Nothing lasts forever. Missing Links is a testament to how ephemeral even great golf courses designed by master architects can be. It's enough to break a hacker's heart. In this lovely homage to what once was, Daniel Wexler identifies 47 historically significant pre-World War II courses lost largely to the needs of post-World War II development, and then proceeds to tee up their stories. Some of the courses loom as mythically large as Atlantis--Charles Blair Macdonald's Lido Golf Club on Long Island is still considered one of the most innovative designs ever, and A.W. Tillinghast's Fresh Meadow Country Club not only hosted the first PGA Championship, it boasted Gene Sarazen as head pro. Each of the lost gems is presented with a history filled with anecdotes, a complete diagram of the layout, a scorecard, and as many vintage photos as Wexler could fit. Most intriguing, Wexler also projects how each course might measure up today. Lido, insists Wexler, would still have golf traditionalists salivating--it would be, he surmises, "one of America's best... Every bit as good today as the day it was born." Amazingly, Missing Links evocatively extols dozens more nearly as worthy. --Jeff Silverman