Michael Bamberger
A graduate of the Patchogue-Medford Class of 1978, Michael Bamberger is recognÃzed as one of America’s finest writers on the sport of golf. Michael’s lucid writing style, limitless curiosity and vivid personality have earned him access to the biggest names in the golf world as well as other sports and walks of life. He has authored many critically acclaimed books about golf and other subjects, including Wonderland, chronicling a year in the life of a large public Pennsylvania high school that shares many similarities to Patchogue-Medford, which appears in the book.
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1982, Michael spent nine years as a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer and 22 years as a senior writer at Sports llustrated. He
has had a half-dozen or more pieces noted or republished in annual editions of the Best
American Sports Writing anthology. Once described by Golf Magazine as the “poet laureate of golf,” Michael has covered Tiger Woods since the golfer was an amateur. Some of Michael’s golf books include The Green Road Home (1986), To the Linksland (1992), The Second Life of Tiger Woods (2020) and The Ballin the Air (2023). Michael and a longtime colleague, Alan Shipnuck, wrote a satirical golf novel in 2011, The Swinger, that The New York Times called “a 21st-century sociology lesson.”
Michael travels widely for work and pleasure and enjoys visiting schools and university writing classes, where he tries to urge young people to pursue lives driven by curiosity and empathy. He often says that the greatest training he had for life as a reporter and writer came from attending Patchogue-Medford High School, because of its size and diversity, and because of his teachers who so encouraged original thinking.