Golf – and Spirituality

Thomas Keating (1923-2018), American Trappist priest known as one of the principal developers of centring prayer, a contemplative method that emerged from St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, shared the fruits of his contemplation with so many of us. He spoke of God as Ultimate Mystery, the source of all reality. 

More specifically, Keating asserted that we can share in the mystery of God "through the practice of religion, love of nature, science, art, dedicated service of others, deep friendship."

Many people encounter God in nature, the sea and the wind, the grasshopper and the zucchini, a rose and a dewdrop.Scientists enlarge our souls by their research, and artists often focus on the beauty of God's creation. Caring for others and the nurturing of personal relationships grounded in love and compassion are two more paths to experience God’s presence.

But behold! There is yet another choice in the land of spirituality, one that Keating did not mention.How could this scholar not include one of the most significant pathways of spirituality that offers connectedness to our Creator, this tremendous love, the ground of our being.

This unnamed pathway is golf, that strange game that causes many of its participants to know fear and anxiety, loneliness and frustration, and - once in a blue moon - a tinge of joy.

Even non-golfers who watch this inane hitting and chasing a small ball can appreciate why golf has the potential that leads to union with God and oneness with other fellow creatures. How so? Because golf contains three elements of spirituality: humility, hope and humour!

When a golfer misses a 12-inch putt or hits two balls out of bounds on the first hole or takes four attempts to get out of a sand trap, the golfer's pride disappears and humility has an opening to take over. 

Humility (the living in the truth of things) is essential to an authentic, spiritual life. It was this virtue thatThomas Mertonoften referred to in dealing with the false and true self. Humility was the path to truth, to discovering who we really are and how we must confront our selfishness.

Golf helps to shatter pride and confront our fragile ego.Embarrassment fosters humility and precludes strutting.

A second benefit of golf is hope, a hope that is more than the Dickinsonian "thing with feathers." Hope glances toward the future and activates expectations. The world of golf is saturated with dreams of what might be: wearing the green jacket at the Masters; achieving fame and wealth; getting that elusive hole-in-one.

These hopes are trivial compared to golf's true blessings: fostering deep friendships that can last for 30 or more years; spending time out in nature and deepening one's relationship with the wind and the sun and the land; enjoying a drink and tales at the 19th hole. Golf has the possibility of fulfilling the hope of being part of a community that offers a graced hospitality and mutuality.

The virtue of hope is wedged in between faith and charity. Golf's hope is enriched if a golfer has a sense of God's presence (faith) and a game plan that gives love high priority (charity). Theologians keep telling us that God is present everywhere and in everything, that creation is ongoing, that we live in a divine milieu.

Even if life is filled with traps and water holes and 6-inch roughs, the beauty of a golf course and the game itself has a way of deepening our faith. As for charity, hope reminds us that in golf, the opportunities for caring, sharing and showing respect (attributes of love) are ever present.

Besides humility and hope, a third element creeps into the golfing world: humor. Wit, hilarity and comedy are not banned from the game, nor from spirituality. True, there is a certain solemnity and seriousness in major tournaments, but for weekend duffers, laughter brings lightness to the game as well as the lightness of being.

So, let’s end with some quotes about golf.

G.K. Chesterton, “I regard golf as an expensive way of playing marbles.”

P.G. Wodehouse, “Golf, like measles, should be caught young.” And, “Golf… is the infallible test. The man who can go into a patch of rough alone, with the knowledge that only God is watching him, and play his ball where it lies, is the man who will serve you faithfully and well.”

H.G. Wells, “The uglier a man’s legs are, the better he plays golf. It’s almost a law.”

James Barrett Reston, “Golf: A plague invented by the Calvinistic Scots as a punishment for man’s sins.”

Dave Berry, “Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it’s open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.”

Angelo Spagnolo, “I don’t let birdies and pars get in the way of having a good time”

Hank Aaron, “It took me seventeen years to get three thousand hits in baseball. It took one afternoon on the golf course.”

Alice Cooper, “Mistakes are part of the game. It’s how well you recover from them, that’s the mark of a great player.”

Bruce Crampton, “Golf is a compromise between what your ego wants you to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.”

Ben Hogan, “There are no shortcuts on the quest for perfection.” And, , “A shot that goes in the cup is pure luck, but a shot to within two feet of the flag is skill.” As well as, “I have found the game to be, in all factualness, a universal language wherever I travelled at home or abroad.” Also,  “The most important shot in golf is the next one.”

Bobby Jones, “You swing your best when you have the fewest things to think about.” And, “A leading difficulty with the average player is that he totally misunderstands what is meant by concentration. He may think he is concentrating hard when he is merely worrying.”

And, “I never learned anything from a match that I won.” As well as, “The secret of golf is to turn three shots into two.”

Jack Nicklaus, “A perfectly straight shot with a big club is a fluke.” And, When you lip out several putts in a row, you should never think that means that you’re putting well. When you’re putting well, the only question is what part of the hole it’s going to fall in, not if it’s going in.” As well as, , “Confidence is the most important single factor in this game, and no matter how great your natural talent, there is only one way to obtain and sustain it: work.” Together with, “Don’t be too proud to take lessons. I’m not.”

