The Gift: A story about finding a better score in golf and life
It’s been said that there are many paths to consciousness.
What this proverb doesn’t directly say is that not all of those paths are suitable for everyone.
I’m more than ready to agree with that second point after reading this book, which may yet join the ranks of successful motivational tracts that many folks find very useful.
It just didn’t do much for me.
The subtitle of the book is “A story about finding a better score in golf and life,” and on that level the book more than delivers.
Tom Morrison is a successful businessman and formerly avid golfer who finds himself deeply uneasy after two heart attacks. Faced with the undeniable truth of his own mortality, some very basic questions about how one should conduct one’s life remain unanswered for him.
After watching a mysterious golfer win a professional tournament and then walk away from any further involvement in the sport at that high level, Morrison thinks that he might be able to find the answers to his questions if he can just track down the golfer and see what he says.
Not long thereafter Morrison finds Irving Pirsig, Jr. in his modest home on the Oregon coast. Pirsig is willing to talk about his life and golf, but only on his terms. Morrison spends a week with Pirsig, slowly coaxing the story out of his reluctant muse.
It’s not your usual rags to riches story. For one thing, the riches are not measured in dollars, and Pirsig really didn’t start from scratch. As I read it, Pirsig’s own troubles were more a matter of diminished life skills than any real problems with his golf game.
Several of his difficulties could be grouped under the heading of “Fear of Success”, a not exactly unheard-of phenomenon in sports and other endeavors.
In order for Pirsig to do well in golf, he had to learn how to remain attentive to the demands of the sport, while remaining sufficiently confident of his own skills to remain calm during the critical performances.
That’s not exactly a major new insight, at least for those who have already read enough other self-help books and/or books and articles by golf coaches.
The author’s real point, it seems to me, is in his attempt to take that standard bit of golf advice and apply it to life’s more important demands.
The book is a fairly brisk read, and perhaps I’m reading too much into it.
Nonetheless, my overall sense is that the author was possibly seeking to be more profound than the material he was working with would normally support.
I don’t doubt that for some people, sports like golf can actually lead to significant personal insights. For those so inclined, this book may be fully appreciated.
For the rest of us, The Gift is surely interesting, but it’s just not as inspirational as perhaps intended.
Review date: September 30, 2004