By: Fred Altvater
If your favorite golfer likes to read here is a suggestion for Santa. James Dodson is an award-winning writer and has been creating great golf literature for over 20 years.
Give the gift of three of Dodson’s very best works, “Final Rounds,” “American Triumvirate,” and “The Range Bucket List.”
Dodson spent 20 years in the newspaper and golf magazine business before penning, “Final Rounds” in 1996. This is a nostalgic chronicle of one last golf trip through Scotland with his father, who was dying of cancer. It will have you reaching for the tissues.
Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Sam Snead were all born in 1912, one year before Francis Ouimet won the U.S. Open and started the golf boom in this country. Their lives are forever entwined, as they became America’s most famous professional golfers, dubbed the “American Triumvirate.” The trio dominated the game throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s, saving professional golf in the process.
Dodson’s latest work, “The Range Bucket List,” gives his readers a look back at 20 years of interviews and interaction with the biggest names in golf. From Arnold Palmer and John Updike to Glenna Collett Vare, Dodson reveals his most sacred discussions and regales us in his smooth southern style.
Dodson is a two-time winner of the Herbert Warren Wind award and all three books can be purchased in your local book store or online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
Another book that every golfer will enjoy is “The Match, the Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever,” by Mark Frost. The author pens the true story that led up to one of the greatest informal golf matches of all time.
Eddie Lowry, Francis Ouimet’s caddie, when he won the 1913 U.S. Open, had become a millionaire and helped fund two budding amateur golfers, Ken Venturi and Harvie Ward. Ward would go on to win two U.S. Amateurs, as well as, the British Amateur, before being stripped of his amateur status by the USGA. He is said to be the last great amateur player in the modern-era of golf. Venturi nearly win the 1956 Masters, as an amateur, before turning professional and winning the 1964 U.S. Open.
The match was set as a wager between, two millionaire businessmen, Lowry and George Coleman, involving the two best amateurs of the day, Venturi and Ward versus the two top professionals, Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson at historic Cypress Point, prior to the start of the 1956 Bing Crosby Clambake at Pebble Beach.
Frost does an excellent job of setting the tone and drawing readers into the action, while the waves crash on Cypress Point’s cliffs along the Pacific coast and the sea spray douses the fans, who had turned out to watch the impromptu competition.
“The Match” is available at book stores and online at: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/match-mark-frost/1103275114?ean=9781401309619#/, or https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=the+match+frost
