James Dodson is a writer whose work is well known to the
better-read kind of golfer – the golfer who doesn’t bury their head in how-to
books and volumes of mental-game voodoo. Among his other golf-related books are
the classic biography of the late Arnold Palmer, A Golfer’s Life; the touching and heartfelt Final Rounds, about his relationship with his father, and a final
golf trip to Scotland toward the end of his father’s life; a very well-received
biography of Ben Hogan entitled Ben
Hogan, An American Life, the only such book authorized by the Hogan family;
and several others.
Dodson is one of those writers whose name I look forward to
seeing attached to news of a new book – one whose works occupy the upper
shelves of my bookcase, where I can get to them easily to re-read, or browse
for a cherished anecdote or a well-turned sentence. It was with great pleasure,
therefore, that I recently learned of a new book from Mr. Dodson: The Range Bucket List: The Golf Adventure of
a Lifetime (the title is a clever play on the term “bucket list” – those
lists of things to do before you die that became vogue after the 2007 movie of
the same name.)
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| James Dodson, two-time winner of the prestigious Herbert Warren Wind Award for golf books which is awarded by the USGA, brings his master’s touch, once again, to the recounting of anecdotes from a life well-lived in golf. |
After I finished reading this book it occurred to me that
the sub-title might better have been A
Lifetime of Golf Adventure, because James Dodson has ranged the depth and
breadth of the game of golf, far and wide across the United States, the British
Isles, and just about everywhere in the world that the game is played. He has
known hundreds of people in the game, ranging from the biggest stars – Jack
Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and many others; to many of the great writers who have
covered the game, including the immortal Herbert Warren Wind; as well as
regular weekend (or quick-round-after-work) duffers like the rest of us.
The premise of The
Range Bucket List is
Dodson following up on a list that he made as an adolescent golfer (which he
found a few years back while going through an old trunk in his attic) – a list
of things that he wanted to accomplish in golf. The items on the list ranged
from “1. Meet Arnold Palmer and Mr. Bobby Jones” to more prosaic goals like “5.
Get new clubs” and “6. Break 80”, and while the title suggests that he embarked
on a journey specifically to complete the list, in reality what he has done
is to compile a series of anecdotes which illustrate how he did (or did not, in
the case of #3 – “Make a hole in one”) achieve those goals, or something like
them.
What
comes out of the exercise is a slightly rambling, but interesting,
heart-warming, and often moving book full of reflections on Dodson’s life in
and around golf. He flirts with self-indulgence, at times, and is disarmingly
frank about what has and has not gone right in his life, including the breakup
of his first marriage, but one never senses self-pity or melancholy – only a
sense of gratitude at the lessons he has learned from the bad breaks, and a
sense of contentment at the friendships and experiences that he has been
privileged to have formed through golf.
Some
passages of this book may be familiar to readers of his earlier work,
especially the chapter entitled Unfinished
Business, which is about his trip to Scotland with his father near the end
of the older Dodson’s life – the subject of his 1996 book Final Rounds. Rather than seeming
repetitive, however, this chapter revisits, with a fresh eye, some of the core
material from the earlier book. Some anecdotes about Harry Vardon from the Road Trip chapter appear in Dodson’s American Triumvirate, his book about
Byron Nelson, Sam Snead, and Ben Hogan; and his story about meeting Glenna
Collett Vare was familiar, though I couldn’t put my finger on where I had read
it.
The
sections in which Dodson tells of his friendship with Arnold Palmer – especially
the story of how he came to write Arnie’s biography, A Golfer’s Life – are some of the high points of the book, and the passages which are most likely to bring a slight mistiness to the eyes of anyone who
still feels the loss of Arnold Palmer as a small emptiness in their heart. I
never met Mr. Palmer, or even saw him in person, but I have formed a deep
appreciation for what he meant to the game of golf, and to the legion of fans
whose lives he touched – and Dodson taps into those feelings with a light
and reverent touch, helping us feel again the charm and humanness of “The
King”.
Though
not without some flaws – tiny ones, that maybe only those who read with an
editor’s eye would recognize – The Range
Bucket List stands up quite well alongside Dodson’s earlier works, and mind
you, two of his books, Ben Hogan, An
American Life, and American
Triumvirate, won the Herbert Warren Wind Book Award from the United States
Golf Association, the highest honor afforded a book on the subject of golf.
The Range Bucket List is a heartfelt love song to
a life well-lived through golf, and I think that any golfer whose feel for the
game extends beyond “how-to-play” books and the quest for 10 more yards off the
tee will enjoy accompanying Mr Dodson on this adventure.
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