Twenty-five years ago, as spring reluctantly returned to northern New England, I received a surprising phone call from a golf-writing legend.
“Mr. Dodson,” said a cultured Yankee voice. “My name is Herbert Warren Wind. Do you have a few moments to talk?”
It was middle March and snowing yet again in Maine. I was sitting at my office desk over the garage, remembering my Scottish mother-in-law’s stern admonition that March is a winter month in Maine. The last thing I expected was a phone call from the dean of America’s golf writers.
“Why … yes sir, I do,” I said, sitting up a bit straighter. “What a pleasure to speak with you.”
“Please call me Herb,” he said. “All my friends do.”
He’d recently read A Golfer’s Life and Final Rounds, he explained, and felt compelled to get in touch to say how much he enjoyed both books.
The former was the result of my three-year collaboration with Arnold Palmer on his memoirs; the latter a little memoir that told the story of taking my dying father back to England and Scotland where he’d learned to play golf as an American airman stationed on the Lancaster coast near Lytham & St Annes Golf Club shortly before D-Day. At that moment, Arnold’s book was climbing the New York Times bestseller list and Final Rounds had recently topped 100,000 copies in sales and been honored as a “book of the year” by a second major golf industry organization.
“I found things in both of your books I’d like to discuss with you. Seems we share a keen admiration for Arnold Palmer and golf in Great Britain,” Wind said.
Before I could reply, he continued, “I’m wondering if you might be interested in having lunch with me here some afternoon at my place here northwest of Boston?”
I said it would be my genuine pleasure.
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