Paul Swanson

A Country Mile to Par Paul Swanson

Dexter McCandless is a high school senior bestowed with far more gifts than the usual high school senior: an awe-inspiring, prodigious golf talent and a seemingly limitless future. But when a painful family trauma spills out in the most public of ways, Dexter's life on and off the course crumbles, leading him to Michael Owens, a reclusive English teacher whose shared passion for golf forms a bond between student and teacher. Together, the grown man and young boy journey towards a place where Dexter can learn to cope with the unfolding pain of his family's destruction. Yet even as he becomes more and more intertwined with Dexter's search for healing, Michael is taken back to a long abandoned past to confront his own hidden but unforgotten family secret. A heartwarming novel of golf and life, A Country Mile To Par is a tender story of a student, teacher, two fathers, a stray dog, and an arduous shared journey from pain to forgiveness, and, along the way, a miraculous and healing quest for a United States Amateur Golf Championship.