{"id":7184,"date":"2017-05-26T13:42:29","date_gmt":"2017-05-26T19:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/?p=7184"},"modified":"2019-09-19T15:17:57","modified_gmt":"2019-09-19T21:17:57","slug":"life-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/golf\/personalities\/7184\/life-stories","title":{"rendered":"Arnie, and Other Life Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Arnie<\/a>[May 26, 2017]–<\/em>The 2017 Arnold Palmer Invitational ended in an exciting and sweetly sentimental fashion. The nostalgic mood surrounding the tournament and a variety of specials about Arnie which preceded it suggest I\u2019m not to be trusted when it comes to stories about the King. Cue up a good Palmer story, put a little emotive music behind it, and I start welling up in no time.<\/p>\n

That he\u2019s gone suggests more that has vanished, or is vanishing. Losing one\u2019s heroes is one of the curses of growing older. (My aching right knee appears to be another\u2026.)<\/p>\n

But to no one\u2019s surprise, the first biographies of Arnold Palmer are rolling into bookstores. First in the queue is Tom Callahan\u2019s Arnie: The Life of Arnold Palmer<\/em> (Harper, $27.99), and it sets a high standard. A veteran with a small shelf of books to his credit, Callahan has hung his hat on a number of sportswriting posts. Golf Digest<\/em> used to send him off every decade to Arnie\u2019s home base in Latrobe, Pennsylvania to write the stories \u201cArnie Turns 60,\u201d \u201cArnie Turns 70,\u201d \u201cArnie Turns 80.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those visits, plus a lifetime of talking about Palmer with his playing contemporaries, left Callahan with a mountain of golden nuggets to choose for display. And he has chosen wisely, in a roughly chronological fashion that never ceases to be engaging and, frankly, more vivid than Arnie\u2019s own recently released book, A Life Well Played<\/em> (reviewed here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Where else are you going to hear so directly from his good friend Dow Finsterwald that Palmer was enraptured by cowboy movies?: \u201cArnie will watch anything with manure in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always suspected that after Palmer\u2019s death a tell-all biography would come along, detailing his frequent catting around while on tour, a subject that never came up while he was alive except in, well, well-guarded locker room stories. Callahan touches on \u201cArnie\u2019s well-known womanizing\u201d but doesn\u2019t beat it to death, in a chapter mainly dealing with the imperfections of sporting icons like him, Babe Ruth, Tiger Woods, Muhammad Ali.<\/p>\n

\u201cPalmer was a perfectly imperfect man,\u201d Callahan writes. \u201cNot because he was good at his game, but for some other reason, he was easy to forgive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Easy to forgive, to admire, to miss: by the end of Callahan\u2019s book, which roams over the congregation of golf notables assembled at Palmer\u2019s memorial service, it will easy for anyone to well up, even without the music.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

\"Range<\/a>Palmer is also a major presence, albeit not the subject, in James Dodson\u2019s The Range Bucket List<\/em> (Simon & Schuster, $27), which is really a memoir that roams over the author\u2019s golf-writing life, now 11 books and countless articles deep. That certainly includes Palmer, as his 1999 autobiography A Golfer\u2019s Life<\/em> earned Dodson the coveted title credit \u201cWith James Dodson.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dodson last saw Palmer shortly before the latter\u2019s death, arriving in Latrobe while Palmer was watching a rerun of \u201cGunsmoke\u201d (and presumably catching a whiff of manure). \u201cWhat can I do for you, Shakespeare?\u201d Palmer asked.<\/p>\n

Dodson answered, \u201cNothing\u2026. You did everything when you asked me to collaborate on your book. That changed my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

While it surely did, it was a putter that he buried in a green in anger in his golfing youth that really began Dodson\u2019s literary golf odyssey. Temporarily banned from the course he had scarred, Dodson was given a reprieve soon thereafter when his father took him to Pinehurst, and the mere vision of that golfing mecca began to work its charms on him.<\/p>\n

\u201cLive in Pinehurst\u201d became item number 7 on a youthful list that Dodson came to call his Range Bucket List, or Things to Do in Golf. Number 1 was \u201cMeet Arnold Palmer [check] and Mr. Bobby Jones [only spiritually]\u201d.<\/p>\n

