Dodson, author of bestsellers Final Rounds
and the Arnold Palmer bio A Golfer's Life, confronts his own mid-golf-life crisis in a sprightly study of the "royal and ancient" game. Now in his mid-40s, Dodson finds his handicap has slipped from a two to a nine (on a good day); more importantly, golf has ceased to be fun. Personal and professional commitments (he writes an award-winning column for Golf
magazine) have left him little time to play. He decides to work less and play more for one year to reconnect with the game he loved so much before he made writing about it his career. Dodson is aided in his quest by the "Dewsweepers," a group of "white, rich, Republican" men (some retired, some not), who live in Syracuse, N.Y., and are the first two foursomes off the tee at their home course every weekend—thus "sweeping" the dew from the fairways. Dodson pays homage to the camaraderie, dirty jokes and male bonding during the year as he joins the Dewsweepers, finds a fiancée, loses his mother, is estranged from and then reconciled with his brother and eventually rediscovers the joy of golf as his young son decides to take up the game. Despite entertaining writing and the truly humorous banter of the Dewsweepers, Dodson himself admits his problem may appear "shallow." A thin read that loses track of the appealingly curmudgeonly Dewsweepers, the book strays into personal revelations that were perhaps better left to a memoir. (Oct.)