Sam Snead, “Forget your opponents; always play against par.” And, “Nobody asked how you looked, just what you shot.” And, , “Of all the hazards, fear is the worst.” As well as, “If a lot of people gripped a knife and fork the way they do a golf club, they’d starve to death.”

Lee Trevino, “Putts get real difficult the day they hand out the money.” And, “You don’t know what pressure is until you play for five bucks with only two bucks in your pocket.” Also, “My swing is so bad, I look like a caveman killing his lunch.” As well as,  “If you’re caught on a golf course during a storm and are afraid of lightning, hold up a 1-iron. Not even God can hit a 1-iron.”

Dr. Bob Rotella, “Golf is about how well you accept, respond to, and score with your misses much more so than it is a game of your perfect shots.”

 Harry Vardon, “Never concede the putt that beats you.”  And,  “Don’t play too much golf. Two rounds a day are plenty.” As well as, “For this game you need, above all things, to be in a tranquil frame of mind.”

Henry Cotton, “Every shot counts. The three-foot putt is as important as the 300-yard drive.”

Jimmy Demare, “You know what they say about big hitters…the woods are full of them.”

Tommy Bolt, “The mind messes up more shots than the body.”

Peter Jacobsen, “One of the most fascinating things about golf is how it reflects the cycle of life. No matter what you shoot – the next day you have to go back to the first tee and begin all over again and make yourself into something.”

Gay Brewer, “Golf is a game you can never get too good at. You can improve, but you can never get to where you master the game.”

Hale Irwin, “Golf is the loneliest sport. You’re completely alone with every conceivable opportunity to defeat yourself. Golf brings out your assets and liabilities as a person. The longer you play, the more certain you are that a man’s performance is the outward manifestation of who, in his heart, he really thinks he is.”

Lloyd Mangrum, “Golf is the only sport I know of where a player pays for every mistake. A man can muff a serve in tennis, miss a strike in baseball, or throw an incomplete pass in football and still have another chance to square himself. In golf, every swing counts against you.”

Arnold Palmer, “Concentration comes out of a combination of confidence and hunger.” And, , “Success in golf depends less on strength of body than upon strength of mind and character.” Also, “Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated.” As well as, , “What other people may find in poetry or art museums, I find in the flight of a good drive.”

Jim Bishop, “Mulligan: invented by an Irishman who wanted to hit one more twenty-yard grounder.” And,  “Golf is played by twenty million mature American men whose wives think they are out having fun.”

 Mark Twain, “Golf is a good walk spoiled”

Tiger Woods, “No matter how good you get, you can always get better — and that’s the exciting part.”

38. Harvey Penick, “The woods are full of long drivers.” And, “Golf tips are like Aspirin: One may do you good, but if you swallow the whole bottle you’ll be lucky to survive.”

Payne Stewart, “I don’t think it’s healthy to take yourself too seriously.” And, , “A bad attitude is worse than a bad swing.”

Horace G. Hutchinson, “If profanity had an influence on the flight of the ball, the game of golf would be played far better than it is.”

John Updike, “The golf swing is like a suitcase into which we are trying to pack one too many things.” And, “Golf appeals to the idiot in us and the child. Just how childlike golfers become is proven by their frequent inability to count past five.”

Heywood Hale Broun, “Golf is not, on the whole, a game for realists. By its exactitudes of measurements, it invites the attention of perfectionists.”

Percey Boomer, “If you wish to hide your character, do not play golf.”

David Feherty, “It’s how you deal with failure that determines how you achieve success.” And,  “Watching Phil Mickelson play golf is like watching a drunk chasing a balloon near the edge of a cliff.”

Winston Churchill, “Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.”

Fuzzy Zoeller, “You’ve got to have the guts not to be afraid to screw up.”

Nick Faldo, “Tempo is the glue that sticks all elements of the golf swing together.”

Billy Graham, “The only time my prayers are never answered is on the golf course.”

Ben Crenshaw, “Golf is the hardest game in the world. There is no way you can ever get it. Just when you think you do, the game jumps up and puts you in your place.”

Pete Dye, “The ardent golfer would play Mount Everest if somebody put a flagstick on top.” And,  “Life is not fair, so why should I make a course that is fair.”

Raymond Floyd, “They call it golf because all the other four letter words were taken.”

Seve Ballesteros, “I look into eyes, shake their hand, pat their back, and wish them luck, but I am thinking, I am going to bury you.”

Chi Chi Rodriguez, “Golf is the most fun you can have without taking your clothes off.”

Gary Player, “The more I practice, the luckier I get.”

 Phil Mickelson, “A great shot is when you pull it off. A smart shot is when you don’t have the guts to try it.”

Greg Norma, “Happiness is a long walk with a putter”

Bobby Jones, “Golf is assuredly a mystifying game. It would seem that if a person has hit a golf ball correctly a thousand times, he should be able to duplicate the performance at will. But such is certainly not the case.”

And finally, there is the anonymous, “Golf can best be defined as an endless series of tragedies obscured by the occasional miracle.”

By the way, in case you wondered, I have never played golf. I know me. If I started to play, I would have spent inordinate amount of time on perfecting my swing and putting. Preaching, writing and serving others seemed a batter way to spend my time on earth. I do not regret never to have been a golfer. But that’s just me.