This is CBS Eye in the World. I'm John Baxter with Bill Damon.

William Damon, the author of A New Book, A Round of Golf with My Father.

The new psychology of exploring your past to make peace with your present.

One of the ways Bill made peace is a round of golf, and let's get to it Bill,

because I want to speak of your father figures, but first your father was a good golfer.

And at one time you arranged a play on the Pitzfield course, which is a private club.

And I followed your game very carefully in the way you explicated, the front nine, the back nine.

And you had a score from the 1930s, and you matched the score to my reading.

In fact, you surpassed your father because you scored in the low 90s, and he was at 100.

But then you explained that he was goofing around in the front nine, and then really got serious in the back nine.

And I thought, is this a metaphor? I have to be careful.

I have to be careful of golfers when they tell me they focused on the back nine.

That's great, John. You're a good literary critic. I never thought about that.

That is kind of a metaphor for this life. That's marvelous.

goofing around in the front nine, and getting serious and committed in the back nine.

Well, to be literal about it, the scorecard and my wonderful new cousin found a set of my father's golf club and hanging in a garage in

Middleton, Rhode Island.

And I always thought, what kind of a family keeps golf clubs for 70 years or something like that.

That says something about my father's family. But he sent me the clubs.

I dug out of the slim canvas bag his old scorecard, and it turned out he was playing with some friends on the front nine and then played along the back nine kept his scores.

And the remarkable thing about his scores was that on the back nine, he shot a 43 with four cars.

And these are using, of course, old, old clubs with real wooden heads and stiff irons and pre-pitalist golf balls weren't even well balanced.

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