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Review by Peter Ward
When James Dodson, at the time a reporter for the Washington Post, told his father that he was tired of writing about politics and serial killers, Braxton Dodson asked his son what it was he would like to write about. Golf was the answer. "In that case maybe you should become a golf writer," his father advised. Dodson thought his father's suggestion unrealistic. "If you believe that, it probably won't happen," he remembers his father telling him. "On the other hand, I've found that anytime I followed my heart, good things happen." Eventually, his father's words sank in, and James Dodson did become a golf writer, winning a Golf Writers of America Award in 1995.
In Final Rounds, Dodson once again heeds his father's advice and follows his heart as he narrates the story of a golf vacation he and his 80-year-old, terminally ill father took to England and Scotland in 1994. As the two men play their way through the legendary windswept links at Royal Lytham, Carnoustie, Turnberry, and St. Andrews, the author discovers that he doesn't know as much about his father as he once believed. Braxton Dodson, nicknamed Opti by his son because of his eternal optimism, depicted as a well-read, gentle man who has come to understand that "the only thing life promises is sorrow, it's up to us to create the joy," learns much about his son, too. The Dodsons visit many of the places where the older man had been stationed during the war years. At one such stop, Braxton Dodson tells his son for the first time about an airplane crash that killed 38 people in the small English village, most of them children. "Had the cocky young sergeant died in the wreckage at Freckleton and Opti the Mystic been born right then and there? That would explain so much -- why he seemingly never let life knock him off stride and went about afterward spreading good cheer like some self-appointed Appleseed of joy," the author reflects.
Dodson also reviews some golf history and recounts some of the classic matches associated with each golf course they visit. In addition the English and Scottish landscapes highlight this story of a father and son saying good-bye the best way they know how, playing the game they loved and shared.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.
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