has spent more than 40 years covering sports' biggest events and personalities. Page through this collection and you'll understand why he has more than 300 Sports Illustrated covers to his credit.

Athletes often talk about giving something back to the game when they're done playing it. Jim Holden has done just that with "Tennis in the Northland: A History of Boys' High School Tennis in Minnesota 1929-2003." Holden covers the sport from the first year of the state tournament and interviewed about 300 people in the process. He profiles all the singles and doubles champions, and offers sketches of leading tennis families, teaching pros and the most prominent teams.

Holden was tennis coach at Northfield, Minn., before becoming a professor of education at Gustavus Adolphus and St. Olaf colleges. He retired in 2001 after a 40-year teaching career, 29 as an English teacher. The latter influence is evident throughout the book. He introduces each chapter with a quotation from Shakespeare. And his writing doesn't wander.

Bud Armstrong is a Star Tribune sports copy editor.