It was his father who nudged Dodson in the direction of writing about golf, and then became the poignant subject himself in Final Rounds<\/em>, the 1996 book that put Dodson on Palmer\u2019s radar, with its compelling account of the father and son\u2019s trip to Scotland shortly before Braxton Dodson\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s actually a fair amount of death clinging to this summing up of his career, as Dodson revisit subjects and friends he has met along the fairways, more than a few about to hang them up for the last time. And while this is certainly a bittersweet reckoning, it is evident that for this cast of characters golf has been a meaningful, essential, joyous part of their lives. And Dodson, clearly a born storyteller, brings their tales\u2014and his\u2014warmly to life.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

\"Ray<\/a>A couple of self-published volumes came my way by authors less imbued with Callahan\u2019s and Dodson\u2019s well-earned writing gifts, but with earnest tales to tell (both available through Amazon, $14.95).<\/p>\n

Tom Buggy has written a slim but admiring tribute about one of the great amateurs to play the game in Ray Billows, the Cinderella Kid<\/em>. Born Ray Billow in Wisconsin in 1914 (the ending \u201cs\u201d became permanently attached thanks to sportswriters), the son of a machinist began playing\u2014and winning\u2014golf in his teens. A caddying loop led him to a shipping clerk job in Poughkeepsie, New York, where he burst onto the eastern golf scene with an improbable win in the 1935 New York State Amateur.<\/p>\n

New York Sun<\/em> sportswriter George Trevor pegged Ray as The Cinderella Kid, and the nickname stuck with him for life. Billows would go on to win the New York State Amateur a record seven times, compete in various Masters and U.S. Open tournaments, qualify for the U.S. Amateur title 15 times and wind up in both the Wisconsin and New York golf associations\u2019 halls of fame.<\/p>\n

Billows has the unfortunate record of being the only player to reach the U.S. Amateur finals three times, only to fall short in each. But by all accounts a personable and humble player, he said \u201cI\u2019d rather be remembered as someone who gave his best. Because I always did.\u201d Sounds like a sentiment Palmer would have heartily endorsed.<\/p>\n

\"Golfing<\/a>Back in January of 2012 Chuck Miller hopped in his 2004 Nissan Maxima with about 70,000 miles on it and headed from his home in California to Fountain Hills, Arizona to tee it up at the SunRidge Canyon golf course.<\/p>\n

Fifty breakneck weeks, 21,000 miles and 140 courses later, Miller had accomplished his goal, and then some, to play golf in every U.S. State in a year\u2019s time. A tip of the golf cap to Miller for pulling off what many of us only dream about, and managing to never shoot over 100 in the process, even if his handicap went from nine to 12.<\/p>\n

Golfing the U.S.<\/em> is his account of the trip, but he scores a bogey there, committing the writerly sin of telling what he great time he has at each stop without ever showing it to readers. We do get frequent nods to the courses, resorts and visitor bureaus who helped Miller out with complementary rounds, stays and meals, information that would have best been put on acknowledgments pages.<\/p>\n

\"2017<\/a>It\u2019s certainly no substitute for anecdotes from his rounds or quotes from the players he meets up with, all missing in action here. I\u2019ve taken more strokes on some par-3s than there are quotes in Miller\u2019s entire report.<\/p>\n

But like any reader who might choose to travel with Miller vicariously, I immediately turned to my state to see where Miller played (at the Lake Morey Resort in Vermont), and I was a little startled to see how many of the same courses we\u2019ve played around the country. It just took me a little longer, and I still have a few states to go.<\/p>\n

This piece originally appeared in the April-May 2017 issue of Golf Oklahoma<\/a> magazine, in slightly different form.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[May 26, 2017]–The 2017 Arnold Palmer Invitational ended in an exciting and sweetly sentimental fashion. The nostalgic mood surrounding the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":7186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[670,100586,7],"tags":[1013603,6699,514842,1013595,1013596,1013597,1013598,1013599,3450,1016481,410,1013602],"class_list":["post-7184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rummaging-around-in-the-bag","category-the-bookshelf","category-personalities","tag-the-range-bucket-list","tag-dow-finsterwald","tag-james-dodson","tag-golfing-the-us","tag-chuck-miller","tag-tom-buggy","tag-ray-billows","tag-the-cinderella-kid","tag-us-amateur","tag-tom-callahan","tag-arnold-palmer","tag-arnie-the-life-of-arnold-palmer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2017\/05\/Arnie-2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7184"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7194,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7184\/revisions\/7194"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}