Golf and the Spirit: Lessons for the Journey
This book is not an easy read. But whoever said life was easy?
M. Scott Peck, M.D. is a psychiatrist, golfer, and the famous author of The Road Less Traveled, the best-selling self-help book of all time.
Golf and the Spirit is his thirteenth book, and the first one I’ve ever read.
All in all, it’s an interesting take on the sport, but I didn’t suddenly feel I was in the presence of revealed truth after reading it.
Dr. Peck did not intend Golf and the Spirit to be read solely by avid golfers. In many respects Dr. Peck appears to be writing for the segment of his self-help audience that neither knows nor cares much about golf.
For these non-golfers, Dr. Peck provides a mostly accurate description of dozens of its physical, mental, and spiritual elements. Dr. Peck explores and explains the basic elements of the game–its search for perfection, luck as a factor, the rules, the role of etiquette, the random fickleness of failed moments in character or performance, and the development and appreciation of the skills required for the game.
Much of this description, based largely on Dr. Peck’s personal experiences, will nonetheless be extremely familiar to those who have (a) played golf with any regularity and (b) given it some thought over the years.
Dr. Peck tries to use golf as a way to continue his long-standing exploration of the paths toward personal growth, development, and enlightenment. It’s a hard road at times, especially for those readers for whom the study and discussion of religion and philosophy are rare events.
After all, to paraphrase Freud, sometimes a game is just a game.
Much of the book is devoted to the paradoxes of golf, such as the need to be in the present while remembering what worked (and didn’t work) in the past.
Dr. Peck loves paradoxes, the never-ending competition for dominance between two co-existing ideas. He shows in several ways how golf is non-linear, while organizing his book in a linear sequence of hole-by-hole chapters.
For the non-Buddhists among us, Dr. Peck describes how Zen preaches paradox, and shows how that philosophy applies to golf. He also devotes several pages to Taoism, in a discussion of the need to “go with the flow” during a round.
Dr. Peck notes the paradoxes of the Christian mysteries and finds a way to connect that discussion back to golf.
The heavy philosophical/religious elements Dr. Peck writes so earnestly about seem a bit much for this old game to carry on its shoulders. Nonetheless, for those who see golf as a metaphor for life, the game is up to the task.
It doesn’t mean that every round of golf is invested with deep consequence. It just means there is the possibility of deep consequence in every round.
Feeling this way about golf first requires thinking and working through a vision of the purpose of life on earth.
For Dr. Peck, the essence of his extended analysis comes to this:
One is highly unlikely to envision the frustrating game of golf as a potential spiritual discipline unless he has first been captured by the vision of the whole of life as a journey of spiritual growth, as a pilgrimage. Once he has been so captured, however, he can begin to see golf as a particularly lovely stretch on the journey where great movement is possible. Again, I do not mean outward movement from tee to green to tee; I mean inner movement of the soul.
At one point Dr. Peck concedes that he may be simply preaching to his choir of devoted readers.
I had this impression on several occasions, and not just because the book is sprinkled with quoted passages from his previous works.
On the other hand, I turned down the corners of over two dozen pages to remind me where to go back and read it again.
Maybe this book will grow on me.
Or not.
Review date: July 1, 1999