DAVIE

Davie is wee Davie of Carnoustie (golfcourse country) on the Angus coast, a laddie with a post-WW I dream: despite his wee-ness, he's settled on becoming a golf pro, and America, Indians or no Indians, is where he's bound. Humming ""Swanee,"" he pitches and putts in the dark (daytimes he crafts and sells dubs), wins every local honor, and is snatched up by a just-built Ohio country climb to teach, sell equipment, and add some foreign color. Conquering homesickness with help from a clump of heather, an immigrant German landlady, an immigrant Italian buddy, and a spoiled, loose flipper (""All his moral principles vanished in the fires of his need""), Davie adjusts to the roar of America's Twenties, gains fame, fortune, and an ulcer as the slow-swinging ""Whistling Snowflake,"" and returns to Carnoustie to take the British Open while his father lies dying--and to notice that bratty ""wee Beth"" has grown into the girl that he'll marry when the stock market crashes and Home Sweet Home beckons. Wee Davie? Wee Geordie? The Wee Adult shelf? Aye, ye have heard it all afore, yet Mr. McDougall, a senior Scotsman-golfer but fresh, first-time novelist, carols forth his misty Auld Lang Syncs so crisply and unapologetically that, except for Dad's too-timely demise (more Hollywood than Hollyrood), a sigh or a smile is more likely than a wince. The burr is no burden, the unvarnished club-making and budding-country-club backgrounds engage, and, if Davie's a goody-goody, good for him, and, once in a while, good for us